this film along with the movie “The Big One”, both of which i downloaded illegally from a p2p program… … made me think about how f’ed up America is.
The Big One, showed all these corporations that are making millions/billions of profits… and are taking their jobs to Mexico, while closing down successful plants in America [in order to stay competitive]
Bowling… made me realize that damn… Canada has very little crime. It also solidified my stance, that if George W Shrub is elected pres for a second term, Im moving there. [Im learning the Canadian National Anthem as we speak… “Oh CAN-A-DA!”…thats all I know so far…]
Moore does pick topics that people need to hear about. His next movie is about how Poppy Bush and Poppy Bin Laden have been friends for a couple decades and have funded and founded projects together. see Carlyle Group :: scroll down on page to The Bush-Bin Laden Money Connection His next documentary due to be released sometime next year, will certainly turn some heads.
I don’t see the problem. He said he got a movie from a P2P program. He didn’t explain how, didn’t give any URLs, and didn’t encourage others to do the same. Hey I jaywalked today, scold me now. :rolleyes:
Rachel has an awesome informed rant about Bowling for bullsh** on August 22; scroll down to see it. Of course I quite love her blog and if you do a search on Michael Moore you will find tons of fun stuff that I’ve enjoyed the heck out of reading. Enjoy (Oh yeah she’s not a Republican either.)
A documentary shouldn’t contain editorialising?If anyone can find a documentary film that doesn’t take a stance on its subject matter I’d be very surprised (and I’d wonder why they bothered to make it).
Of course, about 50% of best documentary Oscar winners are about the Holocaust, where failing to present a balanced view of Hitler’s faults and achievements is unlikely to be censured, but aside from that we’ve seen recent Oscar Best Documentary winners about such topics as the black Civil Rights Movement (A Time For Justice), the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (One Day In September), police brutality (Murder on a Sunday Afternoon), the invasion of Panama (The Panama Deception), and industrial unrest (American Dream). None of which was exactly impartial.
So before people start acting all knowledgeable about documentary filmmaking, I recommend you actually watch some documentaries. And Behind The Music does not count.
Now, Michael Moore’s documentary, is not an adjective documentary. It is a noun documentary.
And the definition for that? From the same page:
Which looks a lot like “Bowling For Columbine.”
I’ll also mention that dictionaries do not, by any stretch, provide “the factual, actual definition.” They are helpful in ascertaining a definition of a word, but are not suitable at all for deciding more complex things like whether a film belongs in a particular category or not. They are not official guardians of word definition.
It doesn’t mean that if they really wanted to, they could have got their heads out of their own gun-loving arses and postponed the meeting. They had 7 months to find a new place for it. Not difficult.
The only words that were not spoken at that meeting from this segment were “from my cold dead hands.” It was clear in the film that these words were not spoken at the Denver meeting. Heston’s words at the Denver meeting, were, however, inflammatory, both in Moore’s edited version and the complete transcript. He says the mayor has asked them “not to come” to which there is a loud booing from NRA members. It is clear what they think of the mayor. Heston then proceeds to basically say “well, fuck him.” In the complete transcipt, Heston wraps this up in platitudes, Moore removes the fluff.
Looking at the Academy definition of “documentary”, I think the words “non fiction” pretty much leave Bowling for Bullsh** out of the running. Too bad it was presented (falsely) as non fiction and some actually believed it. Can’t expect much more out of Hollywood boneheads, most couldn’t make it through a founding document on their own anyway right?
The Columbine shootings occured 20/04/99. The NRA meeting occurred 01/05/99. It was claimed that the NRA, by law, had to have this meeting, as they need to have a meeting once a year. If they had postponed the meeting of 01/05/99, they would have had eight (not seven - my maths was faulty) months to find a new meeting place and hence remain within the law.
I’m not only technically correct, I’m all correct.
Correct, maybe, but also divorced from reality. Having a national conference like that means often booking years in advance–meaning a last-minute backout would’ve meant eating the loss of a reneged contract and trying to find a last-minute replacement. The NRA already did that by cancelling a lot of their smaller Denver functions–they weren’t about to lose even more.
Also, it means telling your thousands of attendees (many who are probably using their own vacation time) that they have to cancel their airplane tickets, hotel reservations, and other largely non-refundable conference expenses. Anyone with even an iota of experience with large-scale event-planning knows that this is near-impossible to do. I am no fan of the NRA’s agenda or political position, but they went above-&-beyond in cancelling as much as they did in Colorado that year. To expect them to completely cancel and relocate in such a short period of time is totally unrealistic.
Having worked in hotels for years and years, I can guarantee that it would have cost the NRA megabucks to cancel their Denver appearance. They had reserved banquet facilities, hundreds if not thousands of hotel rooms, and contracted for tens of thousands in food service; they’d have been billed for all of this and wouldn’t have had the budget to go elsewhere. Plus, vendors are a major part of NRA meetings and they derive a good part of their income from these major shows*. There are very few groups, liberal or conservative, who can afford to take a six-figure hit over a matter of principal.
*The weirdest weekend I ever worked in a hotel was in Columbus, GA, ca. 1990. There were two conventions in town: an NRA regional meeting and a Star Trek convention. The hotel I was staying at had the banquet rooms for Trek and guests from both conventions (including George Takei, whom I’ve met a disproportionate number of times- he’s the cheapest of the Trek cast to book [$2,000 last time I checked] and I think he does about 4,000 conventions annually). Not to indulge in stereotypes, but you didn’t exactly have to ask which group anybody was with (“M16s to the left, phasers to the right…”)
So the NRA held a meeting after the Columbine shootings. Excuse me, but so what? A couple of kids who played too many video games and listened to too much Marilyn Manson decide to murder their classmates, and this somehow has something to do with a law-abiding group that supports the 2nd Ammendment? Were Dylan Klebold and Eric (?) Harris members of the NRA?
Michael Moore is an idiot. If “Bowling For Columbine” can win an Oscar then why the hell wasn’t “This Is Spinal Tap” nominated for Best Documentary?
No, I wouldn’t waste money on anything Michael Moore produces. But so what? I wouldn’t care if the NRA held a meeting in Denver the day AFTER the Columbine shootings. There simply isn’t a connection there to be made. Did Charlton Heston shoot anyone? Was anyone shot at the NRA meeting? Michael Moore is a left-wing hysteric…and I’m a fairly liberal person myself. Clever film-editing can make connections between two totally unrelated idea. Hmmmm. Give me footage of planes hitting the World Trade Center and I’ll splice it in with footage of Moore cheering at a post-9/11 Laker’s game. Well…he WAS cheering after 9/11 happened, wasn’t he?
The Documentary was slanted, I think we all new that going into the theater.
I personally wanted more gun bashing, but more for my own entertainment than anything else.
The most telling piece of the movie wasn’t the Heston “cold dead hands” quote, it was the “the good white people who founded this country” quote. I rewound that twice and even enabled the subtitles on my DVD to make sure I heard that one correctly.
Moore showed incredible discipline laying off that one.
I think the guy did some inquiry, came to a conclusion, documented the process, and went about it boldly; which I respect.
He may be wrong, he definitely was biased (albeit not as much as I expected) but he put together one of the best films I’ve seen all year.
Stephe96 -
This is Café Society. In here we discuss the arts. May I suggest you take your political views to the correct forum - GD or the Pit. Not having seen the movie makes your driveby less than becoming.
… made me think about how f’ed up America is.
Oh yeah, they don’t. Silly me.