The Gaspode
As far as I know, we’re discussing Michael Moore.
Thank you for your concern, however.
The Gaspode,
By the way, it’s interesting how you had no problem with “political views” in this thread as long as Rush Limbaugh was being bashed. Isn’t it?
I liked the film, but here are my bulleted point problems with it.
- Roll out the crazies in front of the camera.
- He never answered the question he repeatedly asked: “Why is America so violent?” Nor did he even postulate an answer.
- The Dick Clark ambush was uncalledfor. Dick Clark had nothing to do with a restaurant that shared his name, who employed a woman, who had a young child, who found a gun at his grandfather’s house, and then shot his classmate. That is a thin stretch.
Stephe96: I have a problem with it.
If any moderators are reading this, I really really hope you don’t move this to Great Debates where it belongs. If every discussion on this film gets moved to that forum, we’ll never be able to discuss the film itself!
You know, this is interesting. My friend who also saw it came away with the same reaction as you, that Moore never postulated an answer. In my friend’s eyes, this was a good thing.
I don’t know if I would consider it a good thing or a bad thing, but that’s not the impression I got. Moore blames the culture and society of fear. Honestly, that seemed like the overall theme of the second half of the film. It certainly seemed like a postulated answer to me; why did you think it wasn’t?
And FWIW, I totally agree with you on the Dick Clark thing.
Well, you see Stephe, I’ve never heard Rush Limbaugh, so I only have 2nd hand opinions about him. Not very good on a MB dedicated to fighting ignorance. Presumably, those defending or bashing Limbaugh have first hand experience and can therefore form an opinion, albeit biased.
Not having seen the movie we talk about disqualifies you from any opinion on the subject, IMO.
Now, if you’re just here do do some bashing of Michael Moore, I suggest you take it to GD, where you’ll need to back up your writing with facts, or the Pit, where (almost) anything goes.
Or, you could of course watch the movie and then come back. You might want to note that I didn’t coment on the Moore-bashing on page one, done by some regulars a little to the right of Attila the Hun. That’s because they’ve seen the movie.
They were white, maybe good, but to distinguish them as such implies that all who aren’t white also are not good.
Were you upset cause I wasn’t showing appropriate reverence for white people?
I don’t think Moore was trying to be Moses and proclaiming he had answers to the problems of our fear-addicted culture; I think he wanted to identify the problem, pointed out the root cause, and then let each of us work out how to address the matter. Which is fine by me; I didn’t feel he was obligated to spoon-feed us an answer, and if he had, it’d probably have weakened the film.
Agree that the Dick Clark ambush was a bit of a sidetrack, though. He should have simply made the point and moved on.
I concur. But it seemed me that Chicago Faucet was saying that he didn’t even identify the problem or point out the root cause. But perhaps I misunderstood.
Well, I finally gave in. I held my nose and rented Michael Moore’s “Bowling For Columbine” last night. It was as bad as I’d thought it would be, but I was actually shocked at how deadly dull it was. I was expecting a BIT of an intellectual challenge, but Moore’s “facts” are so laughable that I’m actually a little embarrassed at how easily it is to refute them. Did this movie actually persuade rational, thinking adults about anything? It’s almost a parody of a documentary, now that I think about it. In fact, I’d venture to guess that even retarded six-year-olds wouldn’t be fooled by Moore’s shameless and manipulative propaganda.
First things first: Michael Moore is fat, ugly and stupid. (Thank you to Al Franken for elevating simple name-calling to the art of ‘political satire!’) “Bowling For Columbine” is a profoundly unentertaining movie. His one attempt at out-and-out humor in the film (a “Cops” parody called “Corporate Cops” ho ho) fails miserably. We’re asked to believe in this segment that Moore is a cop chasing down corporate wrong-doers and arresting them in the streets. “Chasing?” Ha ha ha! Moore is too fat to chase even a parked Krispy Kreme truck , and the willing suspension of disbelief can only be taken so far. “Corporate Cops” bombs so badly, in fact, that we are reminded that Moore was the person responsible for the 1995 bomb, “Canadian Bacon.”
“Bowling For Columbine” is about as objective and even-handed a documentary as was, say, “Reefer Madness”…but not nearly as entertaining.
This is a movie made for the type of people who, upon seeing a gun of any kind, point and scream like Donald Sutherland at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” For example, Moore seems to find great humor in the fact that a bank gives away guns to people who open an account. Ignoring the fact that much of this segment was staged for the camera (the film gives the impression that people simply walk out of the bank with a rifle), I imagine that most rational adults would look at this promotion and shrug. The bank does a required background check, proper ID is necessary. Is the bank being robbed at gunpoint every five minutes? Is the bank doing anything illegal? Are customers being shot outside on the sidewalk? Sorry, but I just don’t see the big deal about this bank’s promotion. (On the other hand, the guy who strapped guns to his dog and got himself shot IS an idiot. People do stupid things with guns, no question. But people do stupid, harmful stuff with a LOT of things. For example, how many people did that elderly driver manage to kill at a farmer’s market last month?)
Next up is the Oklahoma City bombing. Moore is so desperate to connect this event to guns that he points out that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had actually attended “a couple of” Michigan militia meetings! Wow! What a damning connection! (Never mind the fact that McVeigh et al didn’t use any guns). Moore actually makes a connection here. Amazing. Moore then interviews Terry Nichols’ brother who comes across as VERY anti-government. Moore is fascinated that he sleeps with a gun under his pillow. How paranoid can you get, right? Yawn. Nichols sounds no different than any “fight the power” or “cop-killer” rap artist of the last ten or fifteen years. Of course, Moore will NEVER treat rap-artists as “anti-government” since that wouldn’t fit in with his absurdly narrow-minded “white guys are evil” theory.
Moore then tries, embarrassingly, to make some kind of connection between Lockheed-Martin being a large employer near Columbine. Leaving aside the fact that much of what Moore says is, in fact, fabricated, what exactly is the connection here? Why not interview the local Starbuck’s or Ben & Jerry’s? They employee local people, too. Is Moore trying to say that the manufacturing of weapons for national self-defense leads troubled kids to open-fire on their classmates? Color me unimpressed by this “logic.”
Moore then shamelessly uses 9/11 footage to imply that Osama bin Laden used US weapons and intelligence to stage the attack on the World Trade Center. Huh? Hey, Mike…they used box-cutters. They didn’t even use guns! Terrorists need CIA training to figure out how to slash throats with box-cutters? Is anyone actually buying this tripe?
Then comes Charlton Heston. It has already been well-documented that Moore blatantly edited and spliced footage of Heston to give viewers the false impression that the NRA president was saying things he obviously he wasn’t saying. This was painfully obvious to viewers. (By the way, Moore’s fake editing of his holding the murdered little girl’s photo out to a retreating Heston is about as well done as William Hurt’s faked teardrop in “Broadcast News.” Moore had one camera and two angles? Moore staged the sequence. Badly.) But never mind all this. Grant Moore the fact that Heston said and did everything he claims. So what? Has Heston murdered anyone? Did the NRA order a “hit” on the little girl?
(By the way, Greck: you may have “rewound [Heston’s “the good white people who founded this country” quote] twice and even enabled the subtitles on my DVD to make sure I heard that one correctly”, but you still managed to bungle the quote. What Heston actually said was that if the 2nd Ammendment was good enough for the “wise, old, dead, white guys who founded this country” it was good enough for him. He never said “good.” Quite a difference between that and “wise,” don’t you think?)
Moore makes connections that simply don’t exist. A little girl is shot and somehow, SOMEHOW, this is Dick Clark’s fault for employing her mother at minimum wage? Huh? Of course, fat Michael Moore, racist that he is, would never dream of laying a little bit of the blame at the feet of the single mother of two, right? It’s Dick Clark’s fault that this woman has children she can’t afford? Please.
Marilyn Manson is an idiot. Here’s a guy, a “shock rocker,” who names himself after a mass-murderer, but then is “horrified” that people would make a connection between his music and (gasp!) a mass murder at Columbine! Manson said he cancelled concerts out of respect for the victims, but what about respect for murder victims like Sharon Tate and Jay Sebring? Don’t they count? Manson should’ve embraced and celebrated the shootings at Columbine, if you ask me. Moore, however, is too fat and stupid to grasp the irony that he is talking to man who found it acceptable to name himself after a mass-murderer. How would Moore react to band named Klebold-Harris? One imagines he would be “shocked, shocked” at such a blase attitude toward violence in this country. I guess murders with a knife don’t count in his little world.
I’ll finish with this: Moore walks through a South Central neighborhood with the author of a book called “Culture of Fear” (I believe that was the title). He asks why people have the impression that inner-city crime is so prevalent, and Moore’s own expert says that the media choose what to air every night on the news. Moore clucks his tongue disapprovingly at this, but again it appears he is too fat and stupid to catch the irony. A false impression of inner-city violence is the result of media bias and white racism? (Interestingly, for someone obsessed with statistics on US gun violence, Moore offers no numbers here to support his belief that inner-city, black-on-black crime is overstated in the national media. Gee…I wonder why?) Amazing. In Moore’s world, Americans are irrationally afraid of inner-city violence because of slick editing, but apparently we SHOULD be afraid of Charlton Heston, the NRA and militia groups because of Moore’s very own…er, slick editing and bias!
Fish in a barrel are more difficult to shoot.
No, that was Limbaugh. Franken was referring to his use of ad hominen attacks passed off as entertainment. I see you like the way that sweater feels too much to better yourself by not using it.
Yet you somehow managed to shoot the wrong barrel. I’d dig through your post and look for your real arguments hidden beneath the personal attacks, but why dig through miles of crap looking for stuff you just pulled off an “I hate Micheal Moore” website and kept an eye out for when you rented the film?
Tars Tarkas
For what it’s worth, Al Franken titled one of his books “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big, Fat Idiot.” I’m not sure what your “No, that was Limbaugh” comment was a reference to.
Also, I consulted no websites, anti-Moore or any other, for my post. It was simply my honest reaction to watching the film last night.
“Bowling For Columbine” is about as objective and even-handed a documentary as was, say, “Reefer Madness”…but not nearly as entertaining."
Ahhh and you nailed it. The money quote; set, point, match. I think I’ll go watch Reefer Madness; at least it’s hilarious. Maybe for kicks I’ll add another documentary of the time, “Cocaine Freaks”.
Has it occurred to you that in times to come Bowling will be regarded in much the same light as those early films? It’s a self-parody already, just as they are, but in 50 years…I could see his flick being sold alongside those as stupid and ridiculous self-parodying “warning” films. Except his doesn’t actually HAVE a clear message; just a muddled…what the hell was he actually FOR or AGAINST again? He wasn’t against guns…what was his problem? He never really did say…
Al Franken titled that book because Rush regularly insults liberals under the guise of debate, and Franken was just returning in kind to show how unwarrented it was. That was the point i was trying to make with that. Reading your review filled with Fat and stupid made it come off like you were assulting him for being ugly instead of attacking his issues, despite several issue attacks buried beneath.
You make a few semi-valid criticisms, like the Dick Clark thing, since that is glaringly out of place and stupid, he could have just stopped at the point of working welfare is not the way to form urban renewal and eliminate crime areas, but then he diverges into some tangent on Clark, however i find blaming the mother after the fact horrid, she was making the most of the bad situation she was in, and i’m not sure i saw any alternative for her.
As for the race issue, Moore simplicizes it a bit, but it is a big factor. I’ve seen plenty of rich old white ladies get paralysed in fear when black teenagers are around.
If you honestly didn’t consult an anti-Moore website prior than i apologize, but your post does look like a cheat sheet from one of them embelished with insults on his appearance at first glance.
ANNIEE,
You’re right. I have no idea just WHAT his point was in this movie.
Also, it seems to me that Moore misses the obvious. He wonders why the US has such a high rate of gun violence, but he never seems to arrive at a satisfying answer. However,
he claims to be a sharp-shooting, gun-owning member of the NRA, correct?
Shouldn’t he ask himself a single question? Why did HE, with access to guns all his life, never shoot another human being? My guess is that whatever he answers…is exactly what is missing from today’s society.
Also, fifty years ago it was common for schools to have rifle clubs. Why were there no Columbine-style massacres then?
TARS TARKAS,
Apology accepted. I consulted no websites.
Also, is it really “racist” for rich, old, white ladies to be fearful when black teenagers approach? Or ANY teenagers, for that matter? I’d call any heightened alert more like “playing the odds.”
Yep. You’ve really done a fine job, and kudos to you for forcing yourself to sit through that horribly boring piece of sh* just because you aren’t allowed to comment on anything you haven’t witnessed personally heh.
I started to wonder how you would qualify for this conversation if you were blind…would reading a full Braille transcript, hearing several clips and reading and ten reviews suffice? The argument was dumb but I didn’t feel like posing all the hypotheticals to counteract it. Too inane. Good for you for going through with it. 
Stephe96, I’m pleased that you saw the film. And even though I agree with Tars Tarkas that you did sound a little repetitive by the end, you did say some things I’d like to address. (I edited a lot of quotes to point out important parts; I hope I didn’t misconstrue your intended meanings, but correct me if I did.)
Most generally, while I don’t want to say that you missed the point per se, I definitely think there was more to Moore’s thesis than you got out of it. For one thing, he never says “Guns are evil” (as Anniee pointed out) or “white men are evil”, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think that. Also, just because something appears in Bowling for Columbine doesn’t mean that Moore thinks it’s the cause of gun violence in America. For instance, the opening scene:
See, he never meant to blame the promotion for anything, and I don’t know where you would have gotten that idea except from a pre-conceived notion. I took it more as a Yakov-esque “What a country!” thing, to introduce just how gun-crazy we Americans are. I think that’s all there was to it. Next point!
I see what you’re saying here, but there’s a big difference between talking about killing people and actually killing 168 people, right? The fact is that Terry Nichols’ brother was connected with a huge act of violence. Now, of course, I’m not saying that he’s evil just because of this. But if you want to go to the root of actual violence in America, that seems like a more reasonable place to start than rap artists.
Again, I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I think he was just exploring another avenue, presenting something for people to think about. Honestly, this one strikes me as a dead end, so I agree with you on that. But maybe he was just throwing out a bunch of ideas to let people come up with their own conclusions.
Really I think that the ultimate point with Heston and the NRA is that there are some who care more about guns than about people, and that’s bad. Moore seems to think that an organization dedicated to guns should be also be dedicated to finding and fixing the problems associated with guns. But the way Moore made it seem, this isn’t even on their radar.
Agree 100%. Maybe this was just another avenue he was exploring, but it was dumb. :rolleyes:
You know, you’re probably right about this and I didn’t think about it. That’s a very good point. But that doesn’t invalidate the rest of the segment. They were saying that Marilyn Manson is a pretty convenient scapegoat, but that there were plenty of other things it could just as easily have been. I agree that music can cause a big emotional reaction, but I think a lot of the people who would blame certain music are doing it without really understanding the big picture. I think that was the point.
Good point, but this probably goes beyond the scope of the film. I imagine that Barry Glassner does have some statistics to back up his claim. Has anyone read The Culture of Fear?
I just read it last month, it’s at home, i can look at the stats later, if someone doesn’t beat me.
Achernar
Actual statistics for inner-city gun violence “probably goes beyond the scope of the film”? Yikes! The movie is ABOUT gun violence, and America’s fascination with guns!
Moore seemed to have no problem finding time to spend on Africanized Killer Bees, the Ku Klux Klan, South Park, smog in LA and Dick Clark.
But asking for actual crime statistics when he’s GOT THE EXPERT STANDING NEXT TO HIM (!) is “beyond the scope?”
I think I have to sit down for awhile…