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Let's get the hard bit out of the way.. I'm going to level with you; "Bowling for Columbine" is a documentary. That's right a documentary. Woah there, did I hear someone say boring, or was it educational?
See, "Bowling for Columbine" isn't your average documentary. For a start it's got a fairly wide cinema release, though that's partly due to the fact that Potter and Bond are currently on general release and so cinema's tend only to screen those and their exact opposites. Secondly it's won awards in the film categories at festivals, and that's pretty rare. Finally it's by this guy called Michael Moore, a big fat ol' American comedian. He's basically who UK comedian Mark Thomas really really wants to be - an irreverant, brutally funny pursuer of corporations. Moore once, fantastically, took a choir of people who had lost their larynxs through smoking to Philip Morris' (manufacturers of Marlborough and friends) HQ and had them 'sing' "Tis the season to be merry" while holding a sign saying that they wished Philip Morris employees a Merry Christmas.
Shocking? Check
Irreverant? Check
Funny? In the pre-amble to the event, yes, and that's how Moore's documentaries work. He spends a while taking pot shots at his target and making cheap digs, which everyone laughs at, but then he'll go for the jugular and the serious point he's trying to make hits home. "Bowling for Columbine" is a perfect example of this technique; it's a halfway house between the absolute satire of Brasseye and the brutal exposé documentaries that occasionally crop up on the BBC, and it's all the better for it.
Moore starts off by slowly circling his opponent, making a few little jabs and then retreating. We begin in a bank that Moore has discovered offers a free rifle with every new account opened ("It says here 'have I ever been ajudged mentally deficient in relation to a criminal offence?' If I'm just normally mentally deficient is that okay?" "Yes sir") Moore's opening question manages to capture the utterly absurd essence of the attitude to guns in America: "Well, my first question is, Don't you think it's slightly dangerous giving out guns in a bank?" From then on we dive head long into a tour that takes us from McVey to Marilyn Manson, and from Columbine to Canada, all the while focusing on the central theme of guns.
Ever watched Twin Peaks? Well, in that you always knew that you were getting to the heart of the mystery, of the series when an episode touched on the black lodge. Moore's documentary proves more than anything else that the black heart of the gun issue is the culture of fear in the United States, the culture that tells you if you're fat you'll never be happy; if you fail at school you'll end up a bum; that crime is out of control and that you *need* guns. Apparently one state saw it's 40% reduction in crime met with a 600% increase in media reports on crime and an increase in gun sales as a result. You see the same thing in the media here; how many children are abducted by "paedophiles" each year? Under 10 I imagine, and yet the fear of the stranger, of the potential abductor is at such a height that concerned parents are shelling out on having their children fitted with tracking devices.
Ironically, it's one of the people right-wing America fears the most that raises this shrewd point, one Marilyn Manson. He actually emerges from the film in a far better light than all of the fundamentalists who try to work out why Columbine happened. Note that Manson was so reviled after Columbine that he cancelled the rest of his tour, which was moving on to Denver, as a mark of respect. The National Rifle Assocation purposefully went to Denver a week after the shooting and Charlton Heston stood at the podium and, while waving a rifle above his head, said "From my cold dead hands!". When asked what he would have said to the Columbine killers, Manson - the cause of Columbine if you believe the media - said "I wouldn't have said anything; I would have listened."
These points do go into very serious matters, but Moore still manages to move seamlessly into humour and back. One particularly funny episode involves him talking to a militia member on whose farm Timothy McVey lived for 3 months and practised making bombs. This guy was a complete nut-case, fulfilling every Hollywood stereotype, from random giggling to scary intensity; but Moore drew this gem out of him:
"Now wait a minute... The Constitution says you've got the right to bear arms. What do you think 'arms' means?
"Well it's not like these..." *waves arms* "It means we ought to have handguns if we want to."
"What about nuclear weapons? Should you be able to have weapons-grade plutonium?"
[pauses] "...Well I think that oughta be restricted." *giggles manically* "...There's a lot of wackos out there."
Perhaps some things shouldn't be funny, but that got a big laugh in the surprisingly sold-out 11pm showing I went to. The real skill of Moore can be seen though, when he can also bring people to the point of tears. Together with two Columbine victims, disabled in the massacre, Moore goes to Wal-Mart's HQ and they try and return the bullets with which they were shot - cue embarrassed PR people and much mumbling and back-tracking - and nothing happens. The next day they go back with about 40 news stations and Walmart agrees to stop selling ammunition. It's a beautiful thing to see.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the film is Moore's attempt to discover why Canada doesn't have the same gun crime problem as America, despite the same level of gun ownership and cultural influences. He doesn't get very far on that one but then no-one seems to be able to explain why America has so many more gun murders than the rest of the world. Everything gets blamed from her violent past, to violent movies, to Marilyn Manson but the best answer he can provide is the American media's obsession with fear, death and destruction.
Yes, Moore's approach is a little rough around the edges. He does miss sometimes; notably the interview with Charlton Heston, but that's more Heston's fault than his. However, it does manage to merge humour, tragedy and investigative journalism into one documentary with great success. Most importantly, he doesn't shove an opinion down your throat, nor does he start with an anti-gun premise; you are left to think about what he has shown and reach your own conclusion, and that's the way it should be.
"Bowling for Columbine" was most newspaper's selection for film of the week, despite the Potter and Bond releases. It wasn't out of cinematic snobbery, it was because Moore had made something genuinely inspired.
Make sure you catch this while it's on general release.
See, "Bowling for Columbine" isn't your average documentary. For a start it's got a fairly wide cinema release, though that's partly due to the fact that Potter and Bond are currently on general release and so cinema's tend only to screen those and their exact opposites. Secondly it's won awards in the film categories at festivals, and that's pretty rare. Finally it's by this guy called Michael Moore, a big fat ol' American comedian. He's basically who UK comedian Mark Thomas really really wants to be - an irreverant, brutally funny pursuer of corporations. Moore once, fantastically, took a choir of people who had lost their larynxs through smoking to Philip Morris' (manufacturers of Marlborough and friends) HQ and had them 'sing' "Tis the season to be merry" while holding a sign saying that they wished Philip Morris employees a Merry Christmas.
Shocking? Check
Irreverant? Check
Funny? In the pre-amble to the event, yes, and that's how Moore's documentaries work. He spends a while taking pot shots at his target and making cheap digs, which everyone laughs at, but then he'll go for the jugular and the serious point he's trying to make hits home. "Bowling for Columbine" is a perfect example of this technique; it's a halfway house between the absolute satire of Brasseye and the brutal exposé documentaries that occasionally crop up on the BBC, and it's all the better for it.
Moore starts off by slowly circling his opponent, making a few little jabs and then retreating. We begin in a bank that Moore has discovered offers a free rifle with every new account opened ("It says here 'have I ever been ajudged mentally deficient in relation to a criminal offence?' If I'm just normally mentally deficient is that okay?" "Yes sir") Moore's opening question manages to capture the utterly absurd essence of the attitude to guns in America: "Well, my first question is, Don't you think it's slightly dangerous giving out guns in a bank?" From then on we dive head long into a tour that takes us from McVey to Marilyn Manson, and from Columbine to Canada, all the while focusing on the central theme of guns.
Ever watched Twin Peaks? Well, in that you always knew that you were getting to the heart of the mystery, of the series when an episode touched on the black lodge. Moore's documentary proves more than anything else that the black heart of the gun issue is the culture of fear in the United States, the culture that tells you if you're fat you'll never be happy; if you fail at school you'll end up a bum; that crime is out of control and that you *need* guns. Apparently one state saw it's 40% reduction in crime met with a 600% increase in media reports on crime and an increase in gun sales as a result. You see the same thing in the media here; how many children are abducted by "paedophiles" each year? Under 10 I imagine, and yet the fear of the stranger, of the potential abductor is at such a height that concerned parents are shelling out on having their children fitted with tracking devices.
Ironically, it's one of the people right-wing America fears the most that raises this shrewd point, one Marilyn Manson. He actually emerges from the film in a far better light than all of the fundamentalists who try to work out why Columbine happened. Note that Manson was so reviled after Columbine that he cancelled the rest of his tour, which was moving on to Denver, as a mark of respect. The National Rifle Assocation purposefully went to Denver a week after the shooting and Charlton Heston stood at the podium and, while waving a rifle above his head, said "From my cold dead hands!". When asked what he would have said to the Columbine killers, Manson - the cause of Columbine if you believe the media - said "I wouldn't have said anything; I would have listened."
These points do go into very serious matters, but Moore still manages to move seamlessly into humour and back. One particularly funny episode involves him talking to a militia member on whose farm Timothy McVey lived for 3 months and practised making bombs. This guy was a complete nut-case, fulfilling every Hollywood stereotype, from random giggling to scary intensity; but Moore drew this gem out of him:
"Now wait a minute... The Constitution says you've got the right to bear arms. What do you think 'arms' means?
"Well it's not like these..." *waves arms* "It means we ought to have handguns if we want to."
"What about nuclear weapons? Should you be able to have weapons-grade plutonium?"
[pauses] "...Well I think that oughta be restricted." *giggles manically* "...There's a lot of wackos out there."
Perhaps some things shouldn't be funny, but that got a big laugh in the surprisingly sold-out 11pm showing I went to. The real skill of Moore can be seen though, when he can also bring people to the point of tears. Together with two Columbine victims, disabled in the massacre, Moore goes to Wal-Mart's HQ and they try and return the bullets with which they were shot - cue embarrassed PR people and much mumbling and back-tracking - and nothing happens. The next day they go back with about 40 news stations and Walmart agrees to stop selling ammunition. It's a beautiful thing to see.
Perhaps the most amusing part of the film is Moore's attempt to discover why Canada doesn't have the same gun crime problem as America, despite the same level of gun ownership and cultural influences. He doesn't get very far on that one but then no-one seems to be able to explain why America has so many more gun murders than the rest of the world. Everything gets blamed from her violent past, to violent movies, to Marilyn Manson but the best answer he can provide is the American media's obsession with fear, death and destruction.
Yes, Moore's approach is a little rough around the edges. He does miss sometimes; notably the interview with Charlton Heston, but that's more Heston's fault than his. However, it does manage to merge humour, tragedy and investigative journalism into one documentary with great success. Most importantly, he doesn't shove an opinion down your throat, nor does he start with an anti-gun premise; you are left to think about what he has shown and reach your own conclusion, and that's the way it should be.
"Bowling for Columbine" was most newspaper's selection for film of the week, despite the Potter and Bond releases. It wasn't out of cinematic snobbery, it was because Moore had made something genuinely inspired.
Make sure you catch this while it's on general release.
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Sdrawkcab wrote:
> someone
> said that statistic about number of firearm deaths in america and
> number of deaths in the vietnam war, the vietnam war lasted no time at
> all, but guns have been around in america right from the beginning
US troops fought in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. In eight years 58,169 of them died. The statistic of 57,537 firearm deaths in the USA 1999-2000 is for those two years ALONE.
The Vietnam War is often described as an American tragedy (Vietnam itself gets ignored, of course) that must never be repeated - but no-one talks about the war that America is waging on itself.
> someone
> said that statistic about number of firearm deaths in america and
> number of deaths in the vietnam war, the vietnam war lasted no time at
> all, but guns have been around in america right from the beginning
US troops fought in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973. In eight years 58,169 of them died. The statistic of 57,537 firearm deaths in the USA 1999-2000 is for those two years ALONE.
The Vietnam War is often described as an American tragedy (Vietnam itself gets ignored, of course) that must never be repeated - but no-one talks about the war that America is waging on itself.
looks an excellent film. talking about maryilin manson, film 2002 by jonathan woss reckon hes supposed to be the intellectual of the whole thing. smarter than the professors and stuff. scary thought. someone said that statistic about number of firearm deaths in america and number of deaths in the vietnam war, the vietnam war lasted no time at all, but guns have been around in america right from the beginning
You should read his book, Stupid White Men. Funny and insightful at the same time.
Speaking of the BNP, who were recently elected to another seat up North (possibly due to the increased racial tensions in cities such a Bradford (though that's as much down to ghetto-isation as anything else)), America's National Rifle Association, who are 'led' by Charlton Heston, who was in such films as Ben Hur and planet of the Apes, which was re-directed by Tim Burton recently, (unfortunately Burton's version wasn't very good - the parody if Jay and Silent Bob was better) was actually founded on the same day that the Ku Klux Klan was banned, some coincidence, huh?
Guns are weapons, and weapons inspectors are going into Iraq today. Iraq is a country led by a dictator who the US armed and endorsed against Iran and then bombed and hated in support of a dictator in Kuwait. Kuwait is in the Middle East, which is a great holiday destination and those can be booked from leading travel agencies all over Britain. But Britain is in turmoil at the moment due to racial tensions and unregistered guns and striking fireman, who want higher wages, which the government is refusing to pay, because the country is back in the red, despite Gordon Brown's prudent fiscal policy over the past few years. He's going to have to borrow money to continue the planning system he's introduced to public spending. Public spending isn't done by the public, as such, the public spends on consumer goods. In America they spend money on guns. Oh did I tell you there was this rather neat film on the gun issue called "Bowling for Columbine" on at the moment. Highly recommended.
Guns are weapons, and weapons inspectors are going into Iraq today. Iraq is a country led by a dictator who the US armed and endorsed against Iran and then bombed and hated in support of a dictator in Kuwait. Kuwait is in the Middle East, which is a great holiday destination and those can be booked from leading travel agencies all over Britain. But Britain is in turmoil at the moment due to racial tensions and unregistered guns and striking fireman, who want higher wages, which the government is refusing to pay, because the country is back in the red, despite Gordon Brown's prudent fiscal policy over the past few years. He's going to have to borrow money to continue the planning system he's introduced to public spending. Public spending isn't done by the public, as such, the public spends on consumer goods. In America they spend money on guns. Oh did I tell you there was this rather neat film on the gun issue called "Bowling for Columbine" on at the moment. Highly recommended.
Caring about gun control. Caring about keeping neo-nazis out of power. I don't see the two as being mutually exclusive.
Bowling For Columbine is a documentary focusing on guns, so when people talk about the movie they too talk about guns. It doesn't mean that they don't care about other issues, it's about keeping things manageable. If having a valid opinion on issue X was dependent on also posting your views on Y,Z,A,B,C...then no-one would read those posts.
Bowling For Columbine is a documentary focusing on guns, so when people talk about the movie they too talk about guns. It doesn't mean that they don't care about other issues, it's about keeping things manageable. If having a valid opinion on issue X was dependent on also posting your views on Y,Z,A,B,C...then no-one would read those posts.
All I am saying is that more people in this country care about gun control in America than they do about real issues in this country which go largely ignored until the explode onto the news, when everyone who ignored it suddenly rises up demanding why the issue hasn't been addressed before.
Did anyone give a toss about the BNP until it suddenly started getting people elected into local government ? Hardly, and now it's too late because we'll be seeing more of them get voted in. Excellent eh ?
Did I actually say it was a bad documentary ? No, I said its far easier to look at another country and ridicule it's stance on something than it is to look at your own. Sure, have an opinion, but don't ignore the real problems we ourselves have.
After Dunblane the new firearms regulations came out, and everyone metaphorically went home happy, but in actual fact the new regs simply encourage people not to register weapons in the first place. So we don't actually have less firearms, we just have less registered firearms which is far more dangerous than legally owned guns which are largely traceable.
I'll go get this when it's out on DVD, because it's a bit like Titanic - I know what it's going to say and how it's going to do it.
~~Belldandy~~
Did anyone give a toss about the BNP until it suddenly started getting people elected into local government ? Hardly, and now it's too late because we'll be seeing more of them get voted in. Excellent eh ?
Did I actually say it was a bad documentary ? No, I said its far easier to look at another country and ridicule it's stance on something than it is to look at your own. Sure, have an opinion, but don't ignore the real problems we ourselves have.
After Dunblane the new firearms regulations came out, and everyone metaphorically went home happy, but in actual fact the new regs simply encourage people not to register weapons in the first place. So we don't actually have less firearms, we just have less registered firearms which is far more dangerous than legally owned guns which are largely traceable.
I'll go get this when it's out on DVD, because it's a bit like Titanic - I know what it's going to say and how it's going to do it.
~~Belldandy~~
I went to see this last night, and I thought it was brilliant. Nothing more to say, really, but I thought I'd share my all time favourite statistic with you:
Number of US deaths in the Vietnam War: 58,169
Number of firearm deaths in the USA 1999-2000: 57,537
Worth making a documentary about? I think so. And do we have a right to an opinion, even though we don't live in paradise ourselves? I think so too.
Number of US deaths in the Vietnam War: 58,169
Number of firearm deaths in the USA 1999-2000: 57,537
Worth making a documentary about? I think so. And do we have a right to an opinion, even though we don't live in paradise ourselves? I think so too.
Yeah but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.
It's 03:13, what the hell do I know about anything.
I should go to sleep really.
It's 03:13, what the hell do I know about anything.
I should go to sleep really.
Goatboy wrote:
,....... otherwise you risk sounding like
> someone lambasting something without actually being aware of what it
> is.
isn't that what the daily mail and politicians do all the time
,....... otherwise you risk sounding like
> someone lambasting something without actually being aware of what it
> is.
isn't that what the daily mail and politicians do all the time
All I'll bother to say is Belldandy, may I recommend you watch the documentary before commenting, otherwise you risk sounding like someone lambasting something without actually being aware of what it is.
I'm tired and bored of this already.
I'm tired and bored of this already.
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