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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.
Page:
I've seen it and enjoyed it, but having read quite a few reviews, I felt the same kind of feeling that a lot of them picked up on too, which was probably Moore's intention - parts of it leave you laughing, then you finish laughing and think 'Should I have really laughed at that?', and questions pop into your head.
Its an effective technique.
Its an effective technique.
Another fantastic quote from the wacko guy:
Wacko Guy: "I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. So I use the pen.. *giggles manically* but you've always got to have a sword in reserve for when the pen fails"
Michael Moore: "Why not use Gandhi's way? He didn't have guns, and he beat the British Empire."
Wacko Guy: "I'm not... familiar with that example"
Wacko Guy: "I believe that the pen is mightier than the sword. So I use the pen.. *giggles manically* but you've always got to have a sword in reserve for when the pen fails"
Michael Moore: "Why not use Gandhi's way? He didn't have guns, and he beat the British Empire."
Wacko Guy: "I'm not... familiar with that example"
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.
Page: