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"Ooh, very impressed by Bowling For Columbine."

It was excellent - very shocking, very satirical, very now. A lot better than reading his books, even though his style of writing is very apparent throughout the film. Plenty of clips of people shooting themselves and each other (most of them I'd seen before, which is quite disturbing), which I'm glad weren't censored because the reality and consequences of this type of crime should be shown. The one that really stood out was the protestor/rioter standing, topless, with his arms spread out, and he gets shot in the stomach by the police. Not sure which country it was - looked like Asia. The one where the woman was pushed to the floor and then shot happened at a funeral - it was the victim's ex-husband, and it was "shot" by a film crew that were covering a story involving them. Now THAT is reality TV!

It did feel at times that he was badgering his interviewees in that quick, sharp tone of his. Charlton Heston in-particular. Sure, he may be a racist, heartless nobcheese (which he proves), but he was also suffering from Altzheimer's, so it was a bit unfair of Moore to pursue him like that. Getting the result from Wal-Mart was amazing though! Just when they thought they were getting ignored, the execs suddenly come down and say they're withdrawing bullets from sale - result! They were discussing it all along, and it turned out good for Moore's cause and good publicity for Wal-Mart. Although it won't help the Columbine victims. Also, did anyone notice how disabled-unfriendly that Wal-Mart place was? A bit like SR Towers!

Something that I got in the books also appeared here - contradiction. There was a whole section of the film devoted to the media and right-wing Christian types trying to put the blame for their violent society on videogames and entertainment. But then Moore points out that some young kids are playing a lightgun arcade game - whose side is he on? One minute he's defending the videogame industry, then he's using it in examples. Just a small episode, but it's sloppy when compared to the facts and figures he can throw at us, seemingly at will.

But Canada rocks. They can leave their doors open and sleep safely at nights, even though they're just over a river from a major USA city (Delaware? - can't remember), and the only gun crime anyone could remember was when a guy from Delaware shot someone with a gun stolen from someone in Minnesota! And I don't think they did ever figure out why there was such a difference in crime rates, even though the population and amount of guns owned and lifestyle was very similar. The finger of guilt was mainly pointed at the media. Stories of killer bee invasions, and bubonic plagues were used as examples of how news channels scare-monger.

So who was to blame? Media? Turbulent and violent history? Politicians? Moore didn't seem to come to any real answers. But if he could find someone or something to blame then the Americans wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Like I said, it's a very good documentary - much more easy to digest than his books, which seem to drag. I enjoyed it a lot, although some parts you don't really "enjoy". Very educational, I hope it makes people more aware of how their countries screw them over.

Yes but the majority do lock their doors in the US, even when at home. That was his point about how everybody feels afraid.

I come from the Orkney Islands, where nobody locks their doors, even overnight - and in some cases don't lock their cars either :-)

But that is definitely a strange place.

monkey_man wrote:
> But Canada rocks. They can leave their doors open and sleep safely
> at nights, even though they're just over a river from a major USA
> city

That bit is stupid - if I'm at home in the middle of the day the door isn't locked. If I tried the majority of my neighbor’s doors, they'd be unlocked - people don't lock their doors when they're home. Also, Canada isn't that friendly - if you want a fair comparison between LA and somewhere in Canada at least make an effort to find a similar metropolis e.g. Toronto... where, from my own experience, there's a murder involving a gun at least once a day...

I live near Belfast, most Canadian's assumed I was from a war torn country and would be happy to visit their neutral country with fancy things like running water and electricity. I can honestly say it's the only place I've ever been scared to walk the streets at night.

It’s a typical Michael Moore piece – very entertaining but of little or no real journalistic value. He starts with a conclusion and then finds as many ways he can of proving he’s right rather than taking any sort of balanced view.

It was good, you should give it a chance. I was a bit hesitant - and my girlfriend didn't want to watch it at all - but it was engrossing and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, despite picking faults with it at the end.

Having not deemed this fat man's tirade worthy of my attention, I wouldn't know what the contradictory argument would be, I'm just picking up on the vibes from other people's comments about it.

And what was the other side of the argument?

To be honest, I thought it was a fair documentary on gun crime, but he was led astray by emotion. Not far, but if you wanted to be a cynic, then it would be very easy to do.

Sounds to me like the whole thing is just the presentation of one side of an argument.

I'm well annoyed I missed this. I only found out on Sunday that it had been on.

He was showing the kids playing the gun game and said they were going to watch a Schwarzenegger movie. It was just a bit clumsy to portray it like that.

I think you missed the point with the videogames thing - he was eliminating that as a possible cause (most videogames come from Japan).

I didn't see all of this, missed the Heston interview at the end. I was very disturbed by the Columbine CCTV footage.

I've been reading the IMDB user comments on this. It seems the majority of people on there want to denounce Michael Moore as a liar and a propaganda merchant. It also shows how stupid some of these people really are...

(one person thought the film was saying that black people were responsible for the killer bees... lol)