Bowling for Columbine (2002)

Once again Moore bends the truth

By Yahoo! Shopping User  Mar 29, 2003 | 25 out of 43 found this Bowling for Columbine (2002) review helpful

My problem with "Bowling" is simple: as usual, Michael Moore claims to be making a documentary when in truth all he wants to do is promote his own liberal political agenda. I don't mind that he wants to push a particular view -- that's his right in ...a free and open democratic society. However, I DO object to him bending the truth, if not outright LYING about "facts" -- elements which by pure definition should be truthful in a "documentary."Want some examples? Ok, try these...1) Forbes Magazine (obviously a reputable and major magazine) uncovered this one. In "Bowling" Moore demonstrates how easy it is to obtain guns in America by going to a small bank in Traverse City, Mich., that offers various inducements to open an account and claims "I put $1,000 in a long-term account, they did the background check, and, within an hour, I walked out with my new Weatherby," a rifle.HOWEVER...Jan Jacobson, the bank employee who actually worked with Moore on his account, says that only happened because Moore's film company worked with the bank for a month to STAGE the entire scene. "What happened at the bank was a pre-arranged thing," Ms. Jacobson later stated. In fact, the gun was actually brought from a gun dealer in another city. "Typically, you're looking at a week to 10 days waiting period," she said. Ms. Jacobson also felt used. "He just portrayed us as backward hicks." 2) In the movie Moore claims that a Michigan program where welfare recipients are required to work was responsible for an incident where a six-year-old Flint boy shot a girl to death at school. HOWEVER...Moore doesn't mention that the boy's mother had actually sent him to live in a CRACK HOUSE where her brother and a friend kept both drugs and guns--a frequently lethal combination. 3) Moore also ALTERED footage of an 1988 ad by the Bush/Quayle campaign to buttress his claim that racial symbolism is misused in American politics. His example was Willie Horton, a murderer who became a major issue in the 1988 presidential campaign. Moore shows the Bush ad that attacked a prison furlough program in Michael Dukakis's Massachusetts.HOWEVER...s
uperimposed over the footage of prisoners entering and exiting a prison are the words "Willie Horton released. Then kills again." So if you’re watch "Bowling", you’d think the caption was part of the original ad. In truth, it WASN'T. Moore actually INSERTED the caption, to justify his point by making it LOOK like it was part of the original ad. In fact, the REAL ad never even mentioned Horton. And just to make his falsehood worse, the phony Moore caption is also inaccurate -- Horton brutalized a Maryland couple and raped the wife, but DIDN’T KILL anybody while on his infamous furlough.That's just the tip of the iceberg. "Bowling" was just more of the same old Moore rant -- Republicans are bad, ultra liberals are good. The rich are bad, the poor are always under their thumb. The big guy on the block is always out to keep down the little man. >yawn< Moore has gotten to be a broken record, and "Bowling" is just more of his same, tired old routine. If that's the message you're looking to get...fine, you'll find more of it here. Knock yourselves out.So the only thing I can say about "Columbine" is that as a DOCUMENTARY it's pretty crappy because it bends and alters actual facts wherever and whenever Moore want, simply so he can find SOME basis to support his own personal political statements. In short, the only people who will like this movie are those who didn't think Moore came off like a buffoon on Oscar night...and the only thing this movie is good for is preaching to his already politcally misquided converted. Read more Less