I just saw Bowling for Columbine...

[karaya]

I don't think that's exactly high treason myself.

High treason? I didn't mention that term. And, if I may quote myself:

Michael Moore is an American and it is above all the matter of the Americans themselves to judge his attacks on his own country.

Anyway, I think Goebbels wasn't more anti-American.

Some M.M. quotes?

"Germany's favorite anti-American

Nowhere has Moore's entertaining, sound-byte light been more successful than in Germany. Riding on a wave of anti-Bush sentiment around the Iraq war, Moore's book "Stupid White Men" sold one million copies in Germany before it did in the United States. His book titles have etched themselves into the newsmagazine Der Spiegel's bestseller lists, and "Bowling for Columbine" drew in half a million fans in the first two months after opening last year.

All of which put Moore, dressed in jeans, an untucked shirt and brown jacket, in a thankful mood Sunday night at the Columbia-Halle in Berlin.

"It has not been the easiest year in America to stand up and voice your dissent," said Moore, leaning his large frame into the podium. "It makes a lot of difference to have friends overseas supporting me."

For the next hour, Moore riffed, sang and joked his way through the topics that have become standard fare in his books and crowd favorites. He mocked American ignorance by citing a National Geographic geography study in which 70 percent couldn't identify where the U.K. was on the map. He slammed George W. Bush for acting in God's name in Iraq, and read a chapter from his book he titled "Jesus W. Christ."

Germany, "don't be like us"

Moore even took aim at the reforms Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his government coalition are trying to push through. He warned Germany not to "cut away the safety net."

"Don't be like us," he said. "You've got to stand up, right? You've got to be brave."

Mixing in sports metaphors, Moore said popular European sports like rugby and soccer revealed the old continent's more cooperative, team-oriented approach to matters.

"In rugby, if someone gets tackled with the ball, he just throws it to the next person," he said. "'No! You go on without me!'" he sang, slipping into one of many over-the-top imitations that delighted the Berlin crowd."

:banghead:

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1035379,00.html

 

[Donny]

I also just saw Bowling for Columbine

Well, it was as bad as I expected. He took the worst representitives of the shooting sports and highlighted them exclusively. I could only watch about 40 minutes of it and all I saw were Terry Nichol's brother(who's elevator doesn't quite go to the top), Fat militiamen, a blind guy shooting an AK 47 and loads of slickly edited footage of people shooting each other and themselves. He even tries to make the absurd corrilation that the Columbine shooters did what they did because Lockhead Martin makes missles in Littleton. He then goes on to list all the governments around the world that we have overthrown during the last 65 years as if we are the only country that engages in self serving policies and its all some sort of big secret. Noticably absent from his propoganda were the tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of responsible gun owners and sportsmen who take gun safety seriously and would never let a minor shoot a gun they couldn't safely handle and who teach kids a healthy attitude about firearms and model pro-social behavior. He seemed keen to show lots of footage of kids shooting machine guns and interviews with former juvinile delinquints. I am glad I saw it. Now when I talk to my knee jerk liberal know nothing relatives about it I can tell them why it was a slanted, one sided, dishonest steaming pile of propoganda.

Donny

 

[JaxNovice]

What scares me the most is that most Americans have their opinions formed, not by watching objective news coverage and thinking for themselves, but by pundits and propaganda artists. I have as little respect for people who view Michael Moore as fountain of truth as those who think Rush is some type of political god. I am fairly conservative guy, but think that Limbaugh is as much of gas bag as Michael Moore. Both of them add no value to society at all and in fact they divide this country to an immeasurable level.

 

[45Guy]

Watched the movie also for the first time tonight, as it seems some did here. Didn't piss me off like Fahrenheit 9/11 did. I did like the point about the media coverage in Canada vs. US. It was a pretty slick piece of propaganda if you ask me. Look it up on imdb.com and you will see in the trivia that a lot of the movie was just edited to get a desired effect.

For instance, the scene where they show Charlton Heston holding up a musket and saying "From my cold, dead hands" which was portrayed as the convention in Colorado. It was in fact a convention in North Carolina 3 years later.

ISN'T EDITING WONDERFUL!!

 

[DirtyBrad]

Propaganda and politics aside, I don't get this movie. What the hell is Moore saying? He seems anti-gun, then points out how Canada has a ton of guns and a ton less crime. He points out how our kids aren't well protected enough, then criticizes schools for perpetuating an aura of fear with metal detectors and armed guards. And that bit about the kid who brings the gun to school and the endless description of the events leading up it is unbearable.

Farenheit 9/11 at least has a point. Whether you agree with it or not or think it's completely unfair, at least he has a strong point of view and is making a well-structured movie to support it.

I thought it was terrible that he ambushed Heston like he did, but I thought it was worse that the freaking president of the NRA wasn't able to slam him with rebuttals and citations. Moore didn't bring up any points that any of us haven't heard about a million times and Heston should have cut him off at the knees.

If I find some very standard arguments against evolution and throw them at some top dog scientist, that guy is going to bury me with facts, references, studies, and make me look like a fool.

Instead Heston seemed like a deer in the headlights. If he's too infirm to make what should be almost reflexive arguments for his position, he's probably too ill for the job, isn't he?

Anyway, I thought the movie sucked because it was rambling with no clear position. I wish it had been more focused and supported because at least it would be interesting to argue against, but as it is, it just seems like a mess.

 

[Harry Tuttle]

the south park issue is a tad moore complicated

after Matt Stone was interviewed in the film,
there is a south park style cartoon about the NRA and the KKK
the audience ASSumes that Trey & Matt made the cartoon and agree with the content

Michael Moore hired someone to do the SP rip off and thru editing makes you think the SP guys believe what he wants said

>>>>>>>

Bowling for Columbine includes a brief interview with South Park co-creator Matt Stone, who suggests that South Park was largely inspired by Stone' s childhood experiences in Littleton, Colorado. Stone presents a vision of Littleton as painfully normal, and highly intolerant of non-conformist behavior. In a segment that followed, an uncredited cartoon in a style somewhat reminiscent of South Park is featured, depicting the National Rifle Association and Ku Klux Klan as interchangeable evil organizations. However, this sequence was not the work of Matt Stone, nor that of Trey Parker. It became a point of contention between the two and Moore, as they believed Moore meant to imply they had contributed to his film beyond the interview. [31] Subsequent releases attempted to distance this implication by delaying the animation until ten minutes later in the film, and correctly crediting the animation. The animation was in fact made by FlickerLab and written by Moore. According to Stone and Parker,[31] the appearance of Moore as a suicide bomber in their 2004 film Team America: World Police is their sardonic response to this incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

 

[Wes Janson]

It was a well-made film, but only partially coherent in its ranting. As DirtyBrad says, Moore doesn't even seem to connect his own dots. Obviously many (most?) people watch his film and interpret it as anti-gun propaganda, whether or not the message sinks in. But one has to wonder what its influence might have been had Moore written a tighter script and focused his points in one direction.

In the immortal words: "It is wise to study the ways of one's adversary"

 

[JaxNovice]

Well put dirtybrad. In another post I call it a rudderless ship of liberal propaganda. It is all over the place and contradicts itself at every corner. What does it say about the strength of ones arguement when you have to manipulate dates, times and events to attempt to prove a point.

 

[romma]

Crappy Night For TV

I too watched it for a bit. Having never seen it, I thought it might be interesting to see what all the hoopla was about. I think I will keep my guns! Oh, Michael moore is a big fat stupid white man.. I almost forgot that part.

 

[Axman]

I never cared much for Michael Moore's films because it seems too fantastic. Find a cause and you can manufacture any supporting claims you want! It's like The Blair Witch Project!

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

I didn't like the fact that the only conclusion it seems to reach is that K-mart shouldn't sell "bullets." Pretty weak.

A lot of the social commentary is valid, IMO. There really is a lot messed up about this country, something I hear on this forum all the time. To point this out does not make one "Anti-American."

 

[Shadizar]

While I didn't care for the movie overall, I think Moore did bring up a fascinating question.

He noted that Canadians had a large number of guns, but their murder rate was very low. He asked, "if its not the guns then what is it?" For a moment I found a glimmer of hope for the remainder of the movie. Of course, it went downhill from there.

What was fascinating though was how he (correctly imo) pointed out just how negative and fear mongering our media is. I sensed he was onto something here so I took a look at the news stories of the day from the national news stations. To a one, they were all about something that caused some kind of fear (tornatoes, terrorism, child murders, etc...).

I think he struck on an important point there. Being barraged constantly by bad and fear provoking news must have some effect on us as a people.

-Shadizar

 

[Malone LaVeigh]

I think he struck on an important point there. Being barraged constantly by bad and fear provoking news must have some effect on us as a people.

The question is, who does it benefit?

 

[Fosbery]

It's ironic that in a film that points out the fear mongering of the media, Moore himself...mongers fear.

His figures on guns in Canada were complete lies IIRC. I believe he said there's a higher rate of gun ownership in Canada than in the US...but I'm sure that's just not the case.

He is right though, it's not the guns, it's cultural and social differences which create the different levels of crime in different countries.