Customer Reviews
Total misrepresentation of facts 
2008-12-30
Moore spends much of this film misrepresenting 'facts'. He takes things out of context and splices much of this film together to make it appear that people are saying things they didnt say.
What appalls me the most is the way he ambushes Charleton Heston with things that arent true. Heston is obviously not at his best and in the early stages of Alzheimers. His lack of recall is show as a way to depict him and all 2nd ammendment supporters as uncaring and callous. It would have been much fairer to everyone if he had been able to give that same interview 5 or 10 years earlier. Taking advantage of old people is just sad and I find Moore to be a sad individual indeed.
Dont waste your money, you wont be getting any facts from this. Just a bunch of spliced together propoganda.
Eye opener about gun ownership 
2008-11-18
Let me say this first, if you do not like Michael Moore don't watch this movie. Also, if you are conservative and very pro-gun ownership, then you will hate this movie. This movie uses the Columbine shooter to jumpstart a discussion and investigation of the 2nd Amendment and why the United States has more gun related homicides than any other nation. Michael Moore is a card-carrying member of the NRA so he is not completely biased. I really liked how he went to many different groups trying to get all perspectives on this hot-button topic. He even traveled to Canada to see why they have such a lower gun-related homicide rate.
This movie will definitely open your eyes to the 2nd Amendment debate and make you question why people feel the need to own so many guns, when a lot of times all it does it ruin lives. It also makes you wonder why our gun control laws are so weak and if they were stronger, maybe Columbine would have never happened.
Again, this is a great documentary by Mr. Moore but if you are conservative or just don't like him, you will probably dislike this movie.
You can't trust an idiot like Moore if his movies are given free airtime in Islamic Iran 2008-11-12
Michael Moore movies are useless and full of lies. No doubt about it. However, what makes me give this moron a zero star rating is that his movies are all shown for free on Iranian regime run TV channels many times a year. Gee, you wonder why anti-American regime of Iran loves Michael Moore so much. His movies are truly worthless and based on lies he fabricates out of his hatred for the country which has given him the freedom to do so. Zero Star!
Bowling for Columbine 
2008-11-08
I prefer this Micheal Moore movie to most of his others. I agree with his point that fear is perhaps the one characteristic that separates Americans from other western cultures. Each year we are bombarded with images and video that is intended to promote fear in our lives. Election campaigns teach us to fear one side or the other ratherthan advocating what good a candidate will do.
Once fear is in place groups like the National Rifle Association can inform us how we need all sorts of conceal and carry laws because if we don't carry a weapon, sooner or later we will be attacked. Solve a gun problem with more guns. It sounds like trying to solve the credit crisis with more credit. The NRA will say that because we don't know if a person has a gun, we will be less likely to become violent. Yet 11,000+ people are killed with guns each year. Only a handful of situations occur where someone with a gun can prenvent a crime. The NRA also has the audacity to say that more guns in schools will prevent shootings similar to Columbine or Virginia Tech.
Micheal Moore tries to flush out myths people tend to blame for shootings. Violent video games, rock music, even the availability of guns. Most other countries have all of these, yet they do not have 11,000+ gun-related killings annually. Again, he may have something with his fear theory. Like Moore, I too am a member of the NRA and proud of it. Our constitution gives us the right to own guns and no government can take that right away. I just wish we wouldn't be so darn afraid of everything.
Too liberal! 2008-11-05
I'm a lib too but I draw the line when Mike marches into the K-Mart headquarters with the paralized victims of the shooting in tow and demands an explanation as to why they sold the bullets.
Michael, K-Mart is not to blame. Anyone could have sold those. You're acting like a trial attorney. Get it together and quit trying to blame those not responsible and for your own personal gain.
SOMETIMES THE TRUTH HURTS 2008-09-20
Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Moore (Roger & Me) takes aim at America's love affair with guns and violence in this Oscar(r)-winning* film that "demands attention" (People)! Mixing riveting footage, hilarious animation and candid interviews with everyone from the NRA's Charlton Heston to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, Bowling for Columbine is a "brilliant" (The Hollywood Reporter) tour de force of filmmaking. *2002: Documentary Feature
The public criticism of a frightful America 2008-09-09
Michael Moore films an America that is frightful. The topic is "limited" to the lifestyle of Northern American People imbued with a rare violence on the scale of humanity.
Is this normal in a country not at war, that its citizens have at home several lethal firearms? Michael Moore thinks that it is not ; so do I.
Michael Moore hurts. He exhibited this specific cultural violence in the USA which is absolutely not the case in English Canada (Toronto) where weapons are those of game hunters and not those for men hunting.
Columbine was one of many theatres of a "folly" (is this the case when there is repetition ? As Michael Moore, I do not think so) a deadly mass murder perpetrated by a student on pain of living.
The investigation is without appeal. "Bowling for Columbine" did surprise the naive and idolaters of a mythical America that does not exist. Michael Moore is peacefully fighting for a better America, the land of the Freedom.
Less Moore 
2008-09-08
BFC's very success as a piece of art is its undoing as a piece of social commentary. Before I go on let me briefly sum up the film: MM attempts to discover what is wrong with America- specifically violence in America. The Columbine shootings in spring of 1999 are MM's starting point. MM tries to point out the dubious links posited by the media monster- brilliantly portrayed in a montage of `scares' thrown out by the media- things from Halloween candy to weight loss products. This is an avenue worth pursuing, & the `scaring' of Americans into becoming consumers of anything that will substitute as a nipple is a great point. But it's made by shock rocker Marilyn Manson (a Columbine scapegoat), not MM, & then immediately dropped. MM also is at his best when he details corporate America's need to portray black men as `the problem' despite far more crime being perpetuated by white & white-collared sorts. Instead, we get a whole bunch of amusing, but pointless red herrings- the Michigan Militia, the Nirvana of Canadian existence (aptly showing how good the Canadian health care system is, but woefully neglecting the severe curtailing of Canadian civil liberties- most notably free speech- in pursuit of this goal), workfare programs- which I agree are terrible because they perpetuate an underclass, yet do not let a bad single mother whose 6 year old son killed another 6 year old girl off the hook (as MM tries to imply), a nasty Dick Clark- who employed said bad single mother for slave wages in a mall restaurant, a doddering & senile Charlton Heston- whom MM dishonestly snookered in to an attack interview, & then- in the film's most pompous & sickening moment- left the murdered 6 year old's photo on Heston's property, as if to imply that CH was responsible for her death- not the boy, nor the mother. I admire- & LOVE- how MM uses the media's tools against them in such a screeding fashion. But he has become what he hates with this distortion. Nowhere does MM follow up on the public's & media's appetite for sensationalism- instead he uses 2 dimwitted boys who survived being shot at Columbine to shame K-Mart in to removing bullets from their store's inventory. 1 can argue the rightness or wrongness of this act- I think they were within their rights to demand such, but it's ultimately a futile act. BUT the point is this was not done for any other reason than to bring MM's film to a climax. Instead of showing a problem, discussing its causes, & effects, & then proposing a solution- which a true documentary does, MM's film simply drops the ball at the end, settling for its own 2 hours of sensationalized splendor in MM's sun. The film is much more about Michael Moore's need to preen & pat himself on the back, than in provoking any real debate. Behind us, at the theater, was a typical professorial type who Pavlovianly jeered at the right wingers, tsk-tsked at the appropriate moments of their stupidity, all the while, under his breath, mm-mming at the enlightened left wingers who, truthfully, to an objective viewer, came off being just as stupid as the Michigan Militia men- in their own predictably obtuse ways. Think long of Pogo's injunction about enemies while viewing this film.
Still, the film would make Leni Riefenstahl proud. & it would make `true' Liberals proud, as well, were the film not so laced with ½ truths & such. MM has stated that he thinks only 10-20% of people who see his work will get it right away- therefore he has to distort with humor. Well, the same ratio might apply when it comes to the truth in MM's docs....In short, Bowling for Columbine needed alot more true depth, & alot less Moore.
Just what you would expect from Michael Moore 2008-09-01
Michael Moore tells a good story, if you don't mind a liberal fairy tale. Anything Moore puts out needs to be taken with the understanding that he aims his stories for the uninformed masses. The thing that scares him the most is someone who thinks for themselves.
Very good at times, but also aggravating and annoying.... 2008-08-30
I recently tackled this movie again, and it's still good and worth watching, there were aspects of it that I disliked more this time around.
The film isn't strictly about gun control. While Moore does mention that they are tons of guns in this country, he also mentions that Canada has tons of guns as well (more per capita than the US), yet Canada doesn't have the amount of violence that we do here. Moore also points out rather telling of our culture of fear, where the news media constantly tells us we're about to die tomorrow from everything to blue jeans to bottled water. Everything is going to kill us. He also has a great interview with Marilyn Manson, the rock star who was "responsible" for the Columbine killings, despite the fact he wasn't at the actual shooting and two teenagers actually shot all the students. Moore hilariously points out that the US was bombing the bejeesus out of Yugoslavia during this time (a pre-emptive war on a country that did nothing to us, sound familiar?), and Clinton himself said "we need to teach our young people to solve their problems with words, not weapons. Now y'all excuse me, I have to authorise more missiles and kill more civilians". Clinton didn't actually say the 2nd line, but he might as well have, as that's exactly what he did. In other words, Moore makes some good points, and the film is not really about the gun issue but is about the violence issue.
Moore's tactics, on the other hand, are questionable. He brings some survivors to the Kmart headquarters to ask for their money back for the armor that's embedded in their bodies. It's an example of ambush journalism that Moore has to realise by now it isn't going to work. It's just done for show and nothing else. All he ends up doing is embarrassing people at Kmart headquarters, the victims of the shooting for going along with the stunt, and himself.
The worst tactic is his interview with Charlton Heston. Heston, as we all know, was the head of the NRA for many years until he resigned when he admitted he had Alzheimer's. When Moore interviews Heston, it's pretty damn obvious from Heston's speech and movements that he's having difficulty staying coherent and on point, and Heston seems confused by Moore's aggressive tactics. Moore must have realised that Heston was suffering from early Alzheimer's, and instead of engaging the man in a civilised manner and taking into account that he really wasn't all there, Moore pressed on anyway and bullied the ailing actor. Granted, I'm a Heston fan, but I think it would have made a much better (and more humane) interview had Moore given more background information on Heston and treated him as a man who was suffering from Alzheimer's. Heston was actually a liberal during his hollywood heyday. He marched with MLK (a few years before it became "alright" in the eyes of Hollywood and the country), and he supported both JFK and Adlai Stevenson. Moore has selectively edited before (he did actually interview Roger Smith of GM for his film Roger and Me, but decided not to use it and pushed the lie that he didn't get an interview with him), and I feel that he probably did this to Heston to.
While I feel this film is worth watching, I have more mixed feelings about it than I did before.
