Bowling For Columbine

This movie is a must see.

It's in color, and it's in English. - MichaelMoore

It is a very human documentary.

The title refers to a school in Colorado where two teenagers used various guns and home-made bombs to kill a teacher, a dozen pupils, and, eventually, themselves. The movie includes footage from the school's security cameras, and indeed at least one bomb was detonated, although it does not appear that anyone was near the bomb when it exploded.

The last thing the two did before the shootings was go to their bowling class, for school credit.

Not a movie I'll have time to watch. I've never understood the mentality of "guns are bad, so remove guns and the world is perfect." It doesn't work like that. I guess it's just an AmericanCulturalAssumption that we don't like the government telling us what to do all the time.

Or perhaps you are just making an assumption about a film you haven't seen. It doesn't say "guns are bad, so remove guns and the world is perfect". It is more like "why are we so stupid with our guns (while some others aren't)? I don't think he makes every point he is trying to, but it is worth watching (well, perhaps renting).

I am not sure what kind of assumption the above comment is making, but in no way does the movie move in that direction

Apparently, some people think it does: http://www.reason.com/hod/bd101802.shtml

In reading the article, I came across this quote - "Bowling for Columbine does not make a pro-gun control case." and the movie clearly shows that Canadians also have plenty of guns and not many gun deaths. (The byline for Reason: "Free Minds and Free Markets")

A good film that raised a lot of interesting points about the American RuleOfFear. I think he was totally correct about the fact that America is an anxiety-ridden society and our government and media seems to feed on this. I am not sure if I really understand what the origins of this anxiety are.

The USA is the only religious Western nation, let alone religious fundamentalist. And religious people are socially backwards, especially in their propensity for child abuse. The anxiety you're talking about was beaten into them during childhood.

Ahhh, FlameBait.

There you go. Nobody knows where the anxiety comes from, because beyond the canonical explanations and strawmen that Moore covers, any other explanation might end up blaming something. And that's simply not kosher.

What one would expect from a 60-minutes segment, stretched out to feature length. If it has won acclaim it must only be because it is alone as a recent mainstream treatment of the gun control/violence issue. Michael Moore is not subtle or profound, but seems merely to be riding the polarity of recent American politics, particularly the frustration of the currently-backseated Left, to the top.

To call this a documentary is to abuse the term. Moore waxes on with statistics and observations that seem like sociology or anthropology, but doesn't mention a single actual theory or model from those fields. We're left with political banter, with emotional appeal but no real content. Dawkins-like metacritique applies.

"It all comes down to bowling." Riiight... queue up some more egregious slo-mo bowling footage and I'll grab some more popcorn.

I liked the flick. I especially liked the contrast between The States and Canada. I think it's well worth seeing. -- EricHerman

Unhappily, it's not a documentary and, from some recent reports, is more than a little factually inaccurate. It also seems there was no attention given to the effects of some mind-altering medications that played a part. I don't have the specifics, but RitalinDrug was involved, and Moore evidently felt that following that lead would damage the point he was trying to make.

If you drug kids in school, especially with stuff that will disqualify you for the military, there may be trouble.

Now *that* might make a documentary, and you'd have no shortage of parents ready and willing to detail the horrors of "medication" as applied to Johnny.

There are quite a few children, including my own, who've experienced miraculous improvement as a result of medication. Are you inviting a serious discussion about the clinical evidence involved, or were you just sort of piling on some additional crapola to this already dubious page? If you think Ritalin brought about Columbine, you might consider adjusting your own medication or lack thereof.

See www.bowlingfortruth.com or www.moorelies.com and you'll find Toy Story more believable than this movie --AnonymousCoward

There's a lot of money supporting the efforts to discredit MichaelMoore. I'd rather read sites and watch movies by people who are brave enough to put themselves on the line. --PhlIp

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