Wow, that site is unbelievably stupid. I’ve already read one link on it, and its about how Moore is wrong to blame the news and the military for things, but videogames and “evil” music is to blame.
Did…you just call people liberal lapdogs? Are you done sucking Dubya’s dick yet? Cause you still got some shit on your face.
So…you’re saying we should believe your Pro-Bush propaganda, and not the Anti-Bush propaganda? Why? Because we all know everybody gives information with their own bias’ attached. So how bout this; Take the Pro-bush propaganda, add the Anti-bush propaganda, seperate all bullshit( a huge portion of both), mix and serve the little grains of truth you find.
That guy does just as much twisting around as Moore does. While I agree that you can’t take everything Moore says at face value and that a lot of it is just food for thought, some of it is viable information.
Wow, that website is incredibly bad.
Whats your problem anyway?
That website is pretty interesting and informative.
…NOT.
Man, okay. The first link on it, the writer starts off being INCREDIBLY insensitive and completely missing the entire fucking point,
“Although the fact is documented and established as being false, Moore drops in the point that there is no eye witness evidence to prove otherwise - but why the hell would there be? The whole reason for the massacre was because these boys were losers - it’s not like they were having a before school party or anything.”
Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Who the fuck do you think you are, talking like that about two obviously troubled, hurting, pain-filled human beings? I mean, what they did was WRONG, but that doesn’t give him the right to slander their names so hatefully in the manner which made them feel like they needed to shoot up Columbine. Fucking asshole. Moore’s point was that “demonic” rock music, violent video games, and bad parenting weren’t necessarily what made these two killers so afraid, so hurt, so filled with pain.
I mean, I’m reading more and more links on this website, and the maker of it clearly thinks that Moore’s major point in Bowling for Columbine was that there was too much gun violence in America. He obviously didn’t get it. That wasn’t the point of the film - that’s a simple fact. You don’t need a fucking documentary to prove it, all you need to do is look at the numbers, of gun homicides in the U.S. versus the gun homicides in the rest of the developed world. Even with all the website author’s statistical wrangling which I’m willing to bet is just as much tooled around with as Moore’s, and not nearly presented as movingly, even then it still shows that gun violence is more prevalent in the U.S. This is a fact - it is not interesting. One does not make movies about FACTS. No, Moore’s movie was about figuring out WHY. It was about figuring out the reason for this statistic, which he already made clear WASN’T about the availability of guns or the attitude towards guns in the U.S.
See, this guy seems to think that Moore was trying to come to some sort of POINT with his movie, that he was trying to use his movie to advance some sort of liberal agenda since day one, because god help him, he knows if he had Moore’s talent he’d be a conservative ideologue like Bill O’Reilly or someone, but Moore was really just trying to get at the truth of the matter. He was, like everyone, distressed at all these school shootings that were sparking up all over the country, and just wanted to find out why. The closest thing to a conclusion he came to (and the film intentionally doesn’t come to a knife-edged conclusion, because this is a really complicated, confusing subject that can’t be summed up in a statement like, “The whole reason for the massacre was because these boys were losers,”) was the whole culture of fear segment, how we’re brought up to fear the black man, fear our neighbors, fear not being good enough, fear not doing what our government tells us to do, etc. Let’s take a look at Mr. Website Author’s take on that.
“Yet his own frantic film about the terrible dangers of American gun violence comes even as gun crime rates have fallen sharply from their early 1990s levels. Glassner’s book points out that an American schoolchild is much more likely to be killed by lightning than in a school shooting. Yet Moore’s film rests on the premise that the Columbine shooting represents an American epidemic of violence.”
Hello? Are you mental? Moore’s film rests on the premise that the Columbine shooting was a terrible tragedy, and that we seriously need to figure out how to stop things like this from happening again. His film was not about scaring people about guns - he said, many times, that he is a proud gun owner, and that he believes in the right of the American to bear arms. It wasn’t about gun control and it wasn’t about how there’s too much gun violence. Let’s see what he has to say in argument to Moore’s theory that Americans are a fearful people.
“You wanna get scared? Forget guns. According to the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, the leading causes of death throughout an average American’s lifetime don’t hardly include random death by guns, and not at all by death from smog. In fact, if you care to look it up, you’ll see that guns rank quite low and smog is no where near the chart. However though, Michael Moore’s apparent closest and constant companions: butter, bacon, lard and laziness, rank very very high – at the top even – number one. (4) That’s right, obesity is a serial killer, guns - a moderate taker of lives and smog not much more than gross.”
Wow, what an intelligent thing to say, let’s make fun of fat people, that’s really addressing the point. Fuck, forget this shit. Why I’m spending so much time on this I don’t know. This website is such a load of bullshit. It whines about each time that Moore misrepresented specific facts, look. Everybody does that. Your local news station does that, your local conservative ideologue does that, almost every single website ever created on the basis of showing factual evidence does that. It’s really easy to do, and to complain about that is not even the point. For every one of Moore’s misconstruances and staged scenes, I can show you ten outright idiotic LIES out of any conservative ideologue that you shove in my face. The fact is, that Moore is a filmmaker, and he wants his films to convey a certain emotion, and to convey certain deeper truths about the world we live in. If he wanted to convey specific truths he would’ve just out and out stated them. That would have been easiest. But the fact is, that his message, which was a profound sadness and anger at how fearful and hateful and angry U.S. culture made these two teenagers, and millions of others like them, just couldn’t be expressed in a simple statement.
Films are art, and Michael Moore is a very good artist. Artists have been known to say very true things about the culture and government in which they live.
Why must you turn these forums into a house of lies?
Flint, where does he say that?
Ah. And he comes back to call us liberal lapdogs.
How witty.
You’re absolutely right Sohee, I only came back to the forums when Mr. Saturn showed up again b/c he is an aquaintance IRL, shame on me. You got me.
o noz =o
Jeez.
"Moore then asks what Manson would say if he could talk directly to the kids at Columbine and the people in that community? What would he say?
Manson (solemnly): "I wouldn't say a single word to them. I'd listen to what they had to say. That's what no one did."
Clever way to dodge the question. Also interesting seeing as ‘what they had to say’ would have no doubt been a violent anti-social vent, consisting much of Manson’s music lyrics. Fans of Manson’s work or not - looks at quotes and writings by the Columbine boys compared to Manson’s lyrics - appears as though they shared a writer.
Manson comes off as distinguished to the wrapped-up-in-the-moment-viewer, but inspection of the actual facts suggests that the far over simplistic ‘someone to listen’ isn’t exactly an informed prescription concerning why these 2 boys murdered their classmates."
Way to actually ruin one of my favorite parts of the movie. Anyone with just a tiny little bit of common sense could read that twice and realize how wrong it is. In so many ways. oO
Well I found out that the mall theater hass two showings on the hour every three hours so once I get a day off, like around Wednesday I’ll go see it. I haven’t seen any other Micheal Moore movies so I don’t have any expectations towards it…
Not the most compelling or exciting movie of the year…but it was certainly a fantastic collection of pre and post 9/11 images and clips that really should be seen by everyone. I think the film felt a bit rushed, not surprisingly, and until about the last 45 minutes or so when he starts to solely focus on the soldiers, it felt like he was jumping around a bit too much from topic to topic, and I would have loved to hear a more complete argument on some things. For example, when he talks about how he called bush being a deserter, he points to the document he received in which a name was later crossed out, but rather than explaining why this name being crossed out explains his being a deserter, he then uses the fact the name was crossed out to immediately launch into another topic. Now, to be fair, I’ve already heard all the arguments about him being a deserter, but I felt it was a bit of sloppy workmanship for people who hadn’t heard. But really, these are minor grievances, and once Moore gets into subjects he really feels strongly about, such as the exploitation of the lower classes, the film shifts from trying to grab you on a logical level and gets you at the emotional, and I think it works beautifully because this has been a presidency of strong emotions, and even around here I know these issues have caused emotional outbursts,even among me. The images really speak for themselves in this movie, and it’s hard not to see the Bush presidency for what it is, unless you do so purely out of spite.
If you head to Dallas, hit the <A HREF=“http://www.angelikafilmcenter.com/”>Angelika</A> in Dallas or Plano. It’s an awesome theater, they always have some good indy films going, and they need our support. They used to have a <A HREF=“http://www.rockyhorrorpictureshow.com/”>Rocky</A> cast, and they even showed the Bebop movie.
it’s just, it’s all so sad. Isn’t it? That’s what I took away from the movie the most.
I saw it opening night, it was sold out in the first two theatres I’d have seen it at so I went for the third option. Anyway, if anyone sees it who was not already staunchly conservative, I think the film may convert them. Despite Moore’s at-time immaturity and his tendency to be a little hamfisted, the documentary was pretty well put together. Its opening weekend projections suggest lots of people are going to be seeing it as well.
The most impactful moment for the film for me was President Bush’s reaction to 9/11. Just sitting there at a children’s school, alone, without anyone to advise him, completely unable to do anything. Completely impotent.
I strongly, strongly recommend that if you are of voting age you must see this film. And even if you aren’t, it’s more interesting than most of what else is out there right now.
I thought the saddest part was when he took the woman whose son died to DC, and she was yelled at by the iraqi protestor and the woman who screamed at her “the whole thing is a stage”. I felt so fucking bad.
well, the way I’m meaning sad isn’t necessarily the same way it applies to the scene you described. Although that one was also impactful (but not as relevant as some of the other material in the film).
Anyway, if anyone sees it who was not already staunchly conservative, I think the film may convert them.
That really depends on how stupid they are.
Ie. if they believe whatever propaganda is spoon fed into their mouths.
Well, the entire purpose of propaganda is to sway, change, or influence the opinions of the masses. So if it does “convert” a staunchly conservative individual, it is only doing what it is designed to do.