Bowling for Columbine was crap. It has more holes than some of you guy's underwear. The editting was sloppy and ill-concealed. He just tries to hide it with the sheer force of the message.
1) In the opening bank scene, it was staged. They don't keep guns in a bank. The guns are kept in a vault 4 hours away. The ones on the wall behind the clerk are models. He also left out the part where he spent at least 1/2 an hour in the bank undergoing an FBI background check. It just looks like he walks in, fills out a slip of paper, and walks out with a gun.
2) The hunting dog video isn't so much a re-enactment as a staged video. He uses tricks like adding time/date to the corners to make it look like a real home movie. Btw, anybody that dresses up their dog & gives it a gun... deserves a darwin award.
3) The "blind guy" shoots better than I do. 9/10 on qualifiying exams and 10/10 on the re-shoot. He's not totally blind.
4) The Lockheed plant is a very poor way to make a point. The banner "IT HAS TO BE FOREIGN OBJECT FREE"? This is a gun-control flick, not lessons on how to run a factory. Moore doesn't even bother to defend the arguements he made here because it was filler that people try to hold up as some valid point, even when it doesn't make a coherent arguement.
5) He paraphrased the plaque, and didn't bother to actually say what was on it.
"B-52D Stratofortress. 'Diamond Lil.' Dedicated to the men and women of the Strategic Air Command who flew and maintained the B-52D throughout its 26-year history in the command. Aircraft 55-083, with over 15,000 flying hours, is one of two B-52Ds credited with a confirmed MIG kill during the Vietnam Conflict Flying out of U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Airfield in southern Thailand, the crew of 'Diamond Lil' shot down a MIG northeast of Hanoi during 'Linebacker II' action on Christmas Eve, 1972."
that's a bit different than:
"The plaque underneath it proudly proclaims that this plane killed Vietnamese people on Christmas Eve 1972."
6) The "History of America" cartoon 1) was done in a style pretending to be Matt Stone & Trey Parker. It wasn't done by them. They do not like Moore & refused to work on the movie. It also tries to tie the KKK to the NRA. Check the dialog & look at the fast-talking. It says that the NRA was founded in 1871, "the same year that the Klan became an illegal terrorist organization." The Klan was actually founded in 1866 in TN by ex-confederates, and the NRA was founded in NY, in 1871, by former Union officers.
7) Heston's speech clip, used to demonize him, and shown as happening 10 days after Columbine, is actually from a year later in Charlotte. "My cold dead hands".
8) To argue that Canada is very ethnically diverse, compared to America, Moore shows 3 black people in Toronto. Woo! It's a regular old melting pot there, what, with that 3% black population.
9) The only way to come up with Moore's 11,127 deaths during the country comparison is to ignore the
FBI's number's, use the National Center for Health's stat's, then, add in the figure for legally justified homicides. It's an intentional skewing of the numbers to make a point. I thought skewing the numbers in your own favor pretty much negates the point you were trying to make in the first place.
10) If the Wal-Mart scene were not faked, it was an illegal purchase of the ammunition. You have to show a driver's license Firearms Acquisition Certification. Now some of you say "whatever, he edited out him showing his ID".. well, the point of the scene is to show what an easy buy it is.
11) The Willie Horton ad was about the "revolving door" policy. It had little to do with racial profiling and fear mongering.
12) Interviewing the kids in Canada, listen to what they say. That's the exact things that sparked off Columbine to begin with.
13) Blaming the Kayle Rowland shooting on Dick Clark, because the mother worked at his grill for the work-to-welfare program.. seriously...
14) The second NRA meeting in Flint he holds up, was 8 months after the Columbine shooting. Bush & Gore were both in the area holding rallies. Moore himself had been in the area hosting rallies. Clever editing makes you think that the tragedy was used for a pro-gun rally, when it was actually a voting event.
15) The "Culture of Fear" author... he's holding up and supporting an author that criticizes sensationalized media when crime rates are falling... but isn't he criticising what Moore is actually doing?
All documentaries are slanted & biased. Some more than others. Bowling for Columbine just happens to be one of the worst.
As for cinematic value.. I wouldn't give it 5 stars. I'd give it a 3, being generous. The editing was sloppy and he does a poor job of making points. However, when you're preaching to your own choir, it's not hard to get a good score.
