'Bowling for Columbine' on video
Michael Moore's Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine" is available on DVD and VHS tomorrow. You can rent it or you can order it through Michael Moore's Website or through amazon.com (click here for DVD or here for VHS).
According to an e-mail I received from Moore (I am on his e-mailing list), "Bowling for Columbine" grossed almost $22 million in North America and $35 million overseas. (The previous box-office record for a documentary, he states, was $7 million.) He writes in his e-mail that it took so long for "Bowling for Columbine" to come out on video because it was in the theaters for so long because it did so well.
I have yet to see the DVD (I saw the film twice during its theatrical release), but according to Moore's e-mail, the DVD extras include: material on Moore's controversial appearance at the Academy Awards in March ("Bowling for Columbine" won Best Documentary); footage of an appearance Moore made in Denver, near Columbine, six months after the film's release; Marilyn Manson's video "Fight Song"; a half-hour interview with Moore on "The Charlie Rose Show"; "Mike's Action Guide" (material on how to get involved); the original three-minute trailer; and "The 'Bowling for Columbine' Teacher's Guide," which includes materials that teachers can download and print with computers that have DVD-ROM.
Here is the review of "Bowling for Columbine" that I posted on Oct. 15, 2002 (as tempting as it is to make improvements, except for a few small technical details, this is how the review originally appeared):
Film review
"From my cold dead hands": National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston in a still from Michael Moore's new film
Bowling for Columbine
Michael Moore couldn’t have asked for a better promotion of his new documentary on gun violence in America than the recent sniper shootings in the Northeast. No one else will say it, but it’s true; it’s difficult not to think of the sniper shootings after having seen Moore’s new film, and no doubt the sniper shootings will compel people to see it.
Saturday night I had the rare opportunity to see a film and hear its writer-director talk about it when Moore came to Sacramento for a benefit screening of “Bowling for Columbine,” which opened in New York City and Los Angeles on Friday and will open nationwide later this month. (Why Moore came here to Sacramento on Saturday when his film had just opened in New York City and Los Angeles the day before I am not sure. He did say that when his television program “TV Nation” was on the air, for reasons that baffle him, Sacramento consistently showed up at No. 2 on the ratings.)
“Bowling for Columbine” is difficult to describe. In his new film Moore has woven together a series of elements, most of them dealing with gun violence, others of them dealing with the more general concept of fear, and still others of them dealing with seemingly disparate subjects (such as Africanized killer bees).
Moore's film includes a short interview with shock rocker Marilyn Manson, who was accused of having influenced the two students who committed the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado; actual surveillance-camera footage of the Columbine High School shootings; a segment in which Moore helps two survivors of the Columbine shootings, one of them in a wheelchair, seek justice from Kmart, from where the Columbine shooters obtained their ammunition; a segment in which Moore opens a bank account and the bank gives him a rifle as part of its promotion; an interview with “South Park” co-creator Matt Stone; an interview with a former producer of the TV program "COPS" in which Moore asks why the program shows predominantly black and Latino men being arrested although corporate criminals steal far more from Americans; clips of National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston’s speeches at NRA events and a climactic ambush interview with Heston at his Beverly Hills estate; and my favorite part of the film, a cartoon short titled “A Brief History of the United States of America,” which is narrated by an animated bullet. Moore frequently compares the level of violence in the U.S. to that in other countries, especially Canada, and, you guessed it, the U.S. is No. 1.
Moore's film is all over the place, but even with the Africanized killer bees, Moore somehow manages to make his hodgepodge of a film work.
Perhaps the most poignant part of “Bowling” is the segment on the 2000 shooting death of a 6-year-old white girl by a black male classmate who had brought a handgun to school in Michigan. While at the time of the shooting the mainstream media focused on how irresponsible the mother of the boy who brought the gun to school must have been, Moore digs deeper. He reveals that she had to work more than one job in order to pay off the welfare that she had received but that she still couldn’t pay rent, that she did not see her son much because of her heavy work schedule, and that because she was evicted she was staying at a relative’s house, where her son found the gun. (There is even a link to Dick Clark, but I won't go into it, other than saying that I'll never think of "American Bandstand" the same way again.) This peeling back of the layers of why is exactly what Americans refuse to do, perhaps most notably in regards to the terrorist attacks of September 2001 (which Moore also features in his film).
“Bowling for Columbine” is typically Moorian. Moore is a liberal social commentator, so don’t expect objectivity. Moore is a man with a mission, which too many reviewers don’t seem to get. (See salon.com’s rather disappointing review, for instance. Salon has pilloried Moore also for real and/or imagined inaccuracies in his bestselling book Stupid White Men. Salon's problem with Moore -- aside from the fact that Moore and Salon's head honcho, David Talbot, had a falling out several years ago -- seems to be that while the Starbucks-sipping liberals at Salon talk about helping the disadvantaged, Moore actually rolls up his sleeves and does it.)
Anyway, at least when Moore goes overboard or gets sloppy with his facts, whether in his films, books or television programs, he is championing the little guy, erring on the side of the underdog.
All of that said, I do have some minor problems with “Bowling for Columbine”:
I have to wonder if the emotion that Moore displays while comforting the survivors of gunshot victims in his film is as genuine as we are supposed to believe. While I believe that Moore is genuinely concerned about the issue of gun violence, or he wouldn’t have spent three years making his film, I can’t help but wonder whether during those moments he was filmed comforting people he was also very aware that he was getting great material for his film.
And even though it's clear that he has an agenda, while watching “Bowling” at times it feels as though Moore is pushing too hard, such as when he leaves behind a picture of the little girl who was killed by her classmate as he leaves Heston’s residence. Going too far risks losing those whom you might otherwise have convinced.
As the end credits rolled Saturday night, Moore re-entered the movie theater and received a second standing ovation from the packed movie-theater audience (his first standing ovation was when he made a brief appearance inside the theater before the film began). He then generously spent about an hour answering questions.
The most intelligent question came from an audience member who stated that most gun-related deaths in the United States take place in the homes of the guns’ owners and then asked Moore why he did not include this angle in his film.
The audience expected a good answer, but Moore answered coyly, "I forgot." The audience laughed; Moore had disarmed them. He went on to explain that at 1 hour and 58 minutes, his film was long enough and he could not include in his film every aspect of gun violence in the United States.
That is true (although it might seem to some that he did indeed include in his film every aspect of gun violence in the United States). But more likely than that he forgot to include that angle, I think, is that a depressed widower blowing his brains out in his own home, say, is not as sensationalistic as, say, the shootings at Columbine or the recent sniper shootings in the Northeast.
Anyway, despite its flaws, "Bowling for Columbine" is a solid film. "A Brief History of the United States of America" alone makes it worth seeing.
My grade: A
Note: Clips from "Bowling for Columbine," including the hilarious animated short "A Brief History of the United States of America," are available at http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/media/clips/index.php.
9:45:36 PM 
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