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Reviews
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Pure Fiction
As the record-low television audience that sat through Hollywood`s latest celebration of Hollywood knows, the Academy Award for a feature documentary film was given to Michael Moore`s Bowling for Columbine ?a painfully pretentious work of anti-American, anti-gun, anti-NRA propaganda.
But many don`t know that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had to violate its own rules to allow Moore to compete for, much less win, an Oscar. The Academy`s "Special Rules for the Documentary Award" define a documentary film "as a non-fiction motion picture," with the emphasis "on factual content." Bowling for Columbine miserably fails this practical test. It is a work of propaganda, pure and simple, riddled not with slovenly conducted research but with calculated dishonesty.
For example, Moore splices together two separate speeches by NRA President Charlton Heston to create the false impression that viewers are seeing a single speech given at the 1999 NRA Annual Meetings in Denver. Moore`s intent is to make NRA`s president appear insensitive to the senseless murders at Columbine High School earlier that year in nearby Littleton.
To further his lie, Moore depicts President Heston raising a musket at the Denver meeting and delivering his familiar line "from my cold dead hands." The facts?that President Heston was actually filmed one year later and 1,354 miles away in Charlotte, N.C.?aren`t something Moore cares to document.
The deception continues with Moore repeatedly referring to the Denver meetings as pro-gun rallies. He fails to document the well-known fact that out of respect for the families victimized at Columbine, NRA canceled all events and meetings in Denver except those required the Association`s bylaws and laws regarding not-for-profit corporations.
No lie is too poisonous for Michael Moore. He actually tries to make viewers believe that NRA makes a habit of holding rallies in the wake of tragic shootings. After failing to document that NRA`s Denver meetings were scheduled years in advance, Moore jumps to a Michigan campaign rally, claiming: "just as he did after the Columbine shooting, Charlton Heston showed up in Flint, to have a big pro-gun rally." Moore wants viewers to believe the Flint rally took place immediately following the shooting death of child in a local classroom. In fact, the rally took place eight months later during the regular campaign season.
Another outrageous sequence in Moore`s supposedly "non-fiction motion picture," tries to associate NRA with the Ku Klux Klan and depicts an NRA member assisting in a Klan cross burning. The rationale? NRA was founded in 1871?the year the KKK was declared an illegal organization. The absurd connection is intentional. It`s Michael Moore`s idea of humor.
An honest documentary would record that NRA was founded by former Union Army officers who fought a war to bring an end to slavery. It would record that Civil War veteran Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside was the Association`s first president. It would record that the man who signed the act making the Klan an illegal organization later became NRA`s eighth president?Ulysses S. Grant.
A true documentary would note that NRA`s early history was written by figures who had not only fought to end slavery, but who would later oppose the persecution of freedmen. Such a man would assume command of the Fifth Military District, and he would then remove governors in Texas and Louisiana for failing to oppose the KKK. That man later became NRA`s ninth president?Gen. Philip H. Sheridan.
Bowling for Columbine is a compilation of deceit piled upon deceit?facts omitted, time lines distorted, and editing tricks employed to present a false view o f American culture in general and the "gun culture" and NRA in particular. And yet, no matter how shameless its deceptions, no matter how brazen its lies, Moore`s propaganda film does have its fans, including the Brady Campaign.
When Moore`s Oscar nomination was announced, the gun-ban group was "very pleased" that " Bowling for Columbine is receiving the acclaim it deserves." The Brady bunch fell silent, however, in the days following Moore`s win. Possibly they found him less appealing after his tasteless Oscar acceptance speech. Unable to resist a captive audience, the self-indulgent Moore railed against the war in Iraq and President Bush. He may have been warmly received by the Hollywood millionaires in the Kodak Theater, but the poseur-populist was booed loudly by the stagehands actually working the event. A clear message was sent.
As more and more Americans catch on to the deceit that is Bowling for Columbine , its maker will have to seek out a more gullible audience. The Wall Street Journal`s John Fund provides a road map: "Mr. Moore is naturally a big hit among the French. The jury at the Cannes Film Festival created a special, one-time only award to honor his film and then gave it a 13-minute standing ovation." Most Americans would gladly say, Au revoir, Monsieur Moore!
7th Heaven (1996)
Good character development with one exception
My little Filipina wife is crazy about this show, so sometimes I watch it too.
All of the characters in the family are well developed and have their own personalities. The good elder brother who can be relied on, the black sheep oldest sister who provides the drama of the show as she screws up again and again and gets punished, The pre-teen middle sister, Simon the blond brother who is smart, Ruthie the cutesy little girl and Simon's shadow.
My one gripe about this show is that the character of Happy the Dog has not been developed. I haven't seen any episode centering around Happy. Does he ever run away, eat a bug, poop on the floor, or bark at the moon? If the writers fixed this flaw they would have a gem of a show.
7th Heaven (1996)
Good character development with one exception
My little Filipina wife is crazy about this show, so sometimes I watch it too.
All of the characters in the family are well developed and have their own personalities. The good elder brother who can be relied on, the black sheep oldest sister who provides the drama of the show as she screws up again and again and gets punished, The pre-teen middle sister, Simon the blond brother who is smart, Ruthie the cutesy little girl and Simon's shadow.
My one gripe about this show is that the character of Happy the Dog has not been developed. I haven't seen any episode centering around Happy. Does he ever run away, eat a bug, poop on the floor, or bark at the moon? If the writers fixed this flaw they would have a gem of a show.
Das Schloß (1968)
A Film I was Forced to Watch in the Army
When did I see this film? As a new recruit in the IDF, January 1977. Before I even started basic training I was sent to an army Hebrew course to improve my Hebrew. One night the corporal informed us we would get to see a movie, "The Castle." As the movie unfolded in its incomprehensible complexity, most of the soldiers wanted to leave, but the corporal would not let us. So I had to see the entire movie, which has very little plot, and no sense at all.
Why didn't the young man simply leave when he found out how crazy the village was? Why does he insist on staying there? I would have run from this place as if the Hound of Hell was after me.
Goodbye America (1997)
Provides interesting commentary on American - Filipina Relations
The sailors and airmen of the U.S. bases in the Philippines at first thought the Filipinas they met in the bars there were nothing more than little brown sex toys. Filipinas, however, have a way of getting under a man's skin. Between 1972 and 1992 23,000 of these little brown sex toys became wives of American servicemen returned home with them, and are now living the American dream as middle class wives and mothers. One of the protagonists in this movie must choose between his Filipina sweetheart and his cheerleader American girlfriend.