Just watched Bowling For Columbine....

[Postman]

great job Moore does pointing out the "fear" that people live with whether we are cognizant of it or not.

Marilyn Manson (sic?) points out that we are bombarded with messages about "fear" and "consumption" that inevitably have an effect on how we live our lives.

Moore does a comical connection between "Africanized Killer Bees" versus the less dangerous "European Bees" which can only be told apart by measuring their body parts. Funny and uncanny in making the connection of white people's fear of black people.

[DODI]

1. I think I am getting it for my b-day tomorrow!

I will receive the gift while my Freeper sister is present. I can't wait!!!

[MotorCityMan]

6. My birthday tomorrow, too

Happy birthday to you.

Columbine was terrific, and frightening and sad.

[DODI]

9. Happy Birthday to you too!!

[zekeson]

2. I rented it, get to watch it tonight!

[Old and In the Way]

3. Scary when Marilyn Mason makes sense.....

hard to take him serious in his custome and all, but I was rather impressed with how "normal" he was in his conversation with Mike...rather interesting perspective on the whole gun culture thing.

Strange, that B-52 monument....talk about glorifying war....almost obscene. We use to have memorials to people...now we build memroials for WMD??????WTF???? And they wonder why our kids are disturbed?

[wryter2000]

4. When it's out on DVD

My officemate is going to "refer" me to the DVD club, and I'll get it as part of my signing-up package. She'll get it as a freebie for signing me up.

[Habibi]

5. Just watched it last night myself

And yeah, I thought the correlation between "africanized bees" and his essay on black men in the news was really interesting.

I think Moore is an unusually compassionate white man. For whatever that's worth.

[swagger27]

7. Why screw with some poor guy making 6 bucks an hour.

He used to be smart and funny, but now he plays too fast and loose with the facts in favor of his ideals. There are better points to be made, and better ways to make them.

[JNelson6563]

25. better points to be made

than the American public is being manipulated by fear? The American public being distracted with fear while being severely looted? What would those be?

Julie

[calm_blue_ocean]

27. I mostly liked the movie . . .

because it raised issues that we should be talking about. Still, I got the impression where there times when Moore was playing fast and loose:

1. the mother of the six year old shooter. Why did she lose custody after the shooting?

Either the custody hearing was grossly unfair or else there was something going on in that family situation that Moore wasn't letting us in on.

2. Killer bees:

I used to laugh at those stories as a kid back in the 1970s. It was a funny as an example of ridiculous racism (a la Mark Twain), but I think that the fact that so few people took the threats seriously really shows that most people (even kids) have some level of common sense, even when it comes to African creatures.

3. Canada is only 13% minority ?!?

Did I hear that correctly? I think Moore was trying to show that Canada was about as racially diverse as the US. His statistic, if true, makes the opposite point.


Favorite moments:

Manson

"I don't see a connection . . ."

the security salesman choking up

[newyawker99]

28. Hi swagger27!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[searchingforlight]

8. I felt this was a great film.

I was intrigued by Manson's intellect.

[Maple]

10. Well being Canadian

the question that kept occurring to me...is 'what the frick is everyone so afraid of?'

It's like everyone is expecting the Visigoths to come over the hill in a full fledged attack any minute.

As far as I could tell, race seems to be a good deal of it.

[searchingforlight]

11. I thought mobility might be one of the contributors.

I don't know much about mobility in Canada. Do people move away from their home bases as often?

I think it is normal for people to feel unsettled and maybe a little afraid when they arrive in a new environment. Then that fear becomes a familiar part of life.

[Maple]

12. Yeah, mobility could be a factor

but people do move around elsewhere, including in Canada.

I don't know if it's as often though because I haven't seen figures on it.

Surely there are things to do to become part of the community though? Ways to meet people, and get involved?

Or is that a big thing there or not?

[searchingforlight]

14. It depends on the person.

There are many people whose social life is inherited for lack of a better description. They move away from that suppot society and have a very hard time getting involved in new venues. Not everyone is an extrovert.

Also architecture and modern conveniences are a factor. Many houses are built so that living is focused on the backyard (which is usually fenced). Once a person enters his/her garage which is equipped with an electric door opener, all opportunity for contact is broken off.

Air conditioning is another factor. We are a pretty outgoing family but the years we lived in FL we hardly saw our neighbors. Now that we are back in the NNE, we don't have air conditioning and neither do our neighbors. People are outside sitting on porches, playing, working in their yards, walking. There are many more opportunties to be in contact with your surroundings and neighbors.

[shugah]

16. brigadoon, brig-a-doooooon

blooming under
sable skies

brigadoon, brig-ahh-DOOOOOOOOOOON
there my heart
forever
lies

(sorry! couldn't resist.)

[searchingforlight]

18. Thank you. I have always believed Brigadoon was possible.

Though lately it has been a distant dream.

[shugah]

22. off-topic--off-topic

have you read the gabaldan books? a tenuous, but for those of us who would love to, semi-reasonable time travel link?

brigadoon, whilst loverly, would not be "it" for me (tho i'm quite sure my heart lies there). if you could go really back in time, would you choose a place that spent it's history hiding from the events of the rest of the world?

not me. i'll live in the sucky time i have to, and dream about alot in the past and future.

[Maple]

17. GGgggggnnnnnnnweeeeel

I dunno that it would make you want to blow people away.

We have fenced backyards and a/c and garages and all, but that movie astounded me with the belief that some ordinary passerby might suddenly need to be met with deadly force. And the constant vigilance.

And if there ever is a problem...doesn't anybody ever just call the cops?

I mean, that's what you pay them for.

[searchingforlight]

19. Does Canada have a vigilante history?

[Maple]

20. Hmmm. Not a lot, but some

http://www.donnellys.com/

We never had any 'lawless' frontier...our cowboys played polo actually, and the Mounties kept a strict eye on things.

But jeepers...that was a couple of centuries ago.

[shugah]

13. this is a great movie

i wonder, tho... i found the film footage of columbine very disturbing. no one talks much about that, when discussing the movie. it shows something that probably needs to be shown, but if there was a point where i would have walked out, or lost my lunch, it was during those minutes of the film.

the whole movie hit home, but those columbine minutes hit pretty hard.

note: i saw this movie in the theatre, intend to own the DVD, and recommend it to everyone i know. expressing discomfort over something i saw is not intended to, in any way, distract from the message of this film. sometimes a kick in the gut makes your brain work better.

[veganwitch]

21. the school video cameras...

ugh! i cant watch really violent movies ("put your teeth on the curb" anyone?) and was totally taken by surprise when they were showing the videos from the school cameras. but i couldnt look away either.

i saw it when it was in the theatre and thinking about those scenes still bother me

[shugah]

24. i'm glad someone saw what i did

i watched, too, and couldn't not watch.

i wonder why this very disturbing part of the film is ignored.

and it bothers me still.

[Skip Intro]

15. This actually happened while we watched the film...

First of all, I was a little frazzled and stressed because of the latest chapter in my nightmare apartment - water line broke upstairs and I arrive home from work to soaked walls, celings, carpets, big blower fans, bad, bad smell, furniture all shoved aside, and little kitty under the bed as far into a corner as a cat can get - which is how I wound up at my friend's watching BfC Wednesday...

Anyway, I thought the film was great - this was the first time I had heard that Lockheed Martin was huge as a company communities turned to to privatize welfare. The stories surrounding that issue, including the one where a 6yr old black boy shot a 6yr old white girl; the emotional time the black principal of the school had talking about that incident; the fact that the boy's mother was forced to work in the upscale hangouts of the wealthy - 60 miles away, to "earn" her government assistance, and as a result, never saw her son, were heartbreaking.

The irony of the Lockheed Martin spokesman, surrounded by missiles for the US military, at the Littleton plant, expressing his befuddlement at why kids would harm each other instead of seeking peaceful resolutions was striking.

My friend, after having a few beers while watching, had nodded off during the second half of the video. At some point before the film ended, I heard a loud banging at a door outside of the room. I grabbed my friend's arm and yelled into his wide-eyed face, "Jerry, somebody's breaking into your house!" We both jumped up and went cautiously toward the door when, there it was again - but from the bedroom door. It only took a minute to figure out that my cat, who had come to escape the apartment mess, was forcefully asking to get out. Man, I hadn't realized, 'till right then, how true it is that we Americans are scared of our own shadow - locking ourselves away in our respective dwellings, jumping at each sound, each glance, each approaching stranger, as if our lives were in immediate danger. I was a victim of the fearnews, and I discoverd that while watching this film.

I also like the Charlton Heston piece - man, "all these problems" (to quote trent lott) really boil down to race with CH, don't they? I must say tho, that I didn't really care for race generalizations from MM either - my one criticism of the film.

[Athletic Grrl]

23. You could definitely tell

that Alzheimer's has caught up to Moses. He was nothing short of befuddled. If he wasn't such a prick I'd almost feel sorry for him. I had a hard time stomaching the NRA appearances in Littleton and Flint after their communities had been affected by the horror of kids killing kids.

They made Marilyn Manson cancel his concert, but the NRA can do as it pleases? Something's not right with this picture.....

[Mz Pip]

26. Thank you Bill O'Reilly

for giving this book so much publicity. Franken couldn't have paid for better PR. :evilgrin:

MzPip
:dem: