posted
There's one thing that troubles me, and I don't know why. It's about the whole thing where Bush stays in that classroom. I don't actually know how I feel about it. What was he supposed to do? Rush out of the classroom? Terrify all those kids? I don't know why he did it, I haven't seen the film of the incident. How much can he actually have been told in a brief whispered conversation? Or did the people who pull his strings give him a message that contained the edited highlights and an instruction to finish the appearance. Of course, maybe he's so stupid he failed to grasp the implications, and wanted to know how that story he was reading to the kids ended!
quote:Originally posted by Veers: But "Bowling" makes a good point, you have to admit. Some parts w/Chuck Heston were edited and I've heard that the scene in the bank was set up...but it asked a piviotal question: why do we love guns so much? Also, see "Roger and Me."
Does "Bowling" really make a good point, or is that what you interpretted from watching it? What in it is truthful and what is not? People are too gullable, I feel. Most people I know who have seen it, especially being that we live in Michigan where a lot of Moores crap takes place, thought this movie was just plain funny.
A guy I work with really hates Moore because he distort the truth so much. He found this article/column and has it hanging in his cubical, so I thought I would contribute it.
quote: He calls Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft the "real axis of evil." He blamed 9-11 attacks on too many White people and not enough Black men on the planes.
And in his Oscar Night diatribe, film-maker Michael Moore used his win of an Academy Award to rant against a "fictitious" President Bush, "fictitious election results," and the War on Iraq, which he claimed was for "fictitious reasons."
"We live in fictitious times," he said when picking up the award for best documentary for his anti-gun film "Bowling for Columbine."
And Michael Moore should know. Because everything from his "working-class Joe" persona to his so-called documentary, for which he won the award, is largely fictitious.
Michael Moore is the master of the truly fictitious.
His public persona is that of an anti-corporate crusader from working-class Flint, Michigan, who wears a constant uniform of slouchy jeans, a plaid shirt and a Detroit Tigers baseball cap. But the real Michael Moore rides in limos and lives in a swanky $1.2 million Manhattan apartment. Moore�s "blue collar bonhomie" is bunk.
According to Detroit Free Press film critic Terry Lawson, Moore�s first documentary, "Roger and Me" featured manipulated facts and the breaking of established documentary rules.
Then there�s his "documentary," "Bowling for Columbine."
Documentary might not be the best word for this manipulative piece of cinematic celluloid. "Fictitious," Moore�s current term of choice, would be more accurate.
That includes the title. Moore says he chose "Bowling for Columbine" because Columbine High mass murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold attended a bowling class the morning of the massacre. Reality check: Jefferson County Sheriffs, who investigated the killings, say they skipped the class that day, and have the attendance sheets and blank bowling scoring sheets to prove it. Had Moore bothered to check the official report of the police investigation, he�d have known that. But why bother with the facts when you�re the fictitious Michael Moore?
Moore�s vehement anti-war ideology gets the best of his fact-checking capabilities. His film implies Harris and Klebold had violent tendencies because of "weapons of mass destruction" produced by a Lockheed Martin assembly plant in their hometown of Littleton. "Bowling" actually features footage of giant rocket assembly to make the point. But, according to Daniel Lyons in Forbes Magazine, Lockheed Martin�s Littleton plant makes space launch vehicles for TV satellites, not weapons.
And Moore�s anti-gun fervor also trumps the facts. He stages an event at North Country Bank and Trust in Michigan�s Traverse City, claiming that opening an account would entitle one to walk out of the bank with a gun in hand. The film shows him doing just that. But the key word is "staged." In reality, the bank does not provide guns for opening accounts, and you can�t walk in or out of the bank with one�unless you�re a security guard employed by the bank. The gun is one of several "giveaways" that can be chosen by customers in exchange for opening a CD account. In order to qualify for the gun, customers must open a 3-year CD with at least $5,000 and then must pass a background check for the gun, which can only be picked up at a licensed gun dealer.
Arguably, the worst fiction in Moore�s documentary is visited upon Hollywood Producer Dick Clark. Moore confronts Clark, trying to ask him question and accusing him of responsibility for the 2000 fatal shooting of 6-year-old Kayla Rowland of Mount Morris Township, Michigan, by her classmate, at Buell Elementary School.
Moore blames the shooting on Michigan�s work-to-welfare program, which he claims prevented the shooter�s mother, Tamarla Owens, from spending time with him. And he blames Clark, because Owens work-to-welfare job was at his "American Bandstand" restaurant at an area mall.
But Clark and the work-to-welfare program had nothing to do with it. Owens, who had three children with three different fathers and was once charged as a drug dealer, married a convicted drug dealer. Before the shooting. abandoned her son, turning him over to her brother, who lived in a flop house rife with stolen guns and ammunition, where drug deals went on at all hours. Michigan�s Family Independence Agency reported that she was a poor mother, and she later lost custody of all three children, two of them permanently.
Blaming the shooting of a classmate by Owen�s son on Dick Clark is nothing short of outrageous.
But that�s Michael Moore. A fictitious man living in a fictitious time. With a fictitious, Academy Award winning "documentary." As Brian Rohrbough, whose son Daniel died at Columbine, said, "This is just a guy trying to capitalize on the tragedy of others."
Moore�s latest best-selling book is "Stupid White Men. . . and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation," As they say, it takes one to know one. But the stupidest and sorriest are not Moore and those he writes about, but those who fall for his propaganda.
I mean, granted the article comes across rather extreme, but it does echo some of the same tendencies of the previous articles posted.
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quote: I mean, granted the article comes across rather extreme, but it does echo some of the same tendencies of the previous articles posted.
It also looks like it gets its "facts" entirely entirely from Forbes' carefuly crafted character assasination of Moore. This article is not a direct response, but it does go into specific detail about how two of the claims in particular (that the bank episode was staged, and the part about the welfare mom) are false.
quote:It also looks like it gets its "facts" entirely entirely from Forbes' carefuly crafted character assasination of Moore.
So turnabout is fair play then?
The hell of it is, I was blown away by Bowling when it first came out (and probably raved about it here) untill I realised who manipulative it was with the facts.
I personally enjoy real documentaries and would suggest everyone just watch Frontline's documentaries on 9/11 instead of fueling Moore's ego and further ability to make such slanted films.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Of course they're slanted. Just like a documentary about World War II is going to be slanted against Germany, Italy, and Japan.
The question is not whether they're slanted. The question is whether they're true. And since the "debunkers" seem to be saying things that are obviously false, I still feel rather inclined to give Moore the benefit of the doubt.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
What's "obviously false"? The biggest complaint I've seen on Moore is his re-editing of interviews ro make people look misleading or uncooperative (and he's definitely guilty of this).
It's like watching the Simpsons episode where Homer goes on TV to defend being accused of sexual harassment.
I could quote your last post to read "Of course they're slanted, just like any documentary about Japan." Makes you sound like a tad racist, doesnt it? Not that you really said that, but I can "creativly slant" your words to say whatever I'd like and call it a documentary.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Oh no! The movie title was a reference to a fascism-criticizing novel, written by someone who is not Michael Moore! He's a plagiatoristarianistine! And his name means sandnigger!
Registered: Aug 1999
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I didn't say that. You're the one arguing that Moore is guilty of deliberate distortions, not me. I've known him to be mistaken, or to take a stance I disagree with, but never to knowingly lie.
quote: What's "obviously false"? The biggest complaint I've seen on Moore is his re-editing of interviews ro make people look misleading or uncooperative (and he's definitely guilty of this).
The complaints that he is doing this are what is "obviously false." You say he is "definately guilty," but I have yet to see any evidence of it.
Of course, I'm not particularly a fan of his, or a student of his career, so it's possible I've missed one. But as in the article I cited, accusations that he distorts the truth always seem to turn out to be distortions themselves. If that bank manager was willing to work with Forbes to deliberately discredit him, why not your congressman?
Convince me. Give me the name of your congressman and I'll look into it. Which network did you see him on?
posted
I saw the congressman on CNN- it was a short blurb but it got the point across. Moore said he would'nt apologise for the "interview" because the congressman never actually made any statement. The clip showed Moore asking the congressman questions and then the congressman looking stumped. In the actual interview, the congressman answered all Moore's questions- that was the part that was edited out.
I'd really love to just watch Moore's work and believe what he's trying to say as fact, but I just cant.
I'll see if I can dig up the CNN blurb though.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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"Moore places blame for a shooting by a child in Michigan on the work-to-welfare [sic] program that prevented the boy's mother from spending time with him. ACTUALLY: Moore doesn't mention that mom had sent the boy to live in a house where her brother and a friend kept drugs and guns."
I've seen the movie. Moore does mention exactly that. I mean, that's like saying "Moore doesn't mention Charlton Heston" or "Moore doesn't mention Columbine High School".
As for the other falsities that are perhaps not so obvious, I suggest reading Moore's own rebuttal.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
And just to prove I'm not making anything up, I've popped in the Bowling for Columbine DVD, and here's exactly what Moore says about the first-grade shooter:
"Back in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, a six-year-old first-grade boy at Buell Elementary had found a gun at his uncle's house, where he was staying because his mother was being evicted."
...
"...one week before the shooting [his mother, Tamarla] was told by her landlord that he was evicting her. With nowhere to go, and not wanting to take her two children out of school, Tamarla asked her brother if they could stay with him for a few weeks. It was there that Tamarla's son found a small, 32-caliber gun and took it to school."
Admittedly, I didn't find a reference to any drugs (assuming there actually were any). But, that doesn't seem really important, since drugs weren't actually involved in the child's shooting, and it was made pretty clear that his mother didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, anyway.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Lee: There's one thing that troubles me, and I don't know why. It's about the whole thing where Bush stays in that classroom. I don't actually know how I feel about it. What was he supposed to do? Rush out of the classroom? Terrify all those kids? I don't know why he did it, I haven't seen the film of the incident. How much can he actually have been told in a brief whispered conversation? Or did the people who pull his strings give him a message that contained the edited highlights and an instruction to finish the appearance. Of course, maybe he's so stupid he failed to grasp the implications, and wanted to know how that story he was reading to the kids ended!
There are ways to leave the room and not terrify grade-school children.
Mr. Bush could have stood up and said in a calm voice something like, 'Ok children, you are all wonderful readers, keep up the good work. I'm sorry I have to leave, but I have to go be president now.'
Instead, even though he knew one plane had hit the Towers before he went into the classroom, when Mr. Card came out and told him, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.", he just sat there listening to the kids.
-------------------- Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war. ~ohn Adams
Once again the Bush Administration is worse than I had imagined, even though I thought I had already taken account of the fact that the Bush administration is invariably worse than I can imagine. ~Brad DeLong
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Gosh. mabye he was in shock or something: I sure as fuck was and i'm just a guy in florida.
Everyone I know was in shock- to be so critical of the president during one of the most insane and confusing moments in american history (regardless of how you view Bush) is just bullshit.
It's not as though Moore would have done any better, that's for certain.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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