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Michael Moore's fourth (and best) feature film, Bowling For Columbine is both entertaining and important. Is this film made in the open, and unbiased vision of great documentary filmmakers like the Maysles brothers? No. Is the film without manipulation and tricky editing techniques? Perhaps. Could this even be considered a true non-fiction documentary? Probably not. Is it still entertaining and thought-provoking? Absolutely! Sure Moore takes some unfair jabs at some of his subjects, but the determination, and cleverness behind it all, make Bowling For Columbine one of the funniest and most important American films of the decade. Moore attacks the likes of media, the TV Show Cops, Charlton Heston, Dick Clark, and more, while interestingly defending Marylin Manson and Canada, a country with more guns per household yet a 10th of the gun-related deaths. Moore's goal of the film is not to find out why American's carry guns, but rather why we shoot them at each other? In this search for answers Moore sees (among other things) how TV news focuses on violence, and though the murder rate is down 20%, the coverage of violence on TV news is up 600%. I think this is a very important film Americans to see. It's especially fascinating in it's examination of the American psyche of fear (capped off by a wonderful animation segment called 'Brief History of United States' which is a minor masterpiece of it's own).
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