Posted on 12/12/2002 6:52:19 PM PST by Kaiwen
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Bowling for Columbine," about gun culture in America, gained momentum on Thursday as it rolls toward the Oscars, racking up the honor of best documentary of all time from the International Documentary Association.
Director Michael Moore also had the No. 3 nonfiction film on the list with his 1989 title, "Roger & Me," in which he took on automaker General Motors Corp. and its then-Chief Executive Roger Smith over a plant closure at Flint, Michigan that left thousands of employees jobless.
Coming in No. 2 was 1988's "The Thin Blue Line," about wrongful convictions in the 1976 murder of a Dallas, Texas policeman, and rounding out the top five were 1994's "Hoop Dreams" about high school basketball players and 1969's "Salesman," about four door-to-door Bible salesmen.
"All these films provide an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the human condition," said the association's executive director Sandra Ruch. "They make you think about things you might not have ever considered before."
The International Documentary Association, or IDA, was formed in 1982 to serve as a forum for documentary filmmakers, and has since grown into a respected organization for nonfiction films with some 2,700 members in 50 countries.
For the most part, documentaries are relegated to film festivals and cable television channels because the material is generally considered too cerebral for mainstream moviegoers.
But "Columbine" has been an exception, and it is considered a front-runner for this year best documentary Oscar, which is Hollywood's top film honor handed out each year in March.
"Columbine" has already scored well with audiences, tallying $12.9 million at domestic box offices, which for a documentary is a big sum.
Last week, it earned the U.S. National Board of Review honor as the year's top documentary and won audience choice award at this year's Chicago International Film Festival. Back in May, it was given a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival in France.
In "Columbine," Moore takes a wry look at the fear that seems to grip the United States and the widespread use of handguns and rifles to seemingly address that fear, even as Americans face violent crimes and murders involving guns.
Moore covers topics ranging from the shootings at Columbine high school in Colorado to the murder of a 6-year-old girl by a 6-year-old boy in Michigan, and he interviews National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston.
Oscar nominations are announced on Feb. 11, and the awards will be handed out in a gala ceremony in Los Angeles on March 23.
"Bowling for Columbine" was distributed by United Artists, a division of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. film studio.
I'll have to go rent it..
This action brings with it the same ominous foreboding as the Bancroft Prize for best historical work ... Arming America by Michael Bellesiles, now a discredited fraud forced to resign a tenured professorship. Shall the International Documentary Association go the way of the Bancroft Prize?
It's a fascinating glimpse into boxing, promotion, Africa, the 1970s, race relations, Ali, Foreman and a whole bunch more.
Why Michael Moore hates America
Moore does what he does because he is an ugly little man with serious sexual problems that have confused him all of his life. The confusion began at an early age when his mother and father would take turns fondling him to sleep each night. Later, as a teenager, Michael was trained to be a film set "fluffer" by a homosexual pornographer who took him under his wing. This is when Michael first developed his interest in filmmaking. Michael eventually ran away from home when one of his mother's boyfriends, a very fat man with a bad case of halitosis, gave Michael a painful case of anal warts. After that things go downhill for Moore and the rest is a closely guarded secret that Michael refuses to discuss.
Anyways, that's my theory about Michael Moore. This is the kind of background that could warp a person into a liar with a raging jealousy and an obsessive hatred for anything traditional or decent.
Pity, Moore can has some really good flashes of insight. But they are only flashes, and usually misdirected to support
his politics, rather than the facts.
It's a little more than self-congratulation, take it from an old publicist/PR guy. It creates a headline. From the headline a legend is created through repetition and the Big Lie technique. Pretty soon the legend is 'fact,' and is even repeated by Congress-critters when they start making appropriations. The Left has used this technique as long as I've been around and it still works like a charm. Remember Alar? Yes, it was finally discredited, but it took 500 Philadelphia lawyers and a mean mule to do it. Most of these liberal lies are never even challenged.
Where does Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian rate on the list?
It would have to be at a 'gala' ceremony, wouldn't it?
There is a difference between presenting a point of view and simply lying and falsifying footage. This is not only not the best documentary of all time, it can't even legitimately be called a documentary. If it is a documentary, then so was "Attack of the Clones."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.