People,Places and Things
NEW YORK — More than a decade has passed since Michael Moore released his pro-gun control documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” and the director says he’s saddened that the nation has not made enough strides toward ending violence in schools.
“I never thought I would have to, a decade later, stand here and say that that film of mine did no good. That to me is personally heartbreaking,” Moore said Tuesday night while on the red carpet at National Board of Review Awards.
His 2002 documentary, which won an Academy Award, was inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School shootings in Colorado.
Moore says he has no interest in making a film about last month’s shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that left 20 children and six adults dead.
“No, I’ve made the film I wanted to make with ‘Bowling for Columbine.’ Every word in stands true to this day, which is the saddest thing,” he said.
The Sandy Hook tragedy has reignited the national debate on guns; President Barack Obama has appointed Vice President Joseph Biden to help come up with a solution.
The “Fahrenheit 9/11” filmmaker said that certain weapons need to be banned, and gun ownership should always require a license.
“The short-term solution is we have to ban the assault weapons, ban the semiautomatic weapons, ban the magazines that can hold more than 10 bullets. That’s it. That should be the bottom line of what we need to start with,” he said. “We should be licensing everybody with a gun. I have to have a license for my dog. I have to have a license for my car. If you’re going to do my hair later you have to have a license ... We don’t require a license to own a firearm?”
He also said America’s violence issue runs much deeper than gun control laws.
STRATFORD, Conn. — Veteran stage and TV actor Ed Asner has returned to the American Shakespeare Theater in Connecticut to help lead a fundraiser to restore the celebrated stage.
The Connecticut Post reports that Asner, who played TV journalist Lou Grant on “The Mary Tyler Moore” show in the 1970s, came to Stratford on Tuesday to help raise money for the Stratford Center for the Arts and Stratford Arts Commission.
Asner appeared at the theater in the summer of 1959 in the “The Merry Wives of Windsor.”
He told a gathering he was saddened to see the theater’s demise and urged backers to work to restore it.
The theater’s last full season was 1982 and has been struggling since, surviving for a time on state grants.
The property is now owned by the town of Stratford.
BURLINGTON, Vt. — Jazz musician and Pulitzer Prize winner Wynton Marsalis will be the University of Vermont’s commencement speaker this spring.
The 51-year-old father of a UVM student is the managing and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City.
He is known as a bandleader, composer, educator but first won acclaim for his trumpet playing, winning Grammys for both jazz and classical music in the same year, 1983.
The Burlington Free Press reports that he was the first musician to win the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1997 for his oratorio composition, “Blood on the Fields.” He’s also written six books and performed in 30 countries.