DOES THIS MEAN MORE OSCARS FOR HESTON?

Congratulations, Michael Moore!

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.

Wow, front-runner? I sure hope he really wins it, though I'm not sure the Hollywood establishment would let him. But I really hope so.

As much as I may disagree with him from time to time, that movie was spot-on.

To those who have been attacking of the veracity of the film, I have two things to say:
1) Get over it, it's an incredible movie, and
2) Please attack something pertinent to the thrust of the movie's message, not fringe tidbits. This is EXACTLY like what happened when Blinded by the Right came out: Conservatives, unable to cope with the fact that Moore is, well, right, resort to trying to nibble around the edges of the movie and try to use that to undermine the movie as a whole. Hey conservatives: If Michael Moore is so wrong because a few peripheral niblets may or may not be in question, then how can Ann Coulter be right if her entire point is based on complete and utter bullshit???

You guys are a laugh-riot.