Should the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences take back "Bowling for Columbine's" best documentary Oscar?

That's the contention of revoketheoscar.com, a Web site arguing that "Columbine" isn't really a documentary according to Oscar rules and so should never have been considered for an Academy Award.

Describing gadfly Michael Moore's film as "a nasty bit of anti-American propaganda," the site's anonymous sponsors maintain that the film about American gun violence violated Rule 12.1 of the academy: "An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released nonfiction motion picture."

The site argues that the film isn't nonfiction because Moore "invented facts, fabricated events, staged scenes or doctored the depiction of what actually happened."

At one point, according to the site, Moore edited footage of a "mild and conciliatory speech" by National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston, inserting footage from a different speech "to make it sound arrogant."

"The academy can reward propaganda" and "anti-Americanism, if it pleases," the site reads. "But its own rules establish that it cannot reward fiction as `best documentary.' "

The site encourages visitors to write, fax or e-mail the academy. It even provides sample letters of protest, while cautioning that writers should avoid political or gun control rants and stick to the idea that "Columbine" violates the academy's own rules.

It will be an uphill fight. An Oscar win never has been overturned (were it to happen, Kim Basinger would undoubtedly be the first for having followed up her winning performance in "L.A. Confidential" with "I Dreamed of Africa"). However the Grammy Awards people did force the two Milli Vanilli "singers" to return their statuettes. Turned out they were mainly front men for the music video; the singing was done by anonymous session musicians.

Here's the problem: Nonfiction films have for years been blurring the line between documentary and fiction. In 1988 when Errol Morris used actors for dramatic re-enactments in "The Thin Blue Line" (a film that resulted in an innocent man being freed from Texas' death row), purists took umbrage. Now such re-enactments are an accepted tool in the documentary maker's arsenal.

Similarly, Geoffrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" failed to impress the academy's documentary branch with its non-narrative, impressionistic stream of images. Twenty years later, its cinematic language has been accepted by mainstream documentarists and makers of fiction films.

Moore may very well have combined parts of two Heston speeches to make the former "Moses" look bad. But Heston did say those things, and they were recorded on video. Moore may have juxtaposed them for satiric and political effect.

Yeah, it's unfair (which has always been my main beef with Moore's methodology). But does that mean "Bowling for Columbine" is no longer a documentary?

For that matter, I don't see much evidence that the folks at www.revoketheoscar.com care all that much about documentaries or questions of fairness. This movement is more about the increasing polarization of the American public than what constitutes a nonfiction film.

Moore stirred up a hornet's nest with his Bush-bashing Oscar acceptance speech. I'd bet that the vast majority of those deluging the academy with demands to revoke Moore's Oscar aren't particularly passionate about movies in general or the integrity of the Academy Awards.

This is about revenge, pure and simple. And that's a theme with which Hollywood should be intimately familiar.