Journeys With George

Starring:Alexandra Pelosi
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Culled from countless hours of video and originally broadcast on HBO in November 2002, this Emmy-winning "home movie" purports to provide an "all-access pass" to George W. Bush during the 18-month haul of his 2000 presidential campaign, but it's more accurate to call this a revealing portrait of camaraderie among the campaign's roving press corps. Armed with a camcorder and her own charming personality, NBC news producer Alexandra Pelosi (youngest daughter of California Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi) captures a "Dubya" we don't often see: casual, charismatic, and (with a mouthful of junk food much of the time) rather lacking in table manners. History has turned Journeys with George into a horror film that looks like a road-trip buddy comedy. The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent war in Iraq were more than two years in the future, so this amiable cross-country jaunt now looks like a stress-free postcard from a more innocent time, enjoyable for its candor about the seemingly endless cycle of photo-ops and repetitive campaign rhetoric. What you won't get from Pelosi's video diary is any deeper insight into George W. Bush or the nascent workings of his imminent administration. As a lighter-side companion to The War Room, however, Journeys with George is must-see viewing for anyone interested in the relationship between jaded journalists and the man who would become the 43rd President of the United States. It's unlikely we'll ever see another film quite like this. --Jeff Shannon
Description
Journeys with George ia an unprecedented, all access pass to candidate George W. Bush in the months before he won the closest and most controversial presidential election in history. The documentary looks unflinchingly at the built-in conflicts, contradictions and seductions of big-time political reporting - and the tactics used by candidates to win over reporters over the course of months and months of campaigning.

Journeys With George
Average customer rating:

Send in the Clown

mixed feelings

W stands for "wink wink"

I loved it

The press attached to a political leader

Journeys With George
Starring: Alexandra Pelosi
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000YTOXU
Release Date: 2004-02-24

Amazon.com

Culled from countless hours of video and originally broadcast on HBO in November 2002, this Emmy-winning "home movie" purports to provide an "all-access pass" to George W. Bush during the 18-month haul of his 2000 presidential campaign, but it's more accurate to call this a revealing portrait of camaraderie among the campaign's roving press corps. Armed with a camcorder and her own charming personality, NBC news producer Alexandra Pelosi (youngest daughter of California Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi) captures a "Dubya" we don't often see: casual, charismatic, and (with a mouthful of junk food much of the time) rather lacking in table manners. History has turned Journeys with George into a horror film that looks like a road-trip buddy comedy. The terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the subsequent war in Iraq were more than two years in the future, so this amiable cross-country jaunt now looks like a stress-free postcard from a more innocent time, enjoyable for its candor about the seemingly endless cycle of photo-ops and repetitive campaign rhetoric. What you won't get from Pelosi's video diary is any deeper insight into George W. Bush or the nascent workings of his imminent administration. As a lighter-side companion to The War Room, however, Journeys with George is must-see viewing for anyone interested in the relationship between jaded journalists and the man who would become the 43rd President of the United States. It's unlikely we'll ever see another film quite like this. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Journeys with George ia an unprecedented, all access pass to candidate George W. Bush in the months before he won the closest and most controversial presidential election in history. The documentary looks unflinchingly at the built-in conflicts, contradictions and seductions of big-time political reporting - and the tactics used by candidates to win over reporters over the course of months and months of campaigning.

Customer Reviews:

Send in the Clown.......2007-04-18

Future historians of our era will puzzle over George W. Bush. How did a man of seemingly modest gifts and achievements find himself at the helm of the world's most powerful country? And why did he behave so strangely, alternating between grave purposefulness and breathtaking immaturity? Alexandra Pelosi's documentary of her travels with the 2000 Bush campaign will provide useful clues for future archeologists.

Though it is a political film, it contains almost nothing about issues or ideology, and only brief glimpses of tactics. But it is unmatched as a portrait of the sociology of the traveling campaign press corps and its simultaneously symbiotic/antagonistic relationship with the candidate it covers.

At first, Bush appears as a likeable, bantering prankster--more of a master of ceremonies than an aspirant to lead the free world. Like the fraternity president he once was, Bush knows how to create an atmosphere of fun. At the same time, with a slight turn in the mood or setting, he can be an alarming clown. Bush's lack of gravitas momentarily appears to be the central subject of the film.

But it is not. Bush gradually reveals himself to be a more subtle operator. "I am a student of human nature," he tells Pelosi, and the claim rings absolutely true. His jokes and jabs are anything but uncalculated--there is always an edge, either to put the recipients off-balance or to pull them closer to Bush. He uses this jocularity as a form of seduction, as does his campaign at large. The fun in the back of the press plane is not a random phenomenon but an elaborately staged bonding ritual.

Why no 5th star? Pelosi only hints at the larger implications of Bush's seduction of his traveling coterie of reporters. Did they begin to link Bush's success with their own career prospects (i.e., four years as chief White House correspondent)? If so, why didn't the same thing happen with the much more hostile pack of reporters who covered Gore? And how did this shape the result of the election? These questions remain unanswered in a documentary that remains unapologetically within the campaign's "bubble."

mixed feelings.......2007-03-08

While it was nice to see the softer side of "Dubya" for the material you're watching, it ran a bit long I think. And it definitely shows the liberal bias of the media. Alexandra Pelosi does a good job however of maintaining neutral ground, even though she does not hide her liberal leanings.

W stands for "wink wink".......2007-03-05

At the end of the year-long tour, a vaguely depressed Richard Wolffe muses that the Gore press corps went a lot harder on Gore, their critical look at the candidate coming through clearly in their stories about his campaign. "We spent a lot of time on trivial things," Wolffe says, "frankly because Bush charmed the pants off of us."

It got me wondering, re-evaluating Bush in a different light. Maybe he is a much more shrewd politician than I ever thought him to be. I always thought of him as a frat boy/puppet who did what he was told by his elders (Karen Hughes, Dick Cheney, etc.). But how much of this "charm" we see in the movie is calculated? How much effort went into charming the press away from looking closer, seeing Bush's dogma, his lack of insight or reflection, the intensity of his religious fervor which would eventually move this country away from the value of "separation of church and state." We see a flirty, goofy, 50-something frat boy who charms everyone around him. While people are laughing and winking at this charismatic fellow, he manipulates a win for the U.S. presidency. You watch this movie either laughing in surprise at his playfulness, or shaking your head in disgust at his childishness, but you don't see much of what emerges in the next two terms of his presidency. I found it a fascinating look at how politics and politicians work, underneath the facade.

I loved it.......2007-02-12

Journeys with George is the first time I had the pleasure of viewing an Alexandra Pelosi documentary. I've seen a lot of docs, but no one that I know has ever achieved such an intimate look at a president (let alone any other significant personage). On the surface Alexandra seemed naive and inexperienced while all the time she was neither and in the process of winning George's friendship she was able to capture on video a most intimate portrait of the man who is well on his way to destroying our nation.

The press attached to a political leader.......2006-12-02

This is a film mainly about the press corp attached to a political leader while he campaigns. I find it quite interesting how they follow the man around as he goes from place to place.

It well put together.

Charlie Rose with Hans Blix; Alexandra Pelosi (October 31, 2002)

Average customer rating:

Charlie Rose with Hans Blix; Alexandra Pelosi (October 31, 2002)

Manufacturer: Charlie Rose, Inc.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Description

A conversation with Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector and executive chairman of UNMOVIC, about the final Security Council resolution on Iraq. Then, filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi talks about her documentary, Journeys With George, which follows George Bush on the campaign trail in 2000.

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