First, go vote today.
Then watch Journeys with George on HBO to laugh and find out some of the reasons why so few people will vote today and in 2004.
The documentary by Alexandra Pelosi debuts tonight at 9:30 pm on HBO (it will repeat a number of times throughout the month for the true political junkies who will be watching the election returns and will eventually be out on DVD). It was one of the hottest tickets on the festival cicuit earlier this year (and was the subject of a lot of press even before it first was shown at SXSW).
A couple of screenings were sold out during the SF International Film Festival, so I had to journey to the UC Berkeley School of Journalism to see it. I had gone to an HBO sponsored reception earlier in the week and seen Pelosi (along with her mother, Democratic House whip Nancy and others from San Francisco's political and social elite) holding the $1100 Sony camcorder she used during the campaign. But since I hadn't seen the film, I really didn't have anything to talk about with her.
The film is very funny and even someone who hates Bush's politics has to admit he is charming. He seems like he might even make a decent owner of a baseball team.
But it is really about the media and how bad the coverage of elections is. And at the Q&A after the screening Pelosi talked about how it was media criticism and she didn't think she would ever work in tv again, partly because nobody would hire her. She tried to make some of the same points on Charlie Rose on Friday (she brought her camcorder along), but Charlie liked hearing himself talk about the great relationship she had with Bush too much. So when she told him that she planned to work in television again (and had gotten offers from everyone), he didn't give her a chance to explain why.
Article comments