Any friend of Friends of God is a friend of mine
Periodically over the last year I'd contact some Christian pop culture ministry to line up a visit for research, only to have them say, "Oh, we just had a gal from HBO down here." I pretty quickly found out that the gal was Alexandra Pelosi. I don't know how many of the same places we ended up visiting — Pelosi's project was not specifically focused on pop culture, the way my book is — but I'll find out tomorrow when Friends of God: A Road Trip With Alexandra Pelosi debuts.
Pelosi's insistance on shooting everything with a dinky handheld camera is a mixed blessing, as her diverting-but-not-engrossing breakthrough doc, Journeys with George, showed. It's unobtrusive, which gets her subjects to let down their guard, but the cinematic quality suffers, to say the least. Still, she's got an interesting topic here (I hope), so this should be worth a look. I used to get worried whenever something touching on my own subject matter would hit the market before mine, but my editor kept telling me that we should hope they all do well, to prove there's a audience. So go ahead and check out Friends of God tonight, and in a year or so you can see who captured the material better.
Comments
Pelosi? Any relation to the Speaker?
Posted by: Michael | January 24, 2007 6:20 PM
Her daughter.
Posted by: radosh | January 24, 2007 6:21 PM
Did you see Jesus Camp? Looked interesting, but it only played at a theatre near me for one week and I missed it.
Posted by: David John | January 24, 2007 7:07 PM
Not yet, but it's high on my Netflix queue. That's really a different world (fundamentalist) than the one Pelosi and I are exploring (evangelical). Obviously there's crossover and a kind of call and response, so I did dip my toe into it a bit, but it's not my primary focus.
Posted by: radosh | January 24, 2007 7:19 PM
I was thinking about doing something along those same lines at the next YearlyKos.
Posted by: Jim Treacher | January 24, 2007 9:33 PM
Matt Labash beat you to it.
C'mon, did you really think that no conservative has ever hung out with liberals and written scathing satirical reports? You could probably find a dozen similar stories without lifiting a finger.
Plus I can pretty much guarantee you that Pelosi is going to be a LOT less snide than Labash was (and a lot less entertaining).
Posted by: radosh | January 24, 2007 9:45 PM
Meee-OW! Is that any way to talk about a friend of Friends of God?
Posted by: Vance | January 25, 2007 10:32 AM
"C'mon, did you really think that no conservative has ever hung out with liberals and written scathing satirical reports?"
Relax!
Posted by: Jim Treacher | January 25, 2007 11:01 AM