Original Article on Los Angeles Times

Nearly two decades ago, D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus' documentary "The War Room" turned the strategists behind Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign into bona-fide media stars. The film's arrival on DVD and Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection in another election year is a reminder of both how much and how little things have changed. The popular image of the darkly glamorous arts of political spin owes much to these veterans of the Clinton war room (George Clooney screened the film for his "Ides of March" cast). But "The War Room" is also in many ways the product of an earlier information age, and for better or worse, a political campaign could almost certainly not be captured this way today. A pioneer of the American cinema-vrit ...(read more)