America: The Story of Us (2010)

Sadly Over-hyped

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

If the History Channel can produce a 1000 hour program about United States history, that still would not be enough. We would have to start from Columbus for great detail but the show isn't about the discovery of land, it is about the concept of a free nation and the choices people made to survive. This documentary was made to show how the American people kept moving on from the turning points that shaped the "concept" which was built on blood and struggle.Sure they missed some key historical turning points but the show kept me interested enough that I found myself researching them online after watching an episode.Liev Schreibers narration is great as well.

When I first saw the ads for this program, I was highly interested in it and made plans to watch. After viewing the first few episodes, I couldn't stand to see any more. It would have been a really great series if they had taken it seriously and done a much better job on incorporating as much important US history as possible, even if it meant making the series longer. What they ended up doing is focusing and repeating a few events and completely leaving out others. They spent a lot of time on the Civil War and entrepeneurs such as Carnegie. It's not that those weren't important events,indeed they were, but by being so repetitive in their coverage they left out other events that deserved screen time. I never saw much mention of the War of 1812, good coverage of our forefathers and I could be wrong, but I don't think they even covered women's suffrage! If they were going to set out to create a program that truly encompassed the United States' history and its people then they should have understood what all in entailed and planned accordingly. What truly disappointed me was the face that they felt the need to use celebrity testimony instead of credible historical experts, educated people that are the backbone of this country. What do P Diddy or Sheryl Crow have to do with the study of history (other than their part in the *entertainment* aspect)? This is being shown in classrooms, I understand: is that what we should teach our children? If you want to learn history, look to our celebrities and movie stars? Completely ridiculous. I was wanting this to be an awesome series, which it could have been. Instead I ended up having my intelligence insulted and my time wasted.

I agree with the other reviewers that commentators like Sheryl Crow, P Diddy, and Michael Douglas are absurd. And while these people are far from being "experts," I have an even greater objection to people like Al Sharpton and Sean Hannity. These two, despite being on the opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, can be grouped together as because unlike the other non-experts, these 2 are dangerous; they closer to enemies of the state then "experts." Al Sharpton is an instigator, fabricator and inciter (remember Tawana Brawley?). Sean Hannity, as a high-school drop-out is undereducated and divisive figure who represents the worst of what America has to offer. In my opinion, this man (and I use the term loosely) is one of the most un-American figures in today's society. He incites racism, division, and elitism which are completely at odds with the American narrative and ideals. What in the world could they be thinking by including a man whose values are professed to be purely American, but in reality are antithetical to the core American values of charity, equality, liberty, and justice. He is what the Father of our Country, George Washington, warned us about when he warned us to be wary of "the impostures of pretended patriotism." Hannity is a self-ordained patriot who cloaks the invective he spews in Americanism and distorts what true Americans, like those who HAVE served our Country, know America is about. I would have liked to use this to stimulate historical discussion with my young daughter, but the inclusion of Sean Hannity is a deal-breaker for me. I wouldn't let this fraud teach my kids to floss, let alone let him comment about what it means to be an American. And what's the deal Margaret Cho and the guy from Pawn Stars? Cho is a comedian and one of the worst ones at that. She has no business in any history production. I don't know if the producers were desperate, to find 'celebrities' to comment, but in any case these 2 certainly don't qualify as celebrities. They should have gotten Kathy Griffin-she is head and shoulders above them, making at least to the height of the D-List. Bottom line: Save yourself time and frustration—avoid this show and read a history book.

I teach history for a living, so I wanted to watch America: The story of us to see if it would be a classroom resource worth buying. I watched 5 hours in and I simply couldn't take it anymore. The people they signed up to comment on history are simply bizarre... Sheryl Crow? P Diddy? Michael Douglas? Just because you played the President in a movie doesn't mean you're qualified to tell us about history. It looks like they spent a lot of money on CGI but chose the strangest things to produce graphics of. If you like to see graphics of hulls cutting through water, this is your show. I realize they have limited time and it's hard to get everything in there but they spent 50 minutes on the seminal moment in United States history (the Civil War) and 20 of those minutes were on embalming, photography and battlefield medicine. Ulysses S. Grant was mentioned 1 time in an advertisement, zero times during the show. Poor segues, little cohesion and little real history here.