by Jayne Lyn Stahl

If the reaction of the audience tells you anything about the quality of a film, and I think it does, then "The U.S. Versus John Lennon" is, by far, among the best documentaries to come along in a long time.   On Superbowl Sunday, in a small movie theatre in Ojai, a town eighty miles northwest of Los Angeles, on rural main street America that was among the last on its block to stubbornly display Old Glory, as well as the requisite "Bush / Cheney" bumper stickers for years after 9/ll, the disgust with the Iraq war, and the misadventures of the Bush years filled the auditorium; it was palpable,and electrifying.

"Declare Peace," John Lennon's words, some forty years ago, right after the U.S. invasion of Vietnam, still resonate. His and Yoko's bed-in as poignant, and relevant now as it was nearly thirty years ago. You'd think we'd have learned by now, wouldn't you? You'd think, as Lennon was later to say at a press conference, "Time wounds all heals." But, there are some wounds even time can't heal like the gaping one left by the echo of bullets that rang out on a curiously sunny, and spineless December day, twenty six years ago, in front of an apartment building in Manhattan, a horror even the neighborhood rats have yet to process.

Time may not heal, but art will, and if you don't believe that, and if you've yet to see "The U.S. versus John Lennon," a riveting documentary, do yourself a favor and go see it. Especially for those of us who think comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam are exaggerated, or thought so at one time. The rhetoric, the distortion, the recipe for disaster has deja vu written all over it.

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written by a guest, February 06, 2007

I watched the film and looking at what happened many years ago, which was so dramatic for the times, is not dramatic anymore. How we've grown but not to the capacity of capibility. We're coming into some interesting times!

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