Haleigh explained the main theme of The U.S. v. John Lennon very clearly, giving a concise, but detailed summary. I understand the main theme of the documentary to be John Lennon’s antiwar activism and the government’s attempts to silence him. In a 1966 interview, Lennon said that his band meant more to kids than Jesus, which provoked boycotts. Lennon later claimed that his words were blown out of proportion and that he was entitled to his rights. In 1965 President Johnson doubled the draft, and Lennon was quoted calling the government insane. He later met a Japanese singer, Yoko Ono, whom he married. On their honeymoon in Amsterdam, they staged a bed-in where reporters interviewed them in bed with the signs “hair piece” and “bed peace” over them. Later, they created the ‘Bag Event’ in Austria, where they interviewed with bags over their heads to ensure total communication. John’s activist transformation was expressed through the Beatles’ music, especially the song Revolution and Give Peace a Chance, the anthem for the antiwar movement. When Nixon invaded Cambodia and four students were killed at Kent State, Lennon wrote the song Imagine. He also protested the war through “The War is Over, If You Want It” posters. The FBI had a problem with Lennon’s more violent associations, such as the leader of the Black Panthers. They started monitoring his phone conversations after John St. Clair was set free after Lennon’s participation in a 1971 Freedom Rally. A deportation notice was given to Lennon in 1972 due to his possession of drugs in the 1960’s in England; a few years later, he was finally given a green alien card. In 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his home.
Haleigh paced her review very well; it was slow enough to process the facts, but did not lag. I could hear her very well; there was no background noise and she spoke clearly and projected. Haleigh obviously spent a lot of time writing and preparing a script for her review. There were no unnecessary pauses in her dialect, indicating that she familiarized herself with her script before taping.
Haleigh seemed both well-informed and confident. She gave specific facts, figures and dates when summarizing the documentary. She spoke with no hesitation and did not slouch.
One argument Haleigh made was that Nixon began his deceitfulness before the Watergate Scandal when he was secretly updated on Lennon’s immigration trial, despite its irrelevancy to his presidency. An important fact is that the 26th amendment was passed during this time period, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. This concerned the Nixon administration because teenagers made up most of Lennon’s fan base and would, therefore, vote against Nixon.
The film sounds very interesting, especially since I do not know a lot about the Beatles or Lennon’s antiwar activism. The only weakness Haleigh identified was the film’s bias, which favored Lennon. Though the directors tried to balance this bias with interviews from Nixon’s administration, the film still came across as sympathetic to Lennon.
Haleigh presented her review very well. She chose a nice background to film against, had steady camera work and made an effort to look nice and neat for her video. Overall, it was a great review.
I think that Haleigh explained the premise of the film well. I got the overall point of what it was about, although I would have appreciated a short summary sentence like “The film US v. Lennon is about the transformation from John Lennon’s musical career to his role as a political activist.” I did find myself Googling the film title to see what the tagline and synopsis was. However, once I saw that, everything else that Haleigh said made sense and supported the plot, and I found her giving some of the details very helpful, because in a documentary like this, I feel like a lot of it could be generalized in a few sentences, so I appreciated the specific examples and things they had in the actual documentary. I understood the main theme to be the transformation of John Lennon from music artist to political activist. The pacing of the podcast was good, a teensy bit slow at times, but seeing as how I was watching it and really analyzing what she was saying for this critique, the pacing worked quite well for me. The volume was a little low, but I just turned up the volume on my computer (which may have been my fault that it wasn’t up all the way), and it was fine. She seemed very well prepared, and knew what she was going to say, however she did, at times, seem to be reading off of a script. However, the content and order was very understandable, so the script worked out fine, and wasn’t very distracting. She definitely seemed informed and seemed like she understood what the documentary was about. She seemed fairly confident, although she did seem to rely on the script a fair amount. I knew about the conflict at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago before seeing Haleigh’s podcast, from hearing my uncle talk about it, because he was there, and from seeing a History Detectives episode on PBS about an anti-war poster. This sort of was brought full circle when she talked about how John and Yoko printed and released the “War is over if you want it to be” posters, because I was already thinking about the anti-war poster with a picture of a cop and the word “pig” under it from the HD episode. I did not know that Lennon came to a peace rally in Ann Arbor. I thought that was pretty cool. I also had no idea that the government was following Lennon and tapping his phone conversations. I knew that he was politically active, but I had no idea that the US government saw him as such a threat that they decided it was necessary to tap his phone. I also did not know that he was served deportation papers. The film did sound very interesting. I am really intrigued by that entire tumultuous time period and the huge amount of protest and change that was happening. It sounded like the weaknesses of the film were that it showed some bias in favoring John Lennon over the politicians and US government. However, I was impressed that Haleigh said that the director attempted to counteract that bias by interviewing people from Richard Nixon’s administration. There was not any other specific stylistic points, although I do think the colorful background of her room added a nice touch.
Haleigh explained the main theme of The U.S. v. John Lennon very clearly, giving a concise, but detailed summary. I understand the main theme of the documentary to be John Lennon’s antiwar activism and the government’s attempts to silence him. In a 1966 interview, Lennon said that his band meant more to kids than Jesus, which provoked boycotts. Lennon later claimed that his words were blown out of proportion and that he was entitled to his rights. In 1965 President Johnson doubled the draft, and Lennon was quoted calling the government insane. He later met a Japanese singer, Yoko Ono, whom he married. On their honeymoon in Amsterdam, they staged a bed-in where reporters interviewed them in bed with the signs “hair piece” and “bed peace” over them. Later, they created the ‘Bag Event’ in Austria, where they interviewed with bags over their heads to ensure total communication. John’s activist transformation was expressed through the Beatles’ music, especially the song Revolution and Give Peace a Chance, the anthem for the antiwar movement. When Nixon invaded Cambodia and four students were killed at Kent State, Lennon wrote the song Imagine. He also protested the war through “The War is Over, If You Want It” posters. The FBI had a problem with Lennon’s more violent associations, such as the leader of the Black Panthers. They started monitoring his phone conversations after John St. Clair was set free after Lennon’s participation in a 1971 Freedom Rally. A deportation notice was given to Lennon in 1972 due to his possession of drugs in the 1960’s in England; a few years later, he was finally given a green alien card. In 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed outside his home.
ReplyDeleteHaleigh paced her review very well; it was slow enough to process the facts, but did not lag. I could hear her very well; there was no background noise and she spoke clearly and projected. Haleigh obviously spent a lot of time writing and preparing a script for her review. There were no unnecessary pauses in her dialect, indicating that she familiarized herself with her script before taping.
Haleigh seemed both well-informed and confident. She gave specific facts, figures and dates when summarizing the documentary. She spoke with no hesitation and did not slouch.
One argument Haleigh made was that Nixon began his deceitfulness before the Watergate Scandal when he was secretly updated on Lennon’s immigration trial, despite its irrelevancy to his presidency. An important fact is that the 26th amendment was passed during this time period, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. This concerned the Nixon administration because teenagers made up most of Lennon’s fan base and would, therefore, vote against Nixon.
The film sounds very interesting, especially since I do not know a lot about the Beatles or Lennon’s antiwar activism. The only weakness Haleigh identified was the film’s bias, which favored Lennon. Though the directors tried to balance this bias with interviews from Nixon’s administration, the film still came across as sympathetic to Lennon.
Haleigh presented her review very well. She chose a nice background to film against, had steady camera work and made an effort to look nice and neat for her video. Overall, it was a great review.
I think that Haleigh explained the premise of the film well. I got the overall point of what it was about, although I would have appreciated a short summary sentence like “The film US v. Lennon is about the transformation from John Lennon’s musical career to his role as a political activist.” I did find myself Googling the film title to see what the tagline and synopsis was. However, once I saw that, everything else that Haleigh said made sense and supported the plot, and I found her giving some of the details very helpful, because in a documentary like this, I feel like a lot of it could be generalized in a few sentences, so I appreciated the specific examples and things they had in the actual documentary. I understood the main theme to be the transformation of John Lennon from music artist to political activist.
ReplyDeleteThe pacing of the podcast was good, a teensy bit slow at times, but seeing as how I was watching it and really analyzing what she was saying for this critique, the pacing worked quite well for me. The volume was a little low, but I just turned up the volume on my computer (which may have been my fault that it wasn’t up all the way), and it was fine. She seemed very well prepared, and knew what she was going to say, however she did, at times, seem to be reading off of a script. However, the content and order was very understandable, so the script worked out fine, and wasn’t very distracting. She definitely seemed informed and seemed like she understood what the documentary was about. She seemed fairly confident, although she did seem to rely on the script a fair amount.
I knew about the conflict at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago before seeing Haleigh’s podcast, from hearing my uncle talk about it, because he was there, and from seeing a History Detectives episode on PBS about an anti-war poster. This sort of was brought full circle when she talked about how John and Yoko printed and released the “War is over if you want it to be” posters, because I was already thinking about the anti-war poster with a picture of a cop and the word “pig” under it from the HD episode. I did not know that Lennon came to a peace rally in Ann Arbor. I thought that was pretty cool. I also had no idea that the government was following Lennon and tapping his phone conversations. I knew that he was politically active, but I had no idea that the US government saw him as such a threat that they decided it was necessary to tap his phone. I also did not know that he was served deportation papers.
The film did sound very interesting. I am really intrigued by that entire tumultuous time period and the huge amount of protest and change that was happening. It sounded like the weaknesses of the film were that it showed some bias in favoring John Lennon over the politicians and US government. However, I was impressed that Haleigh said that the director attempted to counteract that bias by interviewing people from Richard Nixon’s administration.
There was not any other specific stylistic points, although I do think the colorful background of her room added a nice touch.