MartinHafer I should mention up front that I am not particularly a John Lennon fan. I don't dislike him but am somewhat indifferent to his work...especially his work post-Beatles. However, I watched this film because I am a huge fan of PBS documentaries...and in "American Masters" is one of my favorites. The film is about John Lennon and his life when he moved from London to New York in the early 70s. Among the many topics covered in the film is his marriage to Yoko, his anti-war work, the Nixon administration's attempts to deport him, his separation from Yoko (with his subsequent spiral into drinking and being a jerk), his studio work as well as his later years and, once again, fatherhood. The way I see the film, it's a gradual evolution until he became a person most of us could really like...at which point he was murdered.The documentary is made up of the usual interviews and film clips but what makes this one really neat (and a tad spooky) is that so much audio of Lennon talking and recording and outtakes are spaced out throughout the film. It's interesting to hear alternate versions of his songs, his commentary or even his saying goodnight to his young son. All in all, a very compelling, well made and interesting portrait of the guy from about age 30-40. Well worth seeing.

Jakester Overall the movie is good. I believe it was instigated and financed by Yoko under the guise of "Dakota Productions" or some such company. It very subtly whitewashes J.L.'s self-destructiveness - very canny how it does this, i.e., it delves into his craziness in-depth during the LA years of 1972-74 ("Oh, look, we're being honest in this film! We're delving into his madness!") but eschews examining it at all when Yoko accepts him back ('74 to '80). That's whitewashing in my book. Another example of the subtle whitewashing going on here - the film allows May Pang to be a talking head ever-so-briefly ("Hey, this film is honest!") but doesn't give her space to say any of the juicy and awful stuff that's in her book. Essentially the film is a rebuttal to Albert Goldman's book which depicts Lennon during the second half of the '70s as extremely impatient with Sean (the film, by contrast, shows J.L. as a dream of a father, a contemporary Father Knows Best), sealing himself off alone in his room with his books, TV and pot, starving himself to maintain the skinny rock star look, sermonizing naked ad nauseum to the servants, moping around and being generally depressed, and doing a lot of coke to get "Double Fantasy" made (the guy had all the marks of a cokehead in the studio in '80 with a lot of amped-up hyper energy). I will grant you that Albert Goldman's book has holes in it but I think it's more accurate than a lot of people with vested interests claim it to be (Yoko Ono, Jann Wenner, etc.). So anyway, yeah, it's a good movie - for one thing it's very well made technically. It provides nice glimpses of J.L. in the studio. And the sections at the beginning are fascinating when the entire apparatus of the federal government viewed him as evil and the pipe-dream was afoot in radical circles that a rock star could tour the world and singlehandedly change it.

blanche-2 "LennonNYC" is a wonderful documentary about John Lennon's life in New York City. It's sad at the same time, because his love of freedom and the Dakota's policy of letting people loiter outside the building cost him his life. Lennon himself took no security precautions, enjoying what he felt was the anonymity of New York. It's true, people are more laid back there about seeing celebrities. But there are always nuts around, and Lennon, alas, met one.There is lots of footage of Lennon in interviews and also recording - he was on top of the world with his Double Fantasy album. Though no one says it, I think he had been "written out" for a time. And when his son Sean was born, Lennon felt like it was the beginning of a new life for him. Before his death, he was happier than he had ever been - grown up, as he put it, and at peace with his life. That someone could take that away from him is very cruel.Excellent.

Michael_Elliott LennonNYC (2010) *** 1/2 (out of 4) If you want to learn about the life and career of John Lennon then you've got countless ways of doing so. There are countless books, interviews, documentaries and just about everything else out there and easily available. This most recent documentary takes a look at him from the time he moved to New York City until his death, which this documentary was marking the 30th anniversary of. The first portion of the film deals with Lennon's politics as he was treated with deportation and from here we see his break-up with Yoko Ono, which eventually led to an alcohol rage in Los Angeles. Then, the final portion of the film looks at his life with his new son Sean and eventually the Double Fantasy album. Once again, there are countless documentaries out there but this one here at least gives us a lot of outtake footage from his albums as well as plenty of nice and touching interviews. I think fans of Lennon are going to enjoy this because there's so much behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Double Fantasy to some audio clips of various things he did from benefit concerts to his cameo with Elton John at Madison Square Garden. The documentary does a very good job at showing how much Lennon did in this ten-year period, although I do think the stuff with the politics wasn't nearly as interesting as everything else. We get to hear about Lennon's depression from some of his solo albums doing poorly with critics and fans plus his unhappiness over the controversy surround "Woman in the Ni**er of the World." The stuff with Lennon pretty much going into the dumps while in Los Angeles was highly entertaining as was the final bits with him making what was suppose to be comeback album. The death of Lennon has probably been documented more than any other event in rock and roll history but it is told in a rather unique way here. I think documentaries like IMAGINE and THE U.S. VS JOHN LENNON were more entertaining overall but this one here is still a must see for all the outtakes that are featured plus we get nice interviews with Ono, Elton John and countless people who played on Lennon's final few records.