Movie-A-Day #342: Imagine: John Lennon (1988).

The murder of John Lennon on this date in 1980 shocked the world. For those who aren’t old enough to remember it first hand, it’s hard to imagine the impact it had in that pre-Internet, pre-TMZ, pre-cable news age. The idea of such violence directed toward a celebrity was unthinkable then. (Indeed, the jadedness in our culture toward stalker violence is due in large part to Lennon’s death.) But the man who changed the world with his music also, along with Yoko Ono, changed the nature of celebrity. Their lives were chronicled in the media to an extent never heard of before, which serves the retrospective film “Imagine: John Lennon” very well. It’s a loving portrait of a genius who still had so much to say.