Loretta Alper's Film Packs the House in 'Hamp

Last night Loretta Alper must have been damn proud. That's because a packed to the rafters, turn-people-away-at-the-door crowd piled into the Academy of Music theater to see the film she produced make its debut. The film is 'War Made Easy: how presidents and pundits keep spinning us to death' and the film was a historic recollection of the many wars that presidents and the press have tried to make palatable to the American public. It's a pattern that began with Korea and continues just the same way through today's war in Iraq.

The film was a mix of clips and a commentary by Norman Soloman, and obviously played to the crowd of Massachusetts liberals who are united in shock and awe at how much we all hate the current war in Iraq. The buzz that the film created was due in part I think to how much we all are united too in trying to make a statement---to say something to register our disgust at the cost in money and lives and injuries to Iraqis and our soldiers. Maybe just lining up to view this movie was a way we could vote with our feet.

But I kept thinking, as Johnny Memphis, Bill Dwight, Bill Hewitt, Paul Shoul, Kathy Brown, and so many other of my friends and folks in the media all were there, taking their seats, at how impressed I was that we all were turning out for Loretta's movie. Then we came home and saw her on the TV news. Wow.