In 1969, to protest the Vietnam war, John Lennon and Yoko Ono put up billboards in 11 cities that read, “War is over!” (See a photo of the London ad here.) Ads with the same headline are going up today in New York and on Aug. 15 in Los Angeles, but this time they have a commercial purpose: They’re ads for The U.S. vs. John Lennon, a documentary about the late Beatle’s anti-war activism. Lionsgate seems to feel ok appropriating Lennon’s concept here since the film has more of an explicit (left-wing) political message than, say, You, Me and Dupree. The ads will point to a Web site called Nutopia, which is the name of the fictional country that Lennon and Ono imagined had “no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.” The Web site of the film itself is called The Grudge Report, poking some fun at Matt Drudge. The film opens Sept. 15.

—Posted by Tim Nudd