Japanese website for Chapter 27. Initial release bombs.

Should we have sympathy for this monster
(Thanks Jared Leto - Jerk-off!!)

Chapter 27 (Jared Leto and Lindsay Lohan) was released in Japan on the day of John Lennons murder (while Yoko Ono was dedicating a memorial to her late husband). 27 years to the day that a peaceful man and musical genius was taken from us.
We are excited to say that the movie is already disappearing from Japanese theaters, Chapter 27 may not make it through a single weekend. Peace Arch Entertainment has terribly misjudged the people of Japan. A population of huge Beatles fans has fought back, by avoiding Chapter 27.
Here is the link to the promotional website developed to push this horrible film on the people of Japan. It includes a long version of the movie trailer. The rest of the site is of course, in Japanese.
CHAPTER 27 - Japanese website
Chapter 27 movie trailer



BY RONDA CORNELIUS, STAFF WRITER

THE U.S. VS. JOHN LENNON
・99 minutes
・Toho Cinemas Roppoingi Hills in Tokyo and eleswhere

CHAPTER 27
・85 minutes
・Cine Quinto in Tokyo and elsewhere

Last Saturday, it was 27 years since ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged scumbag.

Two movies about the life and death of this peace-loving pop icon/music genius will soon be out here. So, which sounds more appealing: the upbeat, informative, rah-rah one? Or the dreary, uninformative, I'd-chew-my-leg-off-to-get-out-of-here one? I guess it depends on your mood.

・"The U.S. vs. John Lennon" (called "Peace Bed--America vs. John Lennon" in Japan) has a litigious title and made its cable debut on music channel VH1. But fear not: This is not some ludicrous hybrid of Court TV hype and "Behind the Music" melodrama. It is instead good, old-school storytelling: a 99-minute film rich in material that tells a relevant yarn about interesting people, including colorful former newsmakers who are as outspoken as ever. (Wow. Talk about aging boomers! Except Angela Davis, the communist organizer/ex-FBI-list fugitive acquitted in a sensationalist murder trial in the early 1970s--she still looks hip.) The film does well to venture beyond the courtroom; it gathers up the threads of the lawsuit story throughout Lennon's life and then weaves them together into a big zeitgeist tapestry.

The background in a nutshell: By the late 1960s, Lennon was lending his star power to support antiwar, anti-establishment groups. U.S. President Richard Nixon was up for re-election in 1972, and the voting age had just dropped to 18. The administration was paranoid that Lennon's activism would spur young people to vote Nixon out. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond proposed nullifying Lennon's influence by revoking his visa and kicking him out of the country. The FBI, functioning as political police, gathered intelligence on Lennon for the case. He refused to go quietly.

The story is told by those involved, many of them famous/notorious: former FBI agents including convicted Watergate co-conspirator G. Gordon Liddy (repeating his crack about using a hippie's candle to light his cigar); Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers; even poet-activist John Sinclair, who got up to 10 years for giving two joints to an undercover cop. (Sinclair has funny things to say about the cross purposes of smoking marijuana while trying to get it legalized.)

Besides interviews, the story is also told in archive footage of Lennon and others doing talk shows, concerts, protests and so on.

Much of this was before my time, so I can't speak for how rare the footage is, but I will say that hindsight makes for some smug watching. Besides the in-bed protests (with Tommy Smothers!), other choice snippets include a snooty editor from The New York Times telling Lennon he was "ridiculous" and that his song "All You Need Is Love" was a joke.

The footage of Lennon and Yoko Ono is surprising, too. Ono, long blamed and reviled by many for the breakup of the Beatles, has often been painted with a witchy brush in documentaries about the Fab Four. But here, there's no pretense that she's evil. The portrait is kind, if jumbled: Lennon and Ono come across variously as astute rebels, wacky artists, naive activists, scared foreigners. The constant is that Lennon seems truly in love with Ono, even geekily so.

Obviously, in contrasting the vehement antiwar protest movement of the Vietnam era ("Power to the people!") with today's lackluster campaigns, the film has an agenda--that people today should be doing more than blogging to protest the war in Iraq. But you can also watch this film in a specific historic sense to see this legal episode in Lennon's life unfold. Overall, this is an engrossing film, one I wouldn't mind rewatching.

・So, why did MDC shoot Lennon? Because MDC was nuts. OK, yes, but what exactly was it that made him want to kill the ex-Beatle with the cool granny glasses?

"Chapter 27" apparently doesn't know, or isn't telling. Despite our cinematically spending a meandering three days (Dec. 6-8, 1980) with MDC until the murder in New York, all we get out of the encounter is a big moue of distaste at the whole proceedings. MDC (Jared Leto) does a lot of mumbling about phonies and how much he thinks he's like Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." When he's not repeating to himself that he needs to kill Lennon, he's spewing his anti-homosexual diatribes and other garbage.

Even troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan, who makes brief, unremarkable appearances as another fan, doesn't buoy things along. (A bit of trivia: Lennon is played by Mark Lindsay Chapman (ridiculous stunt hiring him to play Lennon) --apparently not a close relation. Also, the title refers to a continuation of "A Catcher in the Rye.")

To be sure, this is an atmospheric bit of independent filmmaking by first-time director-writer J.P. Schaefer. Visually, it seems to be fairly in tune with ugly 1980s fashion in New York, with its embrace of unflattering tinted glasses and patterned sweaters. Besides, you can almost feel the bitter winter wind whipping through Central Park to the Dakota building, where Lennon and Ono lived.

And surely the physical repulsiveness of the MDC specimen comes through, though this seems to be a bit of grandstanding by the actor, who porked up for the role. More often than is necessary, Leto/MDC's sloppy naked paunch appears in profile, drooping over his tightie whities.

MDC is an unpleasant companion for 85 minutes, more so since we learn little in that time. Dispiriting, drab and uninsightful, "Chapter 27" is one to skip.

On Saturday, it will be 27 years since ex-Beatle John Lennon was shot and killed by a deranged scumbag.

Two movies about the life and death of this peace-loving pop icon/music genius will soon be out here. So, which sounds more appealing: the upbeat, informative, rah-rah one? Or the dreary, uninformative, I'd-chew-my-leg-off-to-get-out-of-here one? I guess it depends on your mood.

・"The U.S. vs. John Lennon" (called "Peace Bed--America vs. John Lennon" in Japan) has a litigious title and made its cable debut on music channel VH1. But fear not: This is not some ludicrous hybrid of Court TV hype and "Behind the Music" melodrama. It is instead good, old-school storytelling: a 99-minute film rich in material that tells a relevant yarn about interesting people, including colorful former newsmakers who are as outspoken as ever. (Wow. Talk about aging boomers! Except Angela Davis, the communist organizer/ex-FBI-list fugitive acquitted in a sensationalist murder trial in the early 1970s--she still looks hip.) The film does well to venture beyond the courtroom; it gathers up the threads of the lawsuit story throughout Lennon's life and then weaves them together into a big zeitgeist tapestry.

The background in a nutshell: By the late 1960s, Lennon was lending his star power to support antiwar, anti-establishment groups. U.S. President Richard Nixon was up for re-election in 1972, and the voting age had just dropped to 18. The administration was paranoid that Lennon's activism would spur young people to vote Nixon out. U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond proposed nullifying Lennon's influence by revoking his visa and kicking him out of the country. The FBI, functioning as political police, gathered intelligence on Lennon for the case. He refused to go quietly.

The story is told by those involved, many of them famous/notorious: former FBI agents including convicted Watergate co-conspirator G. Gordon Liddy (repeating his crack about using a hippie's candle to light his cigar); Bobby Seale, co-founder of the Black Panthers; even poet-activist John Sinclair, who got up to 10 years for giving two joints to an undercover cop. (Sinclair has funny things to say about the cross purposes of smoking marijuana while trying to get it legalized.)

Besides interviews, the story is also told in archive footage of Lennon and others doing talk shows, concerts, protests and so on.

Much of this was before my time, so I can't speak for how rare the footage is, but I will say that hindsight makes for some smug watching. Besides the in-bed protests (with Tommy Smothers!), other choice snippets include a snooty editor from The New York Times telling Lennon he was "ridiculous" and that his song "All You Need Is Love" was a joke.

The footage of Lennon and Yoko Ono is surprising, too. Ono, long blamed and reviled by many for the breakup of the Beatles, has often been painted with a witchy brush in documentaries about the Fab Four. But here, there's no pretense that she's evil. The portrait is kind, if jumbled: Lennon and Ono come across variously as astute rebels, wacky artists, naive activists, scared foreigners. The constant is that Lennon seems truly in love with Ono, even geekily so.

Obviously, in contrasting the vehement antiwar protest movement of the Vietnam era ("Power to the people!") with today's lackluster campaigns, the film has an agenda--that people today should be doing more than blogging to protest the war in Iraq. But you can also watch this film in a specific historic sense to see this legal episode in Lennon's life unfold. Overall, this is an engrossing film, one I wouldn't mind rewatching.

・So, why did MDC shoot Lennon? Because Chapman was nuts. OK, yes, but what exactly was it that made him want to kill the ex-Beatle with the cool granny glasses?

"Chapter 27" apparently doesn't know, or isn't telling. Despite our cinematically spending a meandering three days (Dec. 6-8, 1980) with Chapman until the murder in New York, all we get out of the encounter is a big moue of distaste at the whole proceedings. Chapman (Jared Leto) does a lot of mumbling about phonies and how much he thinks he's like Holden Caulfield of J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye." When he's not repeating to himself that he needs to kill Lennon, he's spewing his anti-homosexual diatribes and other garbage.

Even troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan, who makes brief, unremarkable appearances as another fan, doesn't buoy things along. (A bit of trivia: Lennon is played by Mark Lindsay Chapman--apparently not a close relation. Also, the title refers to a continuation of "A Catcher in the Rye.")

To be sure, this is an atmospheric bit of independent filmmaking by first-time director-writer J.P. Schaefer. Visually, it seems to be fairly in tune with ugly 1980s fashion in New York, with its embrace of unflattering tinted glasses and patterned sweaters. Besides, you can almost feel the bitter winter wind whipping through Central Park to the Dakota building, where Lennon and Ono lived.

And surely the physical repulsiveness of the Chapman specimen comes through, though this seems to be a bit of grandstanding by the actor, who porked up for the role. More often than is necessary, Leto/Chapman's sloppy naked paunch appears in profile, drooping over his tightie whities.

Chapman is an unpleasant companion for 85 minutes, more so since we learn little in that time. Dispiriting, drab and uninsightful, "Chapter 27" is one to skip.(IHT/Asahi: December 7,2007)

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