Has anyone found a positive review of Chapter 27

This is amazing....in a world full of varying opinions, we may have found something all the critics can agree on....Chapter 27 just plain SUCKS.

This review was just found on Cinematical.com, read, smile and enjoy!!!

I hate to borrow material from another film critic, but a colleague of mine offered the following words after we finished watching Chapter 27: "It's like a feature-length version of De Niro's 'You talkin' to me' speech from Taxi Driver -- only without Scorsese, Schrader or De Niro." I repeat that sentence because it perfectly encapsulates my own opinion on the deadly dull and seriously dreary Chapter 27, a movie that promises to offer some insight into why Mark David Chapman, on one chilly night in 1980, shot the beloved John Lennon to death. But after 90-some minutes of J.P. Schaefer's writing/directing debut, I was no closer to understanding Chapman's motivations than I was 90 minutes earlier. I know it has something to do with J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, but any other specifics are lost beneath waves of babble, tedium and pretense.

It just keeps getting better.....read on.

Lead actor Jared Leto earned himself a producer's credit on Chapter 27, and it's blatantly obvious from the first few frames of the flick that the young actor really, ahem, beefed up for the role. And Leto wants you to know it, which is why we see Chapman parading around in his tighty-whities for two or three scenes. Jared might as well look directly into the camera lens and scream "Look how much weight I gained for this role!" To make matters worse, Leto (who, to be fair, has done some excellent work in movies like Panic Room, American Psycho and Requiem for a Dream) opts to brandish a rather nasally high-pitched squeak of a voice, which makes Chapter 27 feel like a straight-faced parody of Capote. And I don't think that's what Leto and Company were going for.

So the bulk of the flick sees Leto as Chapman walking through the park, lazing in hotel rooms and standing around outside John Lennon's apartment building, which is where he occasionally stops to talk with other fans -- but mostly he just wanders around while his voice-over narration rambles on about Holden Caulfield blah blah and John Lennon yadda yadda. It's drier than burnt toast and about as tasty. Popping up randomly (and to no discernible effect, really) in front of the apartment building are Jude (Lindsay Lohan) and Paul (Judah Friedlander), but aside from a few brief volleys of vapid chit-chat with the eventual murderer, they sure don't do a whole heckuva lot. (For the record, Friedlander delivers the only interesting line in the whole movie while Lohan wisely underplays her skimpily-written role.)

On the whole Chapter 27 feels like thirty pages of script in a 90-minute frame, and a vanity project for an actor willing to go the extra distance even if the screenplay doesn't really warrant all the effort. I was hoping to gain some insight as to who Mark Chapman actually was, and why he committed such a horrible crime; I walked out of Chapter 27 still wondering who the guy was -- and why the hell he liked Catcher in the Rye so damn much

VARIETY - Every Executive working in film distribution read this one..
Thanks Don "THE MAN" Murphy

"Chapter 27" peers into the mind of a real-life, insane killer and finds almost nothing of interest. In order to play John Lennon's assassin Mark David Chapman, actor Jared Leto gained some 70 pounds. Seemingly following his lead, the pic itself is heavy, lethargic, and exasperating. Whether this is due to the producer-star or due to debuting writer-director Jarrett Schaefer -- or both -- this dramatization of Chapman's days in New York City leading up to the shooting yields little insight or entertainment value. Despite the presence of Lindsay Lohan (in a thankless support role), theatrical success looks about as likely as a 21st-century Beatles reunion.

Flying in from his Hawaii home, the creepy, awkward Chapman installs himself in a YMCA, then a Sheraton, spending most of his time hanging out in front of the fabled Dakota building hoping to get an autograph from resident Lennon. But since he's brought a handgun, he presumably has a darker agenda from the start.

His repetitive verbal and voiceover ramblings show his obsessions with the Beatles and "Catcher in the Rye." He seems to think he's Holden Caulfield, sworn to avenge himself on all the "phonies" of the world, including ex-Beatle Lennon.

But since there's no background given in screenplay (a brief conversation with his unseen wife back home is the only clue to his prior life), protag's motivations are left blank.

Instead, pic gives a whopping dose of Leto with a black dye-job, pasty skin, glasses and double chin, whisper-talking in a rather actorish way, finding many excuses to doff his shirt so aud can appreciate his "Raging Bull"-style sacrifice for art. Chapman emerges more boring and irksome than scary.

Chapman meets Jude (Lohan), a local who also spends time hovering outside the Dakota, hoping for a glimpse of or word with her idol. As played in Lohan's usual likeable, naturalistic style, it strains credibility that this normal young woman would spend even a minute befriending such an obvious weirdo.

Though preem screening clocked in 16 minutes shorter than run-time given in Sundance program, "Chapter 27" still feels low on incident and high in tedium, with ideas beginning to repeat themselves halfway through. On rare occasions when something does happen -- notably when Chapman hires a prostitute -- it's a terribly obvious stab at pathos or menace.

Brief news clips reporting Lennon's death and the widespread public mourning provide some respite from pic's unrewardingly narrow focus.

While this sort of thing has certainly been done well before --"Taxi Driver" being the definitive example -- Leto and Schaefer haven't found a way of making their subject's mental illness compelling.

Feature is pro but uninspired in all departments, with Anthony Marinelli's competent but off-mark orchestral score just one more way in which "Chapter" fails to lend a seemingly sure-shot story any distinctive personality or drive.

More About Jarrett Shaeffer.The Man Responsible for Chapter 27 & Where He Came From & It's Importance In Beatles History.

Fellow People

I learned something about Jarrett Shaeffer that really surprised me. I figured that I would share it with all of you.

Jarrett Shaeffer is from Landstuhl,Germany. He graduated from the film writing program at USC is 2001.

I only bring this up because I am part German in my own right. My mother hails from the city of Berlin. She emigrated to the USA after she married my father in 1956.

I am also a tad bit ashamed that this guy came from that country. I am part German myself and this guy hails from that country.

Germany also holds some importance for The Beatles. It was in the racy city of Hamburg in the early 1960's where the Fab Four learned how to be REAL professionals and it is also where they did their first professional recordings. They backed up Tony Sheridan in a German recording studio and those sessions produced the legendary My Bonnie record and the later Top 20 hit Ain't She Sweet,which John sang lead on. The Beatles performed at the German night club called Kaiserkeller,which was near the Reeperbahn district before moving on to a club called The Top 10,which was where they met Sheridan and the rest was history.The Fab Four would also perform at another place called The Star Club where they made their first live recordings and where future permanent drummer Ringo Starr(real name Richard Starkey) would sit in for Pete Best when those recordings were made. They would later be released on record many times on many different reissue labels starting in 1977 when Lingasong Records first released them.

The early years of the Fabs are further illustrated in the movie Backbeat that starred Ian Hart giving the performance of his career as John Lennon and Stephen Dorff as Stuart Sutcliffe. The movie is about those years when they did get their first professional experiences in Hamburg even though it does focus mainly on the friendship between John & Stu. It is still a very good movie and one I whole heartedly recommend for any Beatles or Lennon fans out there. It will be one of those films that I will watch during the week of the Sundance Film Festival alongside other Beatles films that I have to honor John Lennon.

Again, The man who is making this film hails from that country and it's hard to believe that the fans in Germany are not crying FOUL at this. I am crying FOUL at the moment because I am not only part German but I am a Beatles and Lennon fan and that country was what helped them in their quest for stardom.

Just some random words here regarding what I learned and it's importance.Take Care and I hope that all of you have a wonderful evening.

UPDATE: Variety 1/17/07 .. additional facts about the "person" with the most to gain from the murder of JOHN LENNON. Writer and Director of Chapter 27.

Taking on the true story of a hero to millions is pressure enough for a first-time director. Getting inside the head of the man who killed him is a whole other story. But that's the challenge Jarrett Schafer took on with his first feature, "Chapter 27," a story of the days leading up to the 1980 assassination of John Lennon, told from the perspective of his killer, Mark David Chapman.
Born on an Air Force base in Germany but raised in the U.S., Schaefer studied filmic writing at USC. After graduating, he worked as an editor at Fade In magazine and as a videostore clerk while writing scripts and poetry in his spare time.

Like Chapman, Schaefer is an ardent fan of both the Beatles and J.D. Salinger's novel "The Catcher in the Rye," and says he began the script to try to understand "how someone could be inspired to kill anyone as a result of being exposed to this kind of beautiful art. It really bothered me, because Lennon and Salinger have always made me feel so much better, and so much less alone."

The script took Schaefer four years to write, but once it was finished, the film came together quickly. With the help of producers Alexandra Milchan and Bob Salerno, Schaefer cast Jared Leto as Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as Jude, a fellow Lennon fanatic who befriends Chapman.

Says Salerno, "Writing the script and researching the events extensively gave Jarrett a deeper understanding of the material, and a comfort as a first time director to take more risks in the way he wanted to shoot this story."

Pic was shot on location in New York last year. "I don't have much to compare it to, but the challenges were daunting," says Schaefer, who directed several sequences outside the Dakota, the site of Lennon's assassination. "I had to go into a place that was very sensitive to our story, with trucks, a crew, and a limited amount of time. It wasn't easy."

"It was important to Jarrett that we didn't glorify this event," says Salerno. "He didn't want to shoot any of the scenes with John Lennon at the Dakota out of respect for the residents that were there at the time John was killed, so all of that footage was shot separately at another location that we were able keep closed and controlled."

Schaefer is currently developing several new feature ideas. His USC thesis script, "The Hidden Alice," will be directed by helmer Bronwen Hughes ("Stander").

"Jarrett is someone that I am sure will be most content to take on difficult subject matter in the future and find his own original way in," adds Salerno.

VITAL STATS
Age: 27
Provenance: Landstuhl, Germany
Inspired by: "D.A. Pennebaker, because he makes great films about rock 'n' roll; 'A Hard Day's Night,' because it captured Beatlemania better than anything else; and 'The Wizard of Oz.' "
Reps: Agent, Craig Kestel, William Morris; manager, Brand Mendelsohn, Industry Entertainment; attorney, Adam Kaller, Behr Abramson Kaller

F....Jackie and Studdering John

Hiiii Fred...
Fred Eric your a huge Lennon fan, help us stop this disaster.