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Author Topic: Lennon/Chapman Movie News  (Read 6081 times)
Bubba Ho-Tep
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« on: February 01, 2006, 09:00:26 AM »


from FOXNEWS.COM : FOXLIFE 

'Chapter 27': A New 'Springtime for Hitler'
Monday, January 30, 2006
By Roger Friedman
 

Lennon Film Script: A New 'Springtime for Hitler'

The script for "Chapter 27" by Jarrett Schaefer — a movie about the man who murdered John Lennon — reads like "Springtime for Hitler," the tasteless, fictitious play that Max Bialystock discovers in Mel Brooks' "The Producers" and terms "the worst idea in history."

And yet, someone is producing "Chapter 27" to make a profit — not, as in "The Producers," to defraud investors by making a turkey.

I read the script over the weekend, or at least the version that got the ball rolling for the production.

The basic story of "Chapter 27" casts Jared Leto as the odious Mark David Chapman and Lindsay Lohan as a minor character named Jude. It follows Chapman's activities leading up to the killing, painting him as a jolly fan who is obsessed with "The Catcher in the Rye."

The Web site for Peace Arch Films describes it as thus: "The story portrays Chapman's mental collapse, which is played out through his obsession with J.D. Salinger's classic novel 'The Catcher in the Rye,' as Chapman's demons win over and persuade him to shoot Lennon on the steps of Lennon's apartment building, The Dakota."

Lohan's Jude is a friend he makes along the way, evidently based on real person Jude Stein, who was hanging around the Dakota with her friend, Jeri Moll.

It's unclear whether Schaefer secured Stein's rights, or renamed the character in the shooting script. In any event, it's a small, insignificant role. It's Leto who's in every scene as Chapman.

Production of "Chapter 27" is the most controversial thing happening on the New York film scene right now. Over the weekend, the company continued to film and make a huge scene, unabated, in front of the Dakota apartment house, where Lennon was murdered by Chapman and where his widow, Yoko Ono, still lives.

I've been critical of Ono in the past about various things, but no one deserves this kind of torture. Schaefer, who wrote and is directing "Chapter 27," has really crossed a line of decency and taste here.

If he had to make this movie, it certainly could have been done elsewhere. Picture that in the version I read, Chapman shakes hands with 5-year-old Sean Lennon in front of the Dakota.

Ono, contrary to some reports, did not authorize this movie. She and her attorney, Peter Shukat, have not seen the script.

A publicist working on the film told me recently that my script is different from the shooting script, and that must be true. But director-writer Schaefer's intentions are here, and they are pretty alarming.

In the version of the script I read, Chapman reads long passages from "Catcher in the Rye" aloud (the movie's title refers to what would be an extra chapter of the novel — Salinger stopped at 26).

For example, Chapman announces on page 43: "I am [main character] Holden Caulfield. I am the Catcher in the Rye." He does this while practicing shooting his gun, studying his reflection in a mirror à la Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver."

Schaefer's dependence on "Catcher," at least in his original vision, would seem problematic legally.

When Chapman isn't actually quoting the book in voice-overs, he's talking like Holden, punctuating his dialogue with Holden's trademark words "phonies" and "goshdarn." Chapman's odyssey in New York prior to the shooting melds with Holden's from the novel: He stays at a YMCA, befriends a prostitute and has a yearning for the ducks in Central Park.

Calls to Salinger's literary agent/lawyer were never returned, but the famously reclusive author could not be happy about his copyright possibly being infringed upon.

If the script has changed, then Schaefer must have done a complete overhaul, because as this version stood, the script could not exist without "The Catcher in the Rye."

Eventually, Ono, Lennon and even their 5-year-old son Sean are recreated in the screenplay, as are Dakota doormen and New York City policemen.

The part with Sean is gratuitous, but then again the whole script is. Jude introduces Sean and his nanny to Chapman in this fantasy. We can only glean from this that a similar scene will be shot in front of the Dakota.

And of course, the worst scene of all is included: a graphic rendering of Lennon's assassination in the doorway of the Dakota. It includes an odd twist on what is considered the conventional story: distraught doorman Jose Perdomo is recorded in history as telling Chapman right after the shooting, "Leave! Get out of here!"

When Chapman doesn't respond, Perdomo shouts: "Do you know what you've done?"

But in Schaeffer's script, Perdomo's quote is different: "Get out of here. Just go. Before anyone sees you."

Schaefer, it seems, is throwing a bone to the conspiracy theorists who like to think that Perdomo, a Cuban exile, killed Lennon as part of some plot.

"Chapter 27" penultimately ends with Chapman in a mental hospital, as Caulfield ended up in the novel.

But Schaefer has a different final ending attached: He uses two newsreel clips.

The first is of a Beatles press conference, circa 1964. It switches to some five years later, again with real footage, but this time of John and Yoko's Toronto bed-in and a discussion with a reporter of the lyrics to "The Ballad of John and Yoko."

Lennon, answering a reporter, gets the final word in the script.

And here's an interesting post-script: Since news of "Chapter 27" has leaked out, Schaefer's name has been excised entirely from the Internet Movie Data Base. There is no longer any mention of him anywhere.

His previous bio, which used to be posted there, listed him as a senior editor at Fade In, a Beverly Hills-based movie magazine. But when I called the magazine, the person who answered the phone said that Schaefer had been a freelancer, and was long gone with no forwarding information.

"He was not an editor," she said.

Schaefer's previous credits include a music video.
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I. Spaceman
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« Reply #1 on: February 01, 2006, 10:48:26 AM »

Sounds like a good movie to me.
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cabinessence
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« Reply #2 on: February 01, 2006, 11:03:38 AM »

Well, Lindsay's in it if that's what you mean

Of related interest possibly: http://robertrosen.blogspot.com/

The author of Lennon book Nowhere Man believes his take on the story was lifted for the film's.
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I. Spaceman
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« Reply #3 on: February 01, 2006, 11:08:21 AM »

Nahh, it just sounds interesting and intriguing.
If it was about Squeaky Fromme, no one would be protesting besides George Wallace's kids.
Why is Lennon so damn sacred?
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Chris D.
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« Reply #4 on: February 01, 2006, 11:09:15 AM »

"Mr. Moonlight"?
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I. Spaceman
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« Reply #5 on: February 01, 2006, 11:11:26 AM »

Haha!
New title for the film?
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Chris D.
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« Reply #6 on: February 01, 2006, 11:13:41 AM »

Sure, but Bruce Willis gets to play Lennon, and as he goes down he says, "Give peace a chance," as he clutches his chest.
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I. Spaceman
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« Reply #7 on: February 01, 2006, 11:29:47 AM »

YES!
And Gwen Stefani as Yoko then breaks into the Oakenfold remix of Imagine, everyone dances, Yoko and Chapman lock hands, zoom in, fade.
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Chris D.
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« Reply #8 on: February 01, 2006, 11:33:31 AM »

YES!
And Gwen Stefani as Yoko then breaks into the Oakenfold remix of Imagine, everyone dances, Yoko and Chapman lock hands, zoom in, fade.

Perfect, Ian.  With "Broken Wings" over the credits.
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I. Spaceman
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« Reply #9 on: February 01, 2006, 11:42:06 AM »

Quote
With "Broken Wings" over the credits.

Tears of laughter.
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Bubba Ho-Tep
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« Reply #10 on: February 01, 2006, 12:21:21 PM »

And as John “Lennon” McClane goes to the ground he pulls a machine gun out of his coat and fills Chapman full of holes! “Yippee kay-yeah, motherpuffer!”
Then he find out terrorists are holding people hostage in the Nakatomi Dakota.
Hans doesn’t know Yoko is John’s wife because she goes by her maiden name. Harry Nillson gets on the CB and tries to reason with John. “Harry, tell those guys you don’t know me!”
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Chris D.
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« Reply #11 on: February 01, 2006, 12:40:00 PM »

Haha!   Grin
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JRauch
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« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2006, 03:24:49 AM »

Honestly, I don´t see why this movie shouldn´t be made. As long as it is good! I mean, there are uncountable movies about the World War II, Vietnam or the Holocaust.
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« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2006, 06:24:27 AM »

Let Me Count the Ways
Yoko Ono

 

Let me count the ways how I love you
It's like that gentle wind you feel at dawn
It's like that first sun that hits the dew
It's like that cloud with a gold lining telling us softly
That it'll be a good day, a good day for us
Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I miss you
It's like that oak tree in my childhood garden
It's like that first summer I spent in Egypt
It's like that warm evening you read to me
Both knowing deeply
That it's a good time, a good time for us
Thank you, thank you, thank you

Let me count the ways how I see you
It's like that lake in the mountain you heard about
It's like that autumn sky that stays so blue
It's like that air around me that holds me gently
Whispering strongly that you're always there, always for me
Thank you, thank you, thank you
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Howdy Doody
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« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2006, 07:52:59 AM »

Midway thru the film Lennon locks lips in a sultry forbidden kiss with the Chapman character and a possible wicked love triangle bone is thrown to the conspiracy bluffs.  While the song "Happiness is a warm gun plays in the background.
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Bubba Ho-Tep
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« Reply #15 on: February 02, 2006, 08:31:31 AM »

Yeah, hey, did you guys ever see some weird, black and white artsy film that was a dramatization of Lennon and Epstein’s “vacation”?

VH1 showed it during a week honoring Lennon. Some honor. 2 guys making out in a bathtub.

Brokeback indeed.
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« Reply #16 on: February 02, 2006, 09:13:39 AM »

The Hours And Times.
Lame.
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onkster
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« Reply #17 on: February 02, 2006, 09:34:24 AM »

"Why is Lennon so sacred?"

Well, he's not, in the sense that he should be above criticism or serious examination.

On the other hand, he was an artist who was not satisfied with doing the bare minimum to create, or to put out things strictly for money, or to be a typical shallow showbiz con.  He tried (and sometimes didn't succeed, to be realistic) to put a lot of vitamins in his product for us. 

In this day and age where everybody is a self-proclaimed rebel who thinks it's a great thing  to shoot anything down by rote for its own sake, or to push the envelope without having a real reason to, Lennon remains sacred enough not to need some crap film exploiting his death for money and shallow titillation.  We should give him better than that, at the very least.
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« Reply #18 on: February 02, 2006, 09:36:24 AM »

We should also have given Elvis that, then.
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sugarandspice
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« Reply #19 on: February 02, 2006, 09:50:09 AM »

Never seen it... sounds worth a check out tho....

xoxo
suga
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