It seems that no matter how blasé I think I have gotten about Hollywood’s terrible, terrible movies and movie ideas, every now and again a new one comes along to shock me into actually caring. And probably being angry.
Like the movie Chapter 27, for instance. It’s about Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon. On the surface I do not see much to get angry about here – I hate this guy, but there’s no denying that a crazy killer can make good drama.
I start getting annoyed when I read that Jared Leto is playing him. Here’s Mark David Chapman, for those of you who don’t know what he looks like:
Now here’s Jared Leto:
What
The
Fuck.
But it gets better. Chapter 27 (which I believe is a reference to Catcher in the Rye, a book that Chapman was obsessed with and was reading when he shot Lennon, and a book that some claim was actually a trigger that set off deep brainwashing by the US government, who saw Lennon as a major threat. I swear I did not just make that up), will also star Lindsay Lohan, as a Lennon fan who meets Chapman in the days before he kills John. How much do you want to bet that there’s some sort of love story in here, especially since these two are apparently bumping not uglies in real life?
I don’t mind Leto as an actor. He’s not terribly good or anything, but he’s not usually so bad that he ruins a film. The thing is that he’s so completely of the James Dean school of pretty boy mumbly acting that he can’t help but glamorize every character he plays. Is that what we want in a Mark David Chapman film, an assassin with a romantic mental problem? Fuck this movie.