John Lennon: The Messenger

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful
Review: I bought this on a whim, having never seen or heard anything yet about it. What a mistake...
I won't rehash the one review that's been done, but I personally didn't care to see Chapman drivel on about 'the event', and the mourning of Lennon by others, which make up the first half hour of the disc.
Some of the older interviews were interesting, if only one could *hear* them...horrible sound reproduction.
The added pictures as a 'extra' were useless, they were only about a quarter of the screen size, and me having a regular sized television rendered them imperceptible.
I haven't listened to the audio disc yet, but if it's as boring as this disc, it won't be too interesting.
The only high point? Seeing such figures as Groucho Marx, Edward G. Robinson (who'd have though he'd make rather a dashing figure as an older man?) and Rock Hudson (hmm, wonder why he liked the Beatles?!) give short words as they were going to the Hollywood Bowl concert.
Overall, don't bother...save it for something good like Gimme Some Truth, the making of the Imagine album.

Rating:
Summary: this is worse than horrible. this is trash.
Review: i recently bought my first dvd player. my neighbors knew this, so they gave me this dvd for christmas, knowing my appreciation for john lennon. i'll never tell the neighbors, but this thing is horrible. i was shocked by how bad it was. the liner notes do not match the content. the longest section shows m.d.c. detailing the events of that night. who wants that? kate millet then tries to fill us in on lennon's death... wait a minute. i don't know WHAT she was talking about.
this whole thing is hideous. this is bad. you do not want to own this. this is embarrassing. now....what do i tell the neighors?

Rating:
Summary: this is worse than horrible. this is trash.
Review: i recently bought my first dvd player. my neighbors knew this, so they gave me this dvd for christmas, knowing my appreciation for john lennon. i'll never tell the neighbors, but this thing is horrible. i was shocked by how bad it was. the liner notes do not match the content. the longest section shows m.d.c. detailing the events of that night. who wants that? kate millet then tries to fill us in on lennon's death... wait a minute. i don't know WHAT she was talking about.
this whole thing is hideous. this is bad. you do not want to own this. this is embarrassing. now....what do i tell the neighors?

Rating:
Summary: Buy something else.
Review: The audio CD included rates a 2 star, maybe 2 1/2 in some spots, the DVD should never have been made (or released once anyone had seen it). The video quality of most of this looks like a 12th generation down VHS copy, horrid. Combine that with the "artistic effect" of having a good amount of time being displayed as movie film running off the sprockets at an angle, with a third of the frame being cut off the top, showing instead at the bottom of the frame (like a TV that needs to be vertically adjusted). Not an enjoyable way to spend even 5 minutes, let alone almost 55 LONG minutes.

The first quarter of the disc does a good job of trying to give "the Jerk of all Jerks" the undeserved fame he seeks. There is also a whole section devoted to a music video for the background music band. And we thought this disc is supposed to be about John Lennon? How silly of us, there is no time left for him! There does seem to be a few short rare old clips I don't remember seeing before, but it is so little of the content, and so poor quality, don't buy this just for those fleeting moments.

Save your money, buy the "Fun With the Fab Four" combo--a real bargain, and actually fun too.

Rating:
Summary: Oy! My head hurts
Review: Well, I'm very happy about two things, 1) it was free, 2) it was only an hour long.

Any John Lennon fan would find this hurtful. Why would they release this? My favourite part has to be the horrible music that fills the soundtrack because they couldn't afford Beatles or Lennon music. Worst of all is the band trying to recreate a song that they only know the title of. Well they don't create anything good. They think that "In Spite of all the Danger" is a John Lennon song, but anyone who owns the Beatles Anthology can tell you that it's a McCartney/Harrison composition... which was not lost and is widely available on that CD collection! They spend a third of the time talking about the arse who killed Lennon, but if you're going to do a documentry on this blow hole, perhaps use some compassion and make an interesting film about mental illness. I'm not sure if these people have ever heard a John Lennon song before.