My former Herald colleague Paul Sherman has written one in "Big Screen Boston," which tracks movies filmed here, from "Mystery Street" to "Gone Baby Gone." This is a must-have for Boston film fans and anyone interested in the intersection of Dot Ave. and Hollywood Blvd.
Sherman offers individual profiles of 80 movies set here and at least in part shot here, from a few flimsy post-World War II thrillers through the gritty indie films of the 1970s and '80s to the Hollywood glitz of the post-"Good Will Hunting" era that continues today. Each piece lists topline credits, offers a 1-to-3-page review/background feature, and then assesses locations, accents and local color.
Critically he's right-on, from praising "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" as the best movie ever made here to mocking the ironic dud-ness of the bomb-squad thriller "Blown Away." Everything from a film's artistic influences to the random exigencies of the movie business factors in as Sherman delivers a verdict on whether it's a good movie, and whether it's a good Boston movie.
"...Even though they're supposed to be vacationing somewhere along Route 128, scenes were shot at a palm-tree-filled San Diego resort," he notes in the entry on Otto Preminger's "Tell Me You Love Me, Junie Moon."
"...Time has only added resonance to 'The Verdict's' presentation of the Church as a power structure that, like most any other, will go to great lengths to defend itself," he writes of the 1982 Paul Newman film, without having to remind us why that would be.
"It's worth noting that the movie includes one of those lazy, New York-derived movie business cliches, when John Leguizamo's character mentions someone going away 'upstate' to prison. Sing Sing is upstate. Walpole is just...Walpole. There is no upstate in Massachusetts, unless you mean New Hampshire," he points out in the entry on the "lousy" 2001 comedy "What's The Worst That Could Happen."
Besides features, Sherman also includes key Massachusetts documentaries, notably "Titticut Follies" and "When Standup Stood Out." His introductory essay ties many of the better films made here in recent years to those documentaries and the grit of "Billy In The Lowlands" and other early indies.
The book also includes an appendix with brief assessments of dozens more films that for one reason or another didn't make the cut, and a trivia quiz: Name at least four movies that filmed inside Fenway Park. (As with all movie-trivia quizzes, the answer to one of the questions is 'Philip Seymour Hoffman,' but I'm not going to tell you which one.)
Given the recent surge in filming thanks to production incentives voted by legislators, a second edition better be soon in coming. Somewhere at least there should be a piece on TV shows filmed or at least set here - tourists and local history buffs picking up the book will want to know all the background on "Cheers" and maybe a list of some of the scenic sites where "Spenser: For Hire" punched out bad guys. Who knows, maybe some day we'll even get another series to film here beyond the occasional "Boston Legal" insert shot.
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Posted by: oprxijwq yfgxza | September 17, 2008 at 11:04 AM