Twice this week I've found myself involved in conversations about Black Mass, the Whitey Bulger biopic starring Johnny Depp as the infamous Boston mobster and FBI informant. It's remarkable considering that, before a few days ago, I kind of forgot that the movie even existed. You can hardly blame me - Johnny Depp hasn't given us serious reason to get excited about one of his movies in quite some time. I've been curious, as I am with just about any movie set and shot in my home town, but it's fair to say that my expectations have been pretty low up until now.
Today we got our first look at the film courtesy of this trailer and I must admit, I'm more than a little impressed.
First things first: unless you count his hairpiece, Johnny Depp makes it through all two minutes of this trailer with nary a silly hat in sight. Huzzah! And those blue contact lenses give him a serious case of Crazy Eyes. It's also worth noting that Depp manages to pull off one of the more convincing Boston accents in recent memory. It's one of those very particular vocal traits that's easy to exaggerate in a comedic context but harder to portray naturally, let alone utilize with genuine menace. The Departed (whose Frank Costello was based largely on Bulger) is one of the high watermarks in this regard. Mystic River is like nails on a chalkboard to my ears.
I hadn't realized that the cast was so stacked either! Joel Edgerton is always a welcome addition to any movie, and I'm a big fan of Dakota Johnson, 50 Shades notwithstanding. Plus Lance/Landry! And might we be treated to the dulcet tones of Benedict Cumberbatch's version of a Southie drawl? I live to dream.
I wanted to watch something with a little prestige to mark the halfway point of my cinematic journey, and I was all set to spin up Mad Max when Jamie asked if she could make a Wife's Choice pick instead. I asked what she had in mind and she offered up the theatrical cut of Cinema Paradiso, a film that she'd been waiting to select until a night that we could watch it together. A movie about falling in love with movies seemed pretty damn appropriate to me.
There's a reason that I usually include details about my specific experience when I talk about a lot of these movies and why I note the viewing method at the bottom of each article. In many ways, cinema is alchemy and a particular audience or viewing environment has the ability to either enhance or detract from your enjoyment of any particular film. Whether it be getting into a fight in the middle of the movie or a simple matter of a properly planned pre-show, it's often the intangibles that can help make a movie so memorable. Just last week I went to see The Blues Brothers in an actual theater for the first time. It's a film that's routinely tied with Ghostbusters for the title of my very favorite movie, something I've seen so many times that I can recite each and every line along with the exact inflection on screen. Seeing it on something other than my TV was certainly a treat, but that's not why I'll always remember that screening. It was dressing up in the standard Blues Brothers attire (black suit pants, black suit jacket, white shirt, black tie, black Ray-Bans and one hat...black) and arriving at the theater to find many others had followed suit. It was the absolute reverence for the music, with the audience cheering and applauding after each and every performance. And it was walking outside the theater when it was all over to find the Bluesmobile parked out back, complete with the correct Illinois plates and an empty pack of Chesterfields on the dash. Needless to say, I took a few pictures.
As filmmaking has inexorably transitioned from an art form into a bottom line industry, the actual viewing experience has become largely homogenized. When it comes to my local multiplexes, the only real debate worth having when it comes to choosing a venue is which one has the most convenient parking. The theaters all look the same, the popcorn all tastes the same/costs too much, and the picture and sound quality is all at the same moderately acceptable level. Most theaters don't project their films nearly bright enough because they're trying to save money by reducing the frequency of bulb replacements, wholly neglecting the fact that it makes their films, particularly 3D films, look like they were shot through a pair of dirty sunglasses. (Putting on tinted 3D lenses obviously compounds the problem.) The people who work at your local multiplex have no real or informed opinions about the movies they're showing, as in most cases they probably haven't even seen those movies. The architecture is uninspired and the interior design simply strives to be inoffensive* in order to get you out of the building as swiftly as possible to make room for the next crowd of people there to see Grown Ups 2.
Which reminds me, your typical multiplex audience sucks SO HARD. You might recall my comedic and intellectual disconnect with the audience for The Lone Ranger, and I'll admit that's a fairly extreme example. But I can't tell you how many times I've been to the theater in the last six months only to encounter assholes who have absolutely no respect for the film they're ostensibly watching and utterly no regard for their fellow audience members. This covers a wide variety of complaints, from talking loudly with their seatmate to texting or taking calls (yes it really does happen!) in the middle of the film, to giggling like children whenever two characters do something vaguely "adult" like have sex or swear or even just kiss. As sad as it makes me to walk into a screening room on a Saturday night and see mostly empty seats, it's also easy to understand why so many people have given up on the modern movie theater, especially now that HD TVs, Blu-ray and surround sound can help mimic the theatrical experience so closely. But as much as I love my home setup, in my mind it will never replace the pure pleasure of seeing a movie on the biggest screen possible, surrounded by strangers in a darkened theater that smells of popcorn and magic.
More than anything else, that's what struck me about Cinema Paradiso: the lost notion of the cinema as an almost holy place. The Paradiso serves as a cultural meeting house for the town of Giancaldo, where everyone gathers together to lose themselves in the magic of the movies. From the young kids crowded up front passing around cigarettes to the rich asshole in the balcony who spits on the people below him, all are welcome. You have the guy who comes to the theater solely for a place to nap only to be hilariously woken by the other theatergoers, thus prompting the same angry retort every time. Then there's the crazed but seemingly harmless vagrant outside in the town square, just as much a part of the theater as anyone else. The people of Giancaldo practically bang down the doors to see the latest releases and they threaten to riot when the second part of a movie is late getting to theater because they're sharing the film reels with the next town over and have to shuttle them back and forth via bicycle. The theater itself is utterly gorgeous, both before and after the fire that leaves lovable projectionist Alfredo ironically and tragically handicapped. The lion's head on the wall, with the light of the projector bursting forth from it's gaping maw...it's simply beautiful.
It's easy to see how young Toto can so totally fall in love not only with the movies, but with the Paradiso itself. That sense of wonder that only comes when you're a small child and the world all seems so very BIG is a major part of why movies are so appealing at that age. You get transported to far away lands and meet interesting characters who don't exist in your normal life, and yet the entire complicated world is condensed into an easily digestible story that insinctively makes sense. The bad guy gets punished. The good guy gets the girl. It's our first taste of how the world works, or at least how we'd like it work. There's a reason I referred to the cinema as a holy place: when you're that young you can get just as much (if not more) wisdom and idealism in the movie theater as you can from the church. (This connection is reinforced by the film, in which the local priest pre-screens all the movies so Alfredo can edit out all the "morally questionable" content.) Movies can have a tremendous influence on the mind of a child, reinforcing the power of dreams and imagination while filling our heads with images that remain with us long into adulthood. When the older Toto returns for Alfredo's funeral to find the cinema an abandoned shell of a building, it's just as sad as losing Alfredo himself. There's a reason all the older folks in town turn out to watch its demolition - like Toto, they're losing an old, dear friend. I want to live in a world with more cinemas like the Paradiso, where people treat their theaters as integral parts of their home instead of interchangeable venues to see the latest Transformers. Perhaps it's a trade off of sorts: living in a small country village in the late 1950's, before the internet and mobile phones and DVDs and Playstations...well it's easy to see why the local cinema would be a place of such joy and influence. Being the technophile that I am, it's hard to imagine living in such a time and place, but in light of the current state of the moviegoing experience, it's also hard not to long for such an era.
But it's not all gloom and doom. My favorite thing about this project to date (aside from the movies themselves) is that it's forced me to go out into the world and spend time at some of the great theaters in the Boston area, places that harken back to the golden age of the Cinema Paradiso. Theaters like the Brattle Theater in Cambridge and Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline really highlight the stark difference between showing movies for profit and showing movies for the love of movies. These are places that have character, whether it be the art deco aesthetic, the little spiral staircase from the lobby to the theater, the neon marquee out front or the guy who comes out to introduce the movie and talk about all the theater's upcoming shows and events. There are different beers on tap, balcony seating, and great places to eat and drink in the surrounding neighborhood. Plus each theater has its own distinct look and feel that accentuates the movie itself. Lawrence Of Arabia is a perfect fit for the vintage charms of the Coolidge, while something like Cheap Thrills is far better suited for the intimate, punk rock style of the Brattle. Theaters like these are becoming more and more scarce as time marches on, but these are the places where the real love of cinema still lives and breathes among a swarm of stale corporate imitators. Not only do they provide a marvelous opportunity to view classic films the way they were meant to be seen, but they're also the best chance to catch smaller, more interesting films that simply don't have a chance at your local mall. The Brattle and the Coolidge still have the ability to unleash the joy of discovery, to let you stumble upon something you've never heard of but that might turn out to be your favorite movie of the year. Just like the Paradiso, these are theaters for the genuine film fan, and if you're not experiencing them (or whatever equivalent theaters live in your own neighborhood) then you really are missing out on something truly special.
I realize I haven't actually said much about Cinema Paradiso as a film, so for the record I totally loved it. It's a beautiful tale full of rich characters that encapsulates pretty much everything I love about the movies. The score by Ennio Morricone (which I've been listening to on a loop while writing this) has been instantly propelled into the pantheon of my favorite film themes, lilting and fragile and dripping with memory. The film's final scene is nothing short of breathtaking, one of the most affecting moments I've ever witnessed and something that's stayed with me in the week since. (I can't shake the image of Alfredo's fingerprints visible over the actual film print.) If you don't get at least a little bit choked up watching that finale, you should probably check yourself for a pulse. Aside from being my absolute favorite of all the Wife's Choices, Cinema Paradiso reaffirmed my deep love not only for movies themselves, but for the act and experience of going to the cinema. It was exactly what I needed to power me through the second half of the year.
Six months down. Six to go.
*I'll give credit to the Boston Common AMC, which first opened when I was in college. They at least have classic quotes painted on the ceiling and old posters hanging in the hallways. I wouldn't mind seeing them rotate those posters a bit, but it's hard not to love a theater that puts up an Action Jackson poster and leaves it there for 13 years.
--------------------------------------- Title: Cinema Paradiso Director: Guiseppe Tornatore Starring: Salvatore Cascio, Philippe Noiret, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Leopoldo Trieste, Agnese Nano Year Of Release: 1988 Viewing Method: DVD
Winter in Boston is the worst. Yes, the city looks gorgeous immediately following a snowfall, but that lovely white dusting quickly turns into puddles of soaking grey slush. The temperature drops well below freezing, the wind will slice through all your five layers of clothing and your face turns raw and chapped moments after stepping outdoors. As an added bonus, Boston's weather is so unpredictable that every year runs the risk that the winter will simply never end. When I was in middle school, we had a blizzard that knocked out power in most of my town on April Fools Day. Two years ago, a particularly nasty blizzard dumped about four feet of snow on us shortly after Thanksgiving and it didn't diminish until long after the official first day of spring. Hilariously, the crushing humidity of summer can be just as bad, but the heat is far more manageable than the cold. Summer brings baseball, barbecues and most importantly, beaches. When residents look to flee the sticky mess of downtown in favor of ocean breezes, there are two options: head north toward the fishing town of Gloucester (made famous in The Perfect Storm) or head south towards Cape Cod. Yes, like the potato chips.
I spent the first 20 summers of my life on Cape Cod. My family has had a house down there since long before I was born, and while that might sound awesome it didn't always feel that way. The Cape is certainly quaint and scenic, but there isn't actually a whole lot to do down there when you're a kid. Once you've been to the beach, played golf (miniature or otherwise) and eaten some fried clams and lobster, your options start to seriously dwindle...especially when you're below the drinking age. All that would probably be somewhat mitigated if you had a solid group of friends with whom to laze away the afternoons. I've always been fairly outspoken once you get to know me, but years of being the oddball in school made it hard for me to introduce myself to kids out of the blue. This meant I never really had a lot of "Cape friends." Besides, our neighborhood always felt like it was largely populated by retirees, young couples and very small children, which made for some lonely teenage summers. I ended up spending a lot of time with my family, lying on the beach reading while listening to mixtapes on my headphones. That explains why I usually returned to school in September having read so many more books than the majority of my classmates.
I therefore found plenty to identify with in Jim Rash and Nat Faxon's The Way Way Back. Their depiction of Cape life is wholly accurate, which is little surprise considering that they filmed on location and that Faxon himself is from northern Massachusetts. I'm a sucker for coming-of-age stories in general, but a coming-of-age story that takes place where I actually came of age is practically a slam dunk. Duncan (Liam James) and his mom Pam (Toni Collette) are headed down the Cape to spend the summer at the house of her boyfriend Trent (a bearded, asshole Steve Carrell). Duncan is quiet and a little withdrawn in the face of his parents' divorce (he spends the car ride down sitting alone in "the way way back", a.k.a. the backwards facing flip-up seat in the trunk of a station wagon, a.k.a. my favorite seat growing up) and it doesn't help that Trent is a total dick. When they arrive, Trent's older daughter falls in with her normal summer friends while Pam is quickly assimilated into Trent's crowd of heavy drinking neighbors, including a couple played by Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet plus the over-the-top recent divorcee next door played by a pitch perfect Allison Janney. Duncan is therefore left stranded with no one around but Janney's cross-eyed son and stammer-inducing daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), a popular girl who's got a bit of an independent streak in light of her own family's drama.
The film really kicks into gear when Duncan wanders into Water Wizz*, a local waterpark run by Sam Rockwell's fast-talking slacker Owen. He takes a liking to the kid and gives Duncan a job at the park, which is staffed by a colorful cast of characters including Maya Rudolph and writer/directors Rash and Faxon. (Rash is best known as Community's Dean Pelton, while Faxon was the co-star of the underrated Fox comedy Ben & Kate.) Duncan, feeling ignored while they adults cut loose for the summer, keeps the job a secret from his family and while his time at Water Wizz slowly coaxes him out of his shell (he gets the awesome nickname Pop 'N Lock after facing off with some rogue breakdancers) he gains the confidence to assert himself at home and stand up to Trent, who turns out to be an even bigger asshole than anticipated.
The script is not only flat out hilarious, but it's also endlessly quotable - hardly a surprise from Rash and Faxon who rightly won an Oscar for their script for The Descendants. It certainly helps that the film is overstuffed with comic talent like Rockwell, Carrell, Corddry, Janney and Rudolph. I'm sure they'll be pimping out Carrell in a few weeks when it comes time for serious marketing, but his Trent is pretty dry and hardly the star of the show. The real laughs come from Sam Rockwell, whose endless stream of cutting one-liners absolutely bowled me over. Rockwell not only has incredible comedy chops, but he's truly remarkable late in the film when Owen really embraces the surrogate father role. I simply cannot understand why this guy is not a bigger star, as there's seemingly nothing he can't do. And special mention must be made of Allison Janney, who simply kills in every one of her scenes as the manic, usually drunken neighbor Betty. While she's constantly teasing her kids, (there are some great cross-eyed zingers) you can see the real love that's bubbling just below the surface. Janney's an absolute tidal wave of boozy charm that washes over you and leaves you breathless with laughter in her wake.
But the heart of the film is Liam James, who can also be seen on AMC's The Killing, a show that is amazingly returning to television this Sunday despite being cancelled last year. James brings a lot of soul to the part; whereas Duncan could have very easily spent the first half of the movie as a total sad sack (he wears jeans to the beach!) instead he comes off as more of a lovable basset hound - sad looking on the outside but downright playful underneath. There are lots of great little moments, like Duncan lying on the hood of Trent's car and singing along to REO Speedwagon, that bring real dimension to the character. James also serves as a perfect foil for Rockwell, the straight man to Owen's constant wisecracks. In a lot of ways Duncan reminds me of myself at that age, and if my parents had gotten divorced when I was that young I probably would have reverted inwards in much the same manner.
More than anything else I'm happy to see such a solid directorial debut from Jim Rash and Nat Faxon. It's the kind of crowd pleaser that I suspect will serve as the stepping stone to greenlighting an even more ambitious project down the road. It also feels like a very personal film for these guys, and not just because I am at the center bullseye of their target demographic. IFFB packed the large main theater for this screening and, unsurprisingly, it won the room over and then some. (Granted there were a number of local crew members in attendance, but still...) Obviously this is the kind of film that's going to be very well received in Massachusetts and the movie will play very well to anyone who's ever experienced a summer on Cape Cod. That said, a New England residency is hardly required to appreciate the joys inherent of The Way Way Back. It's all just texture for one of the most entertaining coming-of-age stories in recent memory.
This is a wonderful summer flick that's deserving of your attention. I have no idea how widely Fox Searchlight plans to market the movie but it comes out July 4th weekend and, with the only other major releases that weekend of pretty dubious quality (The Lone Ranger and Despicable Me 2), The Way Way Back should serve as a refreshing alternative for audiences burnt out on big screen spectacle. I'll be championing the film BIG time until then and I'll be more than happy to put my wallet where my mouth is when it finally appears at my local theater once again.
*Water Wizz is a real park in Wareham that I've been to many times. Not changing the name of the park is a smart move, both for the movie and for the park's ticket sales.
--------------------------------------- Title: The Way Way Back Directors: Jim Rash, Nat Faxon Starring: Liam James, Sam Rockwell, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, AnnaSophia Robb, Maya Rudolph, Allison Janney, Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, Jim Rash, Nat Faxon Year Of Release: 2013 Viewing Method: Independent Film Festival Boston
If L'Auberge Espagnole (translates as The Spanish Apartment) were a piece of music instead of a film, it would be my wife's theme song. It would play every time she walked into a room.
It's the tale of Xavier, a French twenty-something who spends a year studying Spanish in Barcelona so that he can secure a new job back home. He rents a room in an apartment with six strangers, all from different countries, all with their own particular styles and peculiar habits. It's a year of discovery and exploration, as he learns about new cultures, has a torrid affair with a married woman, and ultimately grows into himself as he finds a place in his colorful new band of friends. It's pretty much everything you think of when you talk about studying abroad, the ideal vision of international travel and friendship that most high school and college kids dream about.
L'Auberge was released in 2002, when my wife Jamie was just starting at USC and probably already planning on studying in France herself. After graduation she went back to France and even spent a year in South Korea, so it's little wonder why she adores this movie so much. Conversely, I've never spent real time abroad. I applied to study in England in high school but wasn't selected, and I passed on the opportunity to spend a semester in the Netherlands during college. In fact, my first time in Europe was on our honeymoon, when we spent a week in Greece. But just because I've never been in an international melting pot, that doesn't mean I've never experienced my own L'auberge Espagnole.
For a lot of people, college is the time when you leave home and adopt a new city as your own. While that had been my plan throughout high school, I ultimately ended up going to school in Boston. Over four years I came to appreciate living downtown, and while I was never more than an hour from my parents, I rarely went home. After graduation I moved to Los Angeles and while I had spent my final semester there, it still felt largely unknown to me. I moved to the west side of town, as opposed to the valley where I had previously interned. I never moved in with an international collection of strangers, but I soon got an apartment with two friends named Ben and Warren, both of whom had been in my college a capella group. It was a very spacious three bedroom unit with a fireplace, lots of storage, and a built-in teal leather diner booth straight out of the 1950s. We christened the place Welnerbane Yard (an anagram of Ben, Warren and Daley) and it quickly became the centerpoint of our steadily growing group of friends.
Welnerbane was a way station for people in need of a place to stay, and any given night there was usually more than three of staying there. We had six or seven friends who all temporarily lived with us over the years, whether for a few weeks or a few months. The place was vibrant, always full of energy. It was the kind of apartment I loved to come home to. The shelves were packed with various knick-knacks that reminded us of home and there was always good food and conversation on hand. Saturday and Sunday mornings became infamous, as Warren and I would take our weekly constitutional to get tea from Starbucks and a smoothie from Jamba Juice. Then I would make scromlette, a sort of messy scrambled egg dish with lots of meat, veggies and cheese, for whoever was staggering awake that morning.
It was also a place full of music. The first time Mike Lerman came to stay with us, he quickly realized that he was in a house full of singers and proposed that, along with his breakneck guitar playing, we should record an album of acoustic power ballad cover songs. We all kind of laughed it off at the time, but four years later we had recorded six albums, played a handful of live shows, and brought another half dozen people into the fold of our part-time band, BiPFT! (The exclamation point is in the name.)
Monday nights became sacred. I hosted pub trivia at Nocturnal, a bar in Santa Monica that defined hole-in-the-wall. Seriously, the place didn't even have a sign with the name of the bar and if not for the neon beer light in the window, you'd never even know it was even there. Consequently, the only people who ever showed up were our friends, which meant that we basically ran our own bar for two hours every week. After trivia, we'd head down to the pier for karaoke at Rusty's Surf Ranch, where we'd close the place down at 1:30 AM along with a colorful collection of locals that included hair band aficionado Michael DeLuise and most of the waitstaff from Bubba Gump Shrimp next door. "Monday nights, the nights when kings were made..."
We hosted plenty of birthdays and holidays as well. I really don't like turkey, so Thanksgiving has always been somewhat wasted on me. But, since most people travel home for Christmas each year, almost nobody would leave L.A. for Thanksgiving. Every year we would have an epic gathering of people with a mouthwatering array of foodstuffs. I would make a ham, mashed potatoes (one year I had to buy a lobster pot so I could boil all the potatoes at once) and crescent rolls filled with pesto and cheese, a.k.a. cresto rolls. Friends would whip up their own specialties like creamed corn casserole, homemade stuffing and a bounty of pies, not to mention a crap ton of booze. Thanksgiving quickly went from my least favorite to my most favorite holiday, a day in which I could truly appreciate my new west cast family.
There were plenty of other wacky adventures, like the time we stole a street sign or the time I almost started a brawl outside Dodger Stadium, but it wasn't always sunshine and lollipops. Our neighbors hated us and would frequently call the police over the slightest disturbance. Sometimes it was warranted but more often than not the cops would show up to find six people watching a movie. One year someone called the cops on Thanksgiving, I shit you not. After I had to convince the landlord not to evict us, I found myself trying to reign in a few late night drinking sessions to prevent further visits by the L.A.P.D., which often caused some tension among us. There was cooking and cleaning and all the usual nonsense that comes with having multiple roommates, as well as a few complicated romantic entanglements that led to plenty of awkward nights and hurt feelings. But no matter the drama, I still loved all of these people like my own brothers and sisters.
And that's why L'Auberge Espagnole struck a chord with me. It's a film about venturing out into the unknown and making the world your own. There is incredible value in the challenge of relocation, in creating a home for yourself among unfamiliar streets and building a family of new and interesting faces. For Xavier it was Barcelona, whereas for me it was Los Angeles; the destination is almost immaterial, so long as it's somewhere you want be. Moving to a new city is the simplest form of exploration, the kind of adventure that everyone should experience at least once. I don't begrudge those who live and die in the same place they were born, but it's a mindset that I will simply never understand. I love Boston. Always have, always will. That said, I've never wanted to settle down here permanently. I'm already looking forward to the day when Jamie and I take to the wind once more to find our next l'auberge Espagnole.
--------------------------------------- Title: L'Auberge Espagnole Director: Cedric Klapisch Starring: Romain Duris, Judith Godreche, Audrey Tatou, Cecile de France, Kelly Reilly Year Of Release: 2002 Viewing Method: DVD
As of this writing I'm still about a week back on articles, but in light of recent events I'm going to jump forward to the present and then I'll circle back tomorrow. It seems silly to ignore the most dramatic attack on my hometown in my lifetime, but it feels even sillier to wait a week to write about it just because I've been busy lately and fallen behind schedule. Besides, this is my project, I'll make the rules.
Anyone who knows me knows that my Boston heritage is a huge part of my personality. My mother's family is Italian, my father's family is Irish and almost all of them still live within an hour of the city. I may not have an accent, but I'm about as Boston as they come, and during my five years in Los Angeles, my hometown roots became a badge of honor. In fact, that is quite literally true: before moving I got a tattoo (my first) of the Red Sox "B" logo, which I've always felt transcended its baseball context to symbolize the entire city. L.A. is about as far away as you can get from Boston, but even there I found myself at the center of a wonderful little east coast ex-pat community, filled with high school and college friends who, like me, had gotten their fill of frigid winters and were lured by the promise of constant sunshine. I had a collection of Sam Adams bottles on the shelf in our living room, a stolen Dunkin Donuts rug at the front door and a Wally The Green Monster doll sitting in a chair next to the TV. We may have been 3000 miles away, but it still felt like home.
Since moving back east three years ago I've fallen back in love with Boston in many ways. I've rediscovered the pleasures of actually walking in a downtown setting and riding a bike through the city streets. L.A. taught me to love good Mexican food, but man is it nice to live in a place with great pizza on every corner. Yes, the winters still suck and the summers tend to get oppressively hot, but autumn and spring simply cannot be beat. And since my wife isn't a local, it's been a lot of fun to both introduce her to all of my favorite places and to discover all the great new bars and restaurants that have cropped up since I graduated from college. I'm sure that we'll move on to another city in a few years and when we do I'll certainly be excited to go. But, just like when I went to California, I'll also be sad to leave.
I won't try to summarize why Marathon Monday/Patriots Day is such a big deal around here, as plenty of others have already done so at great length. (Personally, I think that Film Crit Hulk put it best.) To be honest, my relationship with the holiday has always been a little off kilter; unlike most everyone else in the city, I've almost never had the day off from school or work, so I've never actually gone down to stand along the Marathon route and cheer on the runners. Even still, the energy around town is as infectious as opening day at Fenway Park. Everyone just seems...happier. Even when I was on the west coast, I would lament missing out on Marathon Monday, despite never having had a chance to properly celebrate it in the first place.
It's been three days since twin explosions rang out on Boylston Street and there's still far too much that we don't know. There have been fluctuating injury counts and death tolls, rumors that the government shut down cell service downtown (they didn't) and that five unexploded devices were discovered spread throughout the city (no such devices exist). We've seen the best the city has to offer, with doctors and nurses who had already completed the grueling race jumping into action to treat those wounded at the scene while still other racers ran an extra mile and half past the finish line to nearby Mass General Hospital in order to give blood. Unfortunately, we've also seen far too many surrender to humanity's worst instincts, looting a table of unclaimed marathon jackets and quickly adopting rumors that the perpetrator was a Saudi national. We still don't know who did this, and yesterday afternoon was extremely frustrating in that regard: over the course of an hour the AP reported that an arrest was imminent, then CNN claimed that a suspect was in custody, only to find out that in reality no arrests had been made and no suspect had been identified. Don't get me started on the state of modern journalism, but it's extremely frustrating to see the people whose only job is to inform the public casually sacrifice the veracity of fact (I'm looking at you, NY Post) in the rush to break the story first. You'd think CNN would have learned their lesson from the Obamacare/Supreme Court debacle, but apparently not so much.
Thankfully all of my loved ones are safe and sound. I had one aunt, a woman to whom I owe so much, who was running in the Marathon, but thankfully she was stopped at mile 21 and I was able to get in touch with her pretty quickly. Facebook and Twitter became absolutely crucial that day, the easiest way to let friends and family know who was okay. In fact, my old a cappella group instantly started a thread so that all the current and former members could check in and it became incredibly comforting as the day went on just to see an outpouring of love and care from some of my closest friends. And that's what's struck me in the days since this horrible travesty shattered what should be a day of pure joy: this city has come together like I've simply never seen before. I walked down to Copley Square yesterday and found a barricade on Boylston Street at the corner of Berkeley. While reporters spoke quietly into their cameras, a silent crowd gathered in the street, reverently staring down the usually busy thoroughfare, now eerily empty. There was a growing collection of flowers, candles and notes at the foot of the barrier, with a few men admirably maintaining the memorial by rearranging items, keeping the candles lit and taping down cards so that they wouldn't fly away.
Last night the Bruins played their first game back in the Garden, and this happened:
For me, it really sunk in Tuesday night. I hosted my regular pub trivia show at Terry O'Reilly's and I was more than a little nervous. Surely the desire for beer and whiskey would persist, but did people really want to go out in the world and be social? I had visions of a mostly empty room, playing host to a few scattered folks who mostly just wanted to drink in peace and had little patience for my silliness.
I could not have been more wrong.
The place was PACKED, the biggest night of trivia we've ever had there. All of our regular teams were there in full force, as well as dozens of unfamiliar faces in search of a respite. Everyone was in great spirits, ready to laugh and escape from the nightmare that was still unfolding just few minutes down the road. Usually I get a few teams that play for a couple of rounds and then go home, but at the end of the night we still had a full house. Trivia night had become a haven, a safe space for people to gather together and lose themselves in a few pints, obscure pop culture and, most importantly, a sense of community. After that night I truly felt that this was my trivia family, and in truth I was just as happy to provide a distraction as they were to have one.
Anyway. Bachelorette...
I left work on Monday to find Jamie home on the couch absorbed in the local news. She's on vacation this week, so she had basically been frozen there for most of the afternoon. We watched the press conferences by Governor Deval Patrick, Mayor Tom Menino and President Obama before finally deciding that we needed to change gears. I was initially thinking of a really dumb action movie, something full of mindless spectacle that would let me unplug my brain for a few hours. (The top contender was the Total Recall remake with Colin Farrell.) However, Jamie really wanted to watch something upbeat and funny, so after a quick scan of the Netflix queue we settled on Bachelorette, a female driven hard comedy in the vein of The Hangover. Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan and Isla Fisher star as three bridesmaids who, after a few too many drinks and lines of coke, accidentally ruin the wedding dress of their old high school friend played by Rebel Wilson's American Accent. With only a few hours to get the dress fixed before the wedding starts, needless to say that some hijinks ensue. It's easy to see how this movie got greenlit, but also just as easy to see how it ended up as a primarily VOD release.
The film clocks in at just under 90 minutes and the pacing feels a little all over the map. I'm curious if there's a longer cut somewhere that flows better, or perhaps has some darker/over the top set pieces that just didn't land. I don't necessarily think that would make for a better movie, as I actually liked the smaller scale here compared to the batshit crazy antics of The Wolfpack, but even in a landscape full of bloated comedies it's hard to escape the feeling that there's something missing here. It has the swagger of a raunchier film filled with sheer lunacy, despite being fairly grounded in reality. The three leads are all great, (even if Isla Fisher's accent tends to drift) and I laughed out loud early and often. Plus it has James Marsden as a charming asshole, a.k.a. The Best Marsden. Most importantly though, Adam Scott plays opposite Lizzy Caplan, a pairing that any fan of Party Down can tell you is pure magic. They have a scene in his childhood bedroom where they simply look at each other and he calls her by the nickname that only he ever used...it's a really beautiful moment, demonstrating the kind of simple human connection that Jamie and I both needed to feel that night.
Mostly though, Bachelorette was simply a welcome diversion, an excuse to smile and laugh in the face of irredeemable horror. When it was over, we immediately decided that we wanted something inspiring and flat out awesome, a movie that showcases the very best that humanity has to offer.
