Review: Love Story (1970)

We're going old school today -- before any of us here at The Boston Production Assistant were born! This is supposedly a classic, nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, "Love means never having to say you're sorry", etc.

Whereas, we're like, "Hey, it's the dad from Bones!"

Love Story, if nothing else, is very appropriately named: a rich Harvard hockey player has a meetcute with a poor Radcliffe librarian, they banter sarcastically, they run around in the snow, they get married, they work blue collar jobs to put him through Harvard law, he graduates, they try to have kids, she dies, he's sad. Done. All this is accomplished by the age of 25.

It's not amazing, but it's not bad. Granted, this blog grades on a curve. The two main characters are (annoyingly) realistic as Harvard students: She's self-righteous, sarcastic and outspoken; he has Daddy issues. We know people like Jenny and Oliver... we just don't hang out with them.

We were slightly amused to discover that most famous line comes from a moment when Jenny's locked herself out of their apartment. Random. Also, their apartment in Cambridge costs $80 per month! Wow, times have changed-- can't even get a shared sublet in Somerville for that!

We also like that Roger Ebert called out the film cliche of "Ali MacGraw's disease":

"Movie illness in which the only symptom is that the sufferer grows more beautiful as death approaches."

Nicole Kidman had the same thing in Moulin Rouge. Must be going around.

Final Score: B

Boston vs. the Paparazzi

In the previous post, we mentioned an incident where a PA was pushed down a flight of stairs by the paparazzi. This is highly uncommon. The photographer in question supposedly had flown in from LA and was apparently unfamiliar with what some might call "civility."

Boston, to our knowledge, does not have its own core of paparazzi. This is a good thing. It reminds us that, say, Katie Holmes standing in line at a Starbucks is NOT more important than the cancer-fighting MGH surgeon in line behind her. Nor is she better than the future rocket scientist, MIT-attending barista who makes her coffee.

We'd like to brag that this city has its priorities in the right place, but there's always exceptions. Take for example, Billy Costa, of Kiss 108fm. He merrily broadcasted the time and location of the Shutter Island wrap party (thus ensuring the stars would not be attending). Thanks a lot for that. Others at the Globe and the Phoenix, etc., make a living writing celebrity spottings, but luckily this is never front page news.

Let's keep it that way.

Review: My Best Friend's Girl (2008)

To prepare for a viewing of this movie, we first read the Boston Globe's scything review:

My Best Friend's Girl

Thus, with expectations lowered to 1 star, we proceeded.

It wasn't unbearable. There were parts that made us laugh, if briefly. It also has its cringe-worthy gags (the eyebrow shaving bit, etc.). The characters in this movie act exactly as expected: Jason Biggs's guy is the clumsy, unlucky dork; Kate Hudson tosses her blond locks and makes sarcastic comments that aren't quite funny enough; Alec Baldwin plays a slimeball; Dane Cook is, well, Dane Cook. No surprises.

Says one former PA, "Good Luck Chuck came out in the middle of filming this, and that got slammed, so we kinda knew what we were in for. Then Dane started doing those (MLB) 'There's Only One October' commercials, and you could feel the backlash building."

Also during filming, Kate Hudson's ex, Owen Wilson, attempted suicide -- drawing national tabloid media attention to her. Rumor has it that a paparazzi chasing her on a Comm Ave location pushed a set PA down a flight of steps. Supposedly he broke both his arms, though have yet to confirm this. Paparazzi -- and US Weekly -- are hazardous to our livelihoods. Stop buying crap magazines, people! (There are some additional thoughts for Kate Hudson on the previous post. )

For injuring a PA, and general unfunniness:

Final Score = D+

A Letter to Kate Hudson

Dear Ms. Hudson,

You've visited Boston recently with both "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Bride Wars." A few of us had the chance to work with you on those projects, and we have the following thoughts:

1) We want to like you. You seem likeable. The thing is, you don't seem to like us. It hurts. See, we've worked with a lot of actors, and they genuinely make an effort to talk to us (Christopher Walken), eat lunch with the crew (Mark Ruffalo), joke around about sports rivalries (Leo DiCaprio), or buy us little eco-friendly presents (Cameron Diaz). We love working with them. We tell all of our friends how great they are. With you, it seems like you're avoiding eye contact.

2) Keep bringing the work to Boston, by all means, but can they be quality movies? "My Best Friend's Girl" was such a dude flick, and "Bride Wars" was just catty. You deserve better roles; our city deserves better films. This would be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

3) Stop dating A-Rod.

4) Seriously. We hate A-Rod. To the average Bostonian, it's like you're dating Saddam Hussein. If you're planning to come back here to film again, please make sure you've broken up. There is no room for negotiation here.

Thank you for your time and we hope to see you, minus A-Rod, around town some time in the future.

Sincerely,

The Boston Production Assistants

Review: Good Will Hunting (1997)

This is the movie that made filming in Southie cool.

Most of us who are currently PAs are too young to have worked on this classic... but we all have fond memories of yelling "How do you like dem apples?" at our junior high/ high school classmates. This movie started the Six Degrees of Matt Damon/Ben Affleck -- in which everybody in town traced their personal connection to these two actors: "My friend's cousin goes to Newton North and knows some guys on the baseball team and the coach is Matt Damon's father... One time he came by to get the car keys, and the whole school freaked!"... etc.

Ah, the memories.

The movie itself is spectacular. A bunch of guys driving around in a beat up car never looked so good. Being a janitor at MIT never looked so good. Harassing douchey Harvard undergrads at the bar never felt so good... And it led to one of the greatest movie parodies in memory: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Sadly, this film was up against Titanic in nearly every Oscar category, and lost out to Propeller Man on most counts. Matt and Ben got their trophies for writing the screenplay. They managed to thank almost everybody in Boston, individually.

Minor deductions for Robin Williams horrible pronunciation of the word "Fart".

FINAL SCORE = A-

Review: The Pink Panther 2 (2009)

I hate to slam the film after one of our PA friends said how cool it was for him to work for his idol, Steve Martin, but... this movie is terrible. Awful. We are all dumber for this movie's existence.

The original Pink Panther series was made in the 60s and 70s -- around the same era as all those grindhouse and blaxsploitation films. They were full of bumbling, sexist, racist characters. Inspector Clouseau beats on his Chinese houseboy, and everybody laughs. Send in the hot secretary for sex! The 60s were an interesting time.

If you wanted to revive this series, why not go Austin Powers style? Instead, the Pink Panther 2 takes all the campy xenophobia and sets it in the present day. It doesn't play anymore. At best, The Pink Panther 2 is annoying and stupid. At worst, there were probably children that left the theater spewing outdated racial slurs.

I'm angry at this movie. It took legendary actors and made them look like jackasses. Steve Martin, fine, go ahead and humiliate yourself... but Alfred Molina? Andy Garcia? Leon... the Professional? Why? Why did you do this to yourselves?

This movie shot here in the summer of 2007, but the plot takes place in Paris; the locations don't look anything like Boston. Thank God. We don't want credit for this.

Final Score = F