Review: Edge of Darkness (2010)

(Our first ever opening night review!)

We wanted to dislike this movie. We really did. After all we've heard about Mel being a jerk, Mel drinking too much, Mel cheating on his wife, Mel being anti-semitic... the last thing we wanted was to join in on his big screen comeback.

But... then we started hearing reviews from last week's crew screening. It sounded pretty awesome. Next thing you know, we're in a packed theater, watching "Edge of Darkness".

Edge of Darkness won't win any Oscars for originality or cleverness, but it is damn entertaining. It features lots of local scenery (and a few mediocre New England accents). The line "Everything's illegal in Massachusetts" got repeated laughs.

It starts off pretty slow, with planted father-daughter dialogue, character establishment, etc. It's raining in almost every scene and is moody as hell. Then, suddenly, a nosebleed, a shotgun blast through the daughter's chest, and WE'RE OFF!!! Now Mel Gibson's growling at, threatening and beating up every other character in the movie. Classic, over-the-top revenge flick!

(At one point an anonymous bad guy gets shot up and flipped into a river, some guy near us yelled out, "This movie has everything!")

So congratulations, Mr. Gibson. Here's your career back. Try not to screw it up this time.

Final Score = B

Review: What's The Worst That Could Happen (2001)

Off the top of my head, I can think of at least three movies where Martin Lawrence plays a thief, and three more where Danny Devito plays a rich scumbag. Might as well join forces for one painfully unfunny comedy. At the moment, you can watch it for free on Hulu.com .

In a bungled house robbery, Devito's character steals Lawrence's ring - the victim having his revenge. Lawrence decides to make Devito's life hell until he gets the ring back. Shenanigans ensue. There's dog fart humor.

Lawrence's character is okay, but his girlfriend is the most useless thing in the movie. Devito's character is unlikeable, and not in a fun "It's Always Sunny" kind of way. There's nothing clever or audacious going on here. The only amusing moments come when local guy Lenny Clarke and Siobhan Fallon appear as the bickering magician and wife. The rest of the performances are mediocre at best.

I actually remember stumbling across the film set during summer vacation back in 2000. We watched the stand ins walk through Boston Public Garden, while the PAs told everybody to stay quiet. Who'd have guessed 10 yrs later, I too would be echoing the calls of "Rolling!"

Final Score = C-

The Massachusetts Film Tax Credit

Tonight's State of the Union address coupled with the recently proposed MA state budget has got us thinking about taxes. And tax credits....

What makes major film and television work possible in Massachusetts is our film tax credit. Our understanding is that the production company pays to apply for the tax credit. In return, they get tax exempt status (that wonderful ST-12 form that is floating around the accounting office), and eventually get 25% of their total expenditure returned by the state.

Our state tax dollars give 25% of the money they spend back to producers? Yes. And, yes, we know this doesn't sound right, but financially it works out well for us. The tax credit lures major features here, where millions are spent on hotels, meals, transportation, and the supplies needed to build movie sets -- not to mention employ hundreds of local people (even us humble Production Assistants). We may only keep 75%, but that is millions more than having no films come to town.

Without the tax credit, we would have had to move to LA for this kind of work. Then we'd be competing with every recent film school grad from around the country, living in a crappy overpriced apartments, and finding shit day-playing jobs on Craigslist. News on Manny Ramirez would be unavoidable. We can't have that.

So, because we like jobs, and we like Boston, we here at the Boston Production Assistant like the MA Tax Credit.

Review: The Women (2008)

Another movie shot in Boston that pretends to be somewhere else (New York)... to which way say, Great!

"The Women" is based on a play and film from the 1930s. A cheated-on housewife stands by her man until public humiliation forces her to act. Someone call Mark Sanford's wife....

This remake keeps the outdated values of a 1930s film, but none of its charm or clever banter. It isn't funny. The only mildly amusing character is Cloris Leachman's smart-ass housekeeper. The rest are unlikeable female caricatures. They shop Newbury Street and Saks, and backstab, and get facelifts, and gossip, and get their nails done. Unlike your typical chick-flick, there's a total lack of romance or girl power here. Why would anybody want to watch this?

The summer of 2007 produced this annoying film simultaneously with "My Best Friend's Girl" and "The Pink Panther 2"...and all this before the Writers' Strike. Boston certainly appreciates the work, but let's keep pretending it's New York and/or Paris, okay?

Final Score = D-

Scoreboard!

Happy Friday! We periodically post a scoreboard of everything we have reviewed thus far. Of our Boston Movies Reviews, here is what we have:

A The Departed

A- Good Will Hunting

B Love Story

C The Bostonians

C Paul Blart: Mall Cop

D+ My Best Friend's Girl

D What Doesn't Kill You

F The Pink Panther 2

And for Not-Made-In-Boston Movie Reviews:

D- Knowing

Review: The Bostonians (1984)

We'd never heard of this movie, but a fellow PA claims that a scene was shot at her grandfather's house in Bunker Hill. Luckily, the public library has a copy of everything....

The Bostonians follows a woman's suffragist, Olive, and her Southern cousin, Basil, as they battle for the soul of young Verena. Should Verena stay with Olive, become the face of the women's movement and keep their weird lesbian vibe going? Or should she run off with Basil and spend the next decade barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?

Ultimately it doesn't matter because Verena is annoying and useless. She blubbers and sobs and frets about making decisions. Why either Olive or Basil finds her so enchanting is completely beyond me.

Christopher Reeve stars as Basil. It's hard to watch him play a twangy douchebag. Not so super. Some of the other cast members are okay, but this movie still drags. It feels like you've just watched the Masterpiece Theater version of "Mona Lisa Smile."

Final Score = C

A Letter to NBC

Dear NBC,

Regarding your problem with our two local guys, Jay Leno (Andover) and Conan O'Brien (Brookline), your proposed solution is the dumbest thing we've heard.

When Jay Leno retired from late night, you thought "Aw, he's such a nice guy. Just let him crash on the couch for a while." So you cleared out all your cooler, edgier houseguests to make room for a retiree (Southland's now stuck crashing over at TNT). His show took away the coveted 10pm time slot, when it's fair game to show dead bodies and naked butts. And guess what? We didn't want to watch.

Poor Jay and his poor, poor ratings. It suddenly seems that you, NBC, need him off your couch.

What is insane, however, is that your network thinks bumping Conan O'Brien's Tonight Show back to midnight will solve the problem. It won't.

You know the coveted 18-34 demographic -- those of us who stay up to watch late night television? We like Conan. He's closer to our age. He used to write for the Simpsons. We like his jokes better. If you push his show back to midnight, we're going to watch Jimmy Kimmel. Jay Leno's show was funny, in a grandfather's humor kind of way. The era has passed. Let it go, NBC. You can't call a mulligan on your television audience.

Now is the winter of our discontent...

Hope everyone survived Christmas and New Year's!

Now the waiting truly begins. If you're like us over here at The Boston Production Assistant, someone recently -- probably at a holiday party -- asked you, "So what are you working on next?"

To which you sheepishly replied, "I don't know yet." You might have launched into an explanation about seasonal work, unemployment benefits, or how producers from LA just don't work in snow. The person who asked nodded thoughtfully at your monologue, sipped his drink and secretly looked around for someone more interesting.

We've all been there. It's okay. Just hang on until March, when you suddenly can brag about how you "work in film" again. Of course, by then, you won't have time for parties... too busy xeroxing the blue paged rewrites and coallating scripts. Also, don't forget the Starbucks lattes, and make sure that they use soy milk.