Five Dollar Friday

I was recently trying to explain "Five Dollar Friday" to someone, who didn't quite get it.

At the end of each shooting week, we like to decorate a bucket for "Five Dollar Friday". One of the Set PAs (or, in this picture, Jackie Chan) carries it around, and collects $5 bills from the crew. People either write their name on a scrap of paper, or on the bill itself -- which is defacing currency, but that's neither here nor there....

In fact, if you ever wind up with a $5 bill with a name written in sharpie, it probably came off a film set.

Anyway, at the end of the day, one of the names is drawn -- and the winner gets the entire bucket of money. It's like winning a raffle -- and there can be quite a chunk of change in there. Good manners dictate that you tip the bucket carrier $20 or more, and if you go grab drinks after, the first round is on you.

Happy Friday!

Scoreboard!

Periodically, we post a scoreboard of all the movies we have reviewed thus far. Usually we save it for Fridays, but we have something else planned this week.

Here are the latest rankings (accompanied by a picture of Doyle's Pub, where almost half of the movies have a bar scene). As always, we grade on a curve:

A..... The Departed

A..... Jaws

A-.... The Friends of Eddie Coyle

A-.... Gone Baby Gone

A-.... Good Will Hunting

A-.... Shutter Island

A-.... Standard Operating Procedure

B+.... Black Irish

B+.... Mystic River

B+.... School Ties

B...... Blown Away

B...... The Boondock Saints

B...... Edge of Darkness

B...... Love Story

B...... Monument Ave

B...... Overnight

B...... The Thomas Crown Affair

B-..... The Invention of Lying

B-.... The Proposal

C+.... Surrogates

C...... The Bostonians

C...... The Maiden Heist

C...... Paul Blart: Mall Cop

C-..... Alex & Emma

C-..... The Box

C-..... Ghosts of Girlfriend's Past

C-..... What's The Worst That Could Happen

D+.... Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

D+.... My Best Friend's Girl

D...... What Doesn't Kill You

D-..... Bride Wars

D-..... Furry Vengeance

D-..... The Women

F....... The Pink Panther 2

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

B-.... Practical Magic

D-.... Knowing

(click the links on the sidebar for our reviews of each film)

Movie Review: Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

(You might have thought we were going to review "The Town" this week, considering it just won the weekend box office... but No! We'll get to it soon.)

Okay, you might be asking yourself why this site is reviewing Errol Morris's 2008 Abu Ghraib prison torture documentary, "Standard Operating Procedure"... after all, the subject matter entirely takes place in Iraq. Plus, it gets gruesome to watch -- not our usual light-hearted Kate Hudson fare.

It's a partially Boston-made documentary: Morris used the High Output studios in Canton to film some of the interviews, including the scandal's poster face: Lynndie England. Can you imagine casually running into her at the craft services table?

"Standard Operating Procedure" works through the Abu Gharaib scandal one photo at a time, breaking down the evolution of 20 yr old military guards to sadistic torturers. Morris interviews many of the convicted players. It's discouraging to find out how normal they are. Isn't that Morris's point, however, that anyone in that situation could have behaved the same?

Morris famously uses a camera device called "The Interrotron", which almost acts like a Skype conversation between himself and the interviewees. He used it at the High Output studio. On the big screen (or on your laptop), it adds the effect of having the interviewees staring down the audience as they talk. It's a little creepy. For the subject matter, it seems perfectly appropriate; we all have culpability here.

It can be difficult to sit through this film, but is well worth the investigation.

Final Score = A-

Coming Soon, updated...part 2!

Meanwhile, at Fenway Park --

No, it's not the sequel to Fever Pitch, it's Ben Affleck pulling out all the stops for his latest film, "The Town". Not only has he made some of the higher quality Boston movies of recent years, he's really good to his crew.

We cannot believe the speed with which the Boston Globe turned these photos around (the screening just ended!)... but hey! That's why they're paid and we're not.

Photos of "The Town" Premiere at Fenway Park, via the Boston Globe

And while we're at it, here's the Boston Globe's review of "The Town". We're not so lazy this time that we're going to skip reviewing it ourselves (coughFurryVengeangecough), we just haven't had the chance yet.

For extra fun, click on the Take 2 video. While it's not their best review, Ty Burr and Wesley Morris bicker better than any reviewers out there.

Coming Soon, updated...

Good afternoon, PAs --

We have two corrections to our recent posting regarding new releases:

1) "Valediction", aka "Locked In"

We had originally told you that this film would never be seen or heard from again... and we were dead wrong! It has a premier slated for the opening of the Boston Film Festival, this Friday, September 17.

Ticket information is HERE

(by the way, our friends from the crew say that the synopsis is completely misleading... but you'll have to go to see for yourself)

2) We forgot to mention "The Social Network",

aka The Facebook Movie. Aaron Sorkin, creator of "The West Wing" wrote a script about the making of Facebook... and it actually seems awesome. We should know... someone "loaned" us the script. They shot a few scenes over at Harvard, and the rest in LA. We're gonna call this a Boston movie anyway.

We're particularly looking forward to Justin Timberlake, who plays a cracked out wheeling-and-dealing Napster protege, Sean Parker; Timberlake should be bouncing off the walls with this character.

"The Social Network" comes out October 1st, in every single theater near you.

What to do in this situation...

Okay, Sparky, here's the deal:

Some of us follow the blogs and Facebook postings of fellow crew members. One Facebook page in particular, My Mom bought me a RED camera so now I'm a DP, is amusingly snarky. He recently posted the following picture and status update:

"Lame PA told me not take pics of their stupid movie set in Rhode Island. Some show called "Burden of Proof." I asked if Timmy Rubensteiner was the DP. Then said, "of course not, jackass cause that's me! Your movie sucks, I'm Audi 4k bitches!"

Okay, while we laughed at this, it brings up a common annoyance among Set PAs: what do you do if people are trying to take pictures and you're supposed to stop them?

Answer? Nothing.

Just because you signed a confidentiality agreement with your start paperwork, and just because it says "No photographs on set" on the call sheet, doesn't give you legal footing to stop others from taking pictures... Unless they're paparazzi, in which case go nuts and hit them with a C-stand. Getting arrested for that would be so worth it.

For the sake of keeping your job, however, you probably should ask the person with the camera to stop photographing... repeatedly. That way, you at least tried to do your job. If they don't there's really nothing you can do about it.

A nod to Philadelphia films

Welcome back from Labor Day weekend!

One of our contributing writers passed through Philadelphia this past weekend, and spotted something in their airport:

"In one of the long hallways between terminals -- I think it was terminal A -- they lined the whole thing with Philadelphia movie posters. You know, they've got all the Rocky movies, "The 6th Sense", all the other Shyamalan movies, "Witness", "12 Monkeys", "Philadelphia", and some other obscure ones I'd never heard of. There must have been a hundred of them -- it took up the entire length of the moving sidewalk."

What a great idea! In an entire airport full of historic landmark decor, movie posters add a fun twist to promoting the city. We think Logan Airport should steal this.

In fact, we would like an entire wall of movie posters right after you pass through security. Think about it: everybody's scrambling to put their shoes and belts back on... and we all feel a little sheepish after getting body scanned, frisked and molested. Wouldn't movie posters make a great distraction? Wouldn't it cheer you up to see tourists point at the "Jaws" poster and proclaim, "Well, I didn't know that was filmed here..."?

Hey Logan Airport... get on this!