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

Know your Locals!

Working on a movie set, you inevitably will meet many people who are union members. Here's a quick guide of which people do what:

Teamsters Local 25 - These guys drive and are responsible for all the vehicles used on set, including crew shuttle vans, "star cars" for celebrity actors, wardrobe trucks, catering trucks, grips trucks... the list goes on and on. They are local to Boston and northern New England. My experience, as a female, is that they're generally tough-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold types. My coworker, who is male, would like to add, "Don't ever fuck with the Teamsters."

IATSE Local 161 - These are your production office people: the Production Coordinator, APOC, the Accounting department, and Script Supervisor. This local is run out of New York, but covers the New England region.

IATSE Local 481 - This union represents a whole slew of departments, including (in no particular order) Art, Grips, Wardrobe, Electrics, Props, Special Effects, Set Dressing, Greens, Construction... I'm forgetting some here -- and I apologize. 481 covers New England, but not New York.

IATSE 600, International Cinematographers Guild - This is the Camera department's union. This is not a New England based local, so you'll run into 600 members in New York and beyond.

United Scenic Artists 829 - These are the artists who do everything from elaborate production designs to painting walls. You'll often see them covered in paint splatter... lovely people. The 829 covers New England, New York and beyond.

There's also SAG for actors, DGA for directors, WGA for writers, and the PGA for producers. These people are "above the line" and tend to get flown in from LA.

Review of a Non-Boston Movie: Knowing (2009)

KNOWING! A movie set in the Boston area, that clearly was NOT filmed in the Boston area. It uses a lot of shoddy VFX and greenscreen. Major location give aways include unrecognizable landmarks, the "Ice Cold Beer" sign at the rest stop convenience store (not legal here), trucks in the background that appear to be driving on the left, and, oh, a major car accident scene set on hill-less terrain so flat you can see the horizon. It's not New England. It's not even the United States.

Meanwhile in Melbourne, Australia... Nicholas Cage will be furrowing his brow and delivering monotone predictions about the pending apocalypse. It's hard to take seriously. We started heckling about halfway through the film. If only Bruce from the Family Guy had been in this (Everybody else on Earth is going to die? "Oh noooo!").

We will half-heartedly give kudos to "Knowing" for digitally blowing up the city of Boston. Usually, movies like to blow up New York, or Washington DC. Our blown-up city envy needed to be addressed, so thank you. Melbourne thanks you too.

We give this movie an Aussi Salute, and not much else.

Final Score = D-

Review: The Departed (2006)

Finally, we get to review a good Boston movie!

Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" was made before the Massachusetts film tax credit came into play... which means, unfortunately, that this was mostly shot in New York. Digressions. It's a great movie about Boston. Sort of.

Yes, we know, this is not a Whitey Bulger biopic. It's based on a Hong Kong film called "Infernal Affairs", which was then adapted by local guy William Monahan. Good job, especially with everything that came out of Mark Wahlberg's mouth.

We have to get really nit-picky to find things we dislike about this movie... and they mostly involve the Madolyn subplot (and her work wardrobe!). Oh, OH, and the stupid digital rat in the last shot. Even the Ralph Wiggum knew better. "The rat symbolizes obviousness."

Meanwhile, "The Departed" zips us around the city in dark cars, blasting the Rolling Stones and introducing the Dropkick Murphys' "Shipping Up To Boston." We crank it up every time we drive over the Zakim bridge at night, or watch Papelbon dance around in his underwear. The Alec Baldwin vs. Mark Wahlberg dialogues, gun fights where everybody dies, and Jack Nicholson's general creepiness... we like this movie a lot.

Our friends on the crew reported long, perfectionist Scorsese shoots. Supposedly the night filming in Chinatown was so hot and humid that they had to pump hot steam out of tubes to create the haze. Must have smelled horrible. Add Matt Damon, running in heavy fall/winter wardrobe, and... well, that's why they pay him the big bucks.

We'd love to give this a Dignam "Whoop-de-fucking-do", but instead:

Final Score = A