'Big Screen Boston: From Mystery Street to The Departed and Beyond' by Paul Sherman -- Web special: $12 including shipping!

BPL's "Made in Massachusetts" series

I haven't posted anything about the Boston Public Library's year-long "Made in Massachusetts" series (at the Copley main branch), because I'm pretty ambivalent about it. On one hand, it's an ambitious collection of several dozen movies. On another, I doubt any of the movies are being shown on film and the series includes several (such as The Last Hurrah, Captains Courageous and The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming) which were not shot here and include, at best, just stock exteriors of the Boston area, if that. For instance, when I interviewed Carl Reiner years back, I asked him if the Cape-set Russians filmed locally. No, he said, they just put pointed roofs on the seaside homes in California.

I also cautiously wonder what will comprise May's "focus on local filmmakers." Will it do justice to the city's long history of indie and documentary moviemaking?

Anyhow, here's a thumbnail of the flyer to click on and see the schedule. Judge for yourself.

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The all-important how-to-order-the-book link

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R.I.P., Karen Schmeer

Sad news out of New York City, as Boston editor Karen Schmeer has been hit and killed by a car carrying robbers making a getaway from a CVS. Schmeer edited many of the most prominent documentaries covered in Big Screen Boston, including Martha Swetzoff's Theme: Murder, Errol Morris' Mr. Death (she was Morris' regular editor), Robb Moss' The Same River Twice and Lucia Small's My Father, the Genius. She was only 39.

Everybody's tryin' to get into the act...

It seems as if spoofing Boston has become a cottage industry in the last week, what with The Daily Show's priceless coverage of the special Senate election, 30 Rock's Boston episode (with Julianne Moore's intentionally[?] overblown accent), and, now, the AMC Blog's take on bad Boston movie accents. It's actually only a so-so list, leaving out a major offender (Anne Bancroft in Malice) and including some characters (Kate Winslet's in Little Children and Joe Pesci's in With Honors) who are, if memory serves, never even established as being from Boston. Besides, would anyone really want to sit through two hours of Joe Pesci trying to do a Boston accent? That'd be retahded!

New class at BCAE on moviemaking--local and Hollywood

A heads up for those that might be interested... The relationship between Boston and Hollywood is the topic of a new class at the Boston Center for Adult Education called How Hollywood Works: Getting Into the Movies, which meets Feb. 4, 11 and 18. Charles Hoyt, who is teaching it, knows his stuff--he's even showing an episode of Route 66 that was shot in Boston during the first class. Depending on my schedule, I may be joining him during that meeting. Guests at other classes come from such places as the Mass. Film Office and Emerson College.

Boston Noir series at the Brattle

Anyone who's read Big Screen Boston knows that crime movies make up a huge chunk of the better Boston movies. The Brattle is showing a bunch of them over the last half of October.

    There's the chance to see some rarely screened movies here. The Friends of Eddie Coyle got some attention this year when it finally came to home video, and it starts off the series on Oct. 15. Based on George V. Higgins' amazing book of the same name--find me another book in which the dialogue is so good and so adroit at advancing the plot--it's the best movie ever made in Boston. If the Brattle is showing the same pristine print I showed last year at the Coolidge, and it appears they are, it is not to be missed.

    The Brink's Job, a Runyonesque caper comedy based on a real 1950s robbery, hasn't shown very often since its 1978 release, and it shows Oct. 17. That's the same day the sometimes stirring and sometimes silly original Thomas Crown Affair plays (alas, all the movies are single-admission in this series; no double features). The 1968 Crown is a real movie-theater movie, as is the same year's The Boston Strangler (Oct. 28). Both were inspired by the split-screen experimental films at Expo '67. Strangler has little resemblance to what really happened in the Albert DeSalvo case, but its storytelling is very interesting.

    The series has a tie-in with a short-story anthology edited by Dennis Lehane, so of course he's represented, with Clint Eastwood's overrated Mystic River (Oct. 26), which missed the sarcastic streak to Lehane's Boston, and Ben Affleck's much more authentic Gone Baby Gone (Oct. 25). Of course, the most famous recent example of Boston noir, Scorsese's The Departed (the series closer on Oct. 29), is deservedly here, too.

    The remaining two films, both of which I like a lot, are a bit out of place. The David Mamet duo of The Spanish Prisoner and Spartan (Oct. 27) are both able reminders of the days when Mamet lived here and shot a chunk of his smart movies here. But each takes place only partially within Greater Boston, and they don't necessarily have a strong sense of place. The series would have been better served by the more apt Monument Ave., which doesn't just fit the set's theme. It's also a powerful movie that rips at the heart of this tribal city.

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Just because...

Cheap Trick has put up some amazing stuff from their 1970s peak on youtube. Their Rock Concert performance was one of the things that got me hooked on them, and it's just as brilliant as ever now. "Hello There"/"Come On Come On" is still the greatest opening 1-2 punch ever. Here are those songs and "Elo Kiddies" from their first album. There are two other segments from the show up on youtube.

'The Friends of Eddie Coyle' finally comes to home video

It skipped the VHS era entirely. It has perhaps never shown on TV letterboxed. It has a mystique no other Boston movie has. Because it's the best--and it's been ridiculously underseen. But The Friends of Eddie Coyle finally comes out from under its puzzling rock this week, when The Criterion Collection releases a deluxe DVD of it May 19. Without George V. Higgins, the one-time Boston prosecutor who wrote the book upon which it's based (and did an uncredited polish of the script), there would be no Dennis Lehane and no what has come to be known as "Boston noir." He started it, and Peter Yates' movie of his first book is the godfather of Monument Ave., The Departed and Mystic River. Check out the Big Screen Boston excerpt about the ultimate Boston movie.

RIPs, news, Sean and Mickey, this and that...

Time to catch up on some business:

• Ricardo Montalban, effective star of Mystery Street, the first commercial movie to extensive use Boston-Cambridge action, recently passed on. Along with Anthony Mann's Border Incident, this thriller is a great reminder that, long before he become a kitschy presence on Fantasy Island, Montalban was a sturdy leading man. Check out the trailer.
• Like Montalban, Paul Benedict passed away recently and was also better known for his  less interesting TV work--in his case, on The Jeffersons. But Benedict also had a crucial role in the development of Boston moviemaking, being the most experienced cast member in Jan Egleson's Billy in the Lowlands (1979), the most important Boston indie film ever made. Benedict gives a funny-sad performance as an estranged father who's not the success his teenaged son had hoped, and Benedict's and co-star Henry Tomaszewski's nervous energy works great together. Egleson and Benedict had worked together in The Theater Company of Boston, where--despite the occasional presence of such folks as Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, Benedict was the kingpin. Of course, it's also perfectly fine to remember him as the snooty hotel clerk who's called a "pooftah" by the band members in This is Spinal Tap.
• The Boston Society of Film Critics awards ceremony was a blast, and I am very thankful to the Herald's Jim Verniere for the amazing introduction he gave me. Joyce Kulhawik was also her usually classy self as the MC. In case you've missed it, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke sent in a funny little video in which they thank the BSFC for their joint prize for Best Actor. Turns out Mickey's a big Nomar fan. Who knew!?
• Harvard Film Archive will be hosting a very rare big-screen showing of 1978's The Brink's Job, as part of its William Friedkin retrospective. The screening of this amusing, rumpled little comedy--one of the most chequered productions ever to deal with the vagaries of shooting in Boston--is Sunday, Feb. 22 at 3 pm. Unfortunately, Friedkin is not scheduled to attend this screening, though he'll be at some of the earlier films.
• There are book excerpts on all the above films in the archives section of this site. Happy Hunting!
• And, of course, if you want to buy the book, click on the PayPal box on the right margin...

Look who's honoring me now

Pardon me for using a Stephen Colbert favorite phrase, but... hell, why not? Yours truly received a commendation from the Boston Society of Film Critics last weekend "for researching, authoring, and self-distributing an instantly indispensable, one-of-a-kind film history, Big Screen Boston: From Mystery Street to The Departed and Beyond. For the fascinating story of Boston filmmaking, from imported blockbusters to tiny, heartfelt independents, Sherman's book is the place to look." Wow, that reads like some over-the-top Earl Dittman shill movie-ad quote written by studio flaks. But thanks, folks, for the appreciation [hope you didn't have to go to the tenth ballot on that one], and check out the rest of the honorees at the link above. See you at the awards handout at the Brattle on Feb. 8. I'm really looking forward to the Mickey Rourke and Sean Penn three-round boxing match to break the Best Actor tie. Mickey has more ring experience, but Sean is younger. The elite Revere bookmakers have made Mickey an early favorite in what should be the best bout since the Roddy Piper-Mr. T Wrestlemania II classic.