Made In Massachusetts

One thing, among many, that I find interesting about living in Massachusetts, particularly the Boston area is how amped people get when a movie is made in these parts. Probably because of the tax breaks offered by Massachusetts to people who want to come and make movies in the state, the amount of movies made in the area have been going up. I have to admit that I get swept up in the excitement, particularly when the movie is good (which, obviously, makes sense.) This Friday, The Town opens up and just had its premiere at Fenway. It was directed by Ben Affleck, another Massachusetts native, who made Gone Baby Gone here, and hopefully it will be as good as that. Its funny though, because I can bet that people in New York don't get this excited when a movie is made around town, or one is released that was made in the city. Because it pretty much happens all the time. I'm sure their heads would fall off being THAT excited all the time. Massachusetts can definitely be an odd place. I mean, I wonder if people (including me) will ever just become like New York citizens and a movie made in the area just becomes sort of commonplace. I sort of hope not because its kind of fun. And it is also fun to gripe later about how close the actors got to replicating the local accents.

And, it's not stopping. There's another coming out in December thats a true life story of a boxer from Lowell called The Fighter:

I think it looks good. And I think there is a wealth of interesting characters in stories here and in the whole Northeast. Just like any region, a certain type of, shall we say, character lives here. It's pretty specific and hard to explain. But a lot of characters in the above trailer, in the trailer at least, we'll see about the movie seems to inhabit that sort of character. Again, I am excited to see it. And can we just give Christian Bale some sort of special Oscar for putting on and taking off weight.


I have written a bit about this somewhere before. (Sure, go check out my back catalog, I'll wait....) I am quoting myself here, but not only Massachusetts: " I have been reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt, and have been wondering 1) Why has no one made that into a movie. Small colleges dotting the New England landscape have to be ripe for a lot of things-drama and horror being right up there. I mean look at what Lovecraft did. And 2) I guess my number 2 was in there but yeah...why not more films set in the Northeast, I feel like its ripe for these kinds of things, the Northeastern mentality and all, and hasn't been used to its full potential. Even watching Jaws the other night, and this might also be because of the good writing, I was thinking of this watching the cast of colorful characters, many who seemed uniquely New England, who filled out the town/island of Amity. Of course, it would probably take someone from the area to get it exactly right, I suppose, but that goes without saying."

-K