January, 2010

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I feel like Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson.

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Boston on 30 Rock

Seeing Boston on film or tv is like watching the Red Sox play well — it’s not actually that unusual, but it’s always a pleasant surprise. So I was thrilled to see tv’s 30 Rock come to Boston last week.

Much has been made of guest star Julianne Moore’s “thick,” “terrible,” “atrocious,” “ridiculously broad,” “worst-attempt-ever” Boston accent, but I kind of love every minute of it. (As one commenter on Universal Hub states, at least she nails the attitude.)

I overheard someone at a conference last weekend small-talking about the 30 Rock episode with another conference-goer. “We don’t all talk like that, you know,” she said. I suppose she probably actually grew up in/around Boston, in which case maybe there’s a little more reason to take it personally… but 30 Rock historically hasn’t shied away from playing up broad stereotypes for laughs (in repeated parodies of gays, southerners, Canadians, i-bankers, etc). And while no Bostonian I know “talks like that,” the thrill of recognition is there.

When I moved from Michigan to a Boston suburb at age eight, kids really did use the modifier “wicked” all the time; it was totally weird. And I could never non-self-consciously say the word “aunt” in this new environment — I didn’t want to call attention to myself saying it the normal way (“ant”), but felt weird saying it the Massachusetts way (“ahnt”). So I would just refer to my “mom’s sister” a lot.

Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson
Alec Bladwin and Julianne Moore

So I encountered some of the regionalisms as a kid, but honestly, I have heard much more of the “Boston accent” on screen than in any actual experience living around here.  Fortunately there’s more to the Julianne Moore’s Boston “authenticity” than the accent. She and Alec Baldwin wander into a tv news studio in this latest episode, and Moore’s character eagerly sits at the news desk, announcing “I feel like Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson!”

The duo (“Chet and Nat”) hosted ABC’s local news for 20-something years, including the period of my childhood in which I lived in Acton, Massachusetts. I remember their names well, above all other local news anchors to whom I’ve been an been audience (except for rival Channel 7′s R.D. Sahl, who visited my fifth grade class — I have his autograph.)

Probably unlike most who recall Curtis and Jacobson well, I hadn’t realized ”Chet and Nat” were also married for most of the time they ancored the news together, and their news partnership ended alongside their marriage, in a very public divorce. This detail adds a perhaps unintended layer to Moore’s character, who is in the midst of a pending divorce herself, which had also lasted 20-something years.

The second most satisfying Boston reference in the episode has to be Moore’s hysterical mention of Kelly’s Roast Beef.

Kelly’s is an historic (well, founded 1951) local roast beef chain outlet — but, more on Kelly’s next time.

Until then, enjoy this 30 Rock “web exclusive” of Grizz and Dotcom making their “own urban stories, just like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.”

A good reference is a wonderful thing, and somehow the Good Will Hunting guys have become the definitive urban Boston duo, even more so than Chet Curtis and Natalie Jacobson.

Posted in Boston, References | 5 Responses »

Howard Zinn, 1922-2010

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Howard Zinn died today, and how astounding is it that the Associated Press couldn’t get through the obituary of the legendary historian without mentioning Good Will Hunting?

Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose book “A People’s History of the United States” became a million-selling leftist alternative to mainstream texts, died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87 and lived in Auburndale, Mass.

… “A People’s History” had some famous admirers, including the actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The two grew up near Professor Zinn, were family friends and gave the book a plug in their Academy Award-winning screenplay for “Good Will Hunting.”

As a math genius once said about Zinn’s People’s History of the United States, that book “will knock you on your ass.”

Posted in Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, R.I.P., References | 1 Response »

Food for Thought

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Stir by Barbara Lynch

While browsing at my favorite local bookstore, I flipped through Barbara Lynch’s new cookbook Stir. Check out this choice bit of jacket copy:

Lynch’s cuisine is all the more remarkable because it is self-taught. In a story straight out of Good Will Hunting, she grew up in the turbulent projects of “Southie”, where petty crime was the only viable way to make a living…. Through a mix of hunger for knowledge, hard work, and raw smarts, she gradually created her own distinctive style of cooking….

The publisher has betrayed a fundamentally flawed—and, I think, commonly held—understanding of Good Will Hunting. True, Barbara Lynch and Will Hunting are both from Southie (notice the publisher’s timid quotation marks). But while Lynch’s rise to fame from unlikely roots as a result of her “hunger for knowledge, hard work, and raw smarts” is admirable, it is hardly the same as Will Hunting’s story.

Will Hunting does not work hard. Will’s remarkable gifts are unearned; as he puts it, he could “always just play.” At the beginning of the movie, Will is an under-employed genius with little more than (presumably) a high school diploma. At the end of the movie, he is an unemployed genius who has turned down multiple job offers and rejected academia to “see about a girl.”

Good Will Hunting is not the story of an underdog going up against the establishment and, against all odds, making good. That’s Finding Forrester, a much less satisfying film. Good Will Hunting is the story of a lonely orphan boy who learns to love and be loved. Will’s remarkable abilities are nothing more than a plot device.

But I don’t think that story will help sell cookbooks.

Posted in Boston, References, The Film | No Responses »

Marky, Ricky, Danny, Terry, Mikey, Davey, Timmy, Tommy, Joey, Robby, Johnny, and Brian

Monday, January 25th, 2010

Non-Essential Mnemonic

A “non-essential mnemonic,” from McSweeney’s

Posted in References | No Responses »

Brown vs. Coakley

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

Lots of politically slanted GWH references among Twitterers this past week. Hmm.

i feel like obama needs his good will hunting "it's not your fault" moment. but who can step in as robin williams? oprah? bill clinton? On 7:10 PM Jan 22nd 2010 from web
@DanielNothing I'm kinda envious that Baker Street evokes memories of actual things. I just remember Good Will Hunting. Good job I like it. On 6:15 PM Jan 21st 2010 from TweetDeck in reply to Dan Marner
Omg there goes Good Will Hunting again, with his pipe in his mouth, on his 10-speed. Douche. On 5:13 PM Jan 21st 2010 from TinyTwitter
so i had a dream that was: jurassic park, good will hunting, and training day combined.... fucking epic. On 5:31 PM Jan 20th 2010 from web
And then Scott Brown quoted Good Will Hunting: "You like healthcare? We already have state mandated healthcare. How you like them apples?" On 2:09 PM Jan 20th 2010 from Tweetie
I think i may watch Good Will Hunting in honor of all my fellow republicans in Mass. tonite!!! On 2:49 AM Jan 20th 2010 from Tweetie
My shrink said the words, "It's not your fault," and I panicked, thinking: "Oh God, are we going to have a Good Will Hunting moment?" On 1:27 AM Jan 20th 2010 from web
@robmay I feel like Ben Affleck felt at the end Good Will Hunting today. Love you man. On 5:53 PM Jan 19th 2010 from TweetDeck in reply to Rob May
Would you let your child watch GOOD WILL HUNTING? 150 F-Words! Call the police! On 3:01 PM Jan 18th 2010 from TweetDeck
I enjoyed "Good Will Hunting" and its look at a gifted Staten Island boy in a Manhattan school #coakleyfacts On 3:15 AM Jan 16th 2010 from TweetDeck
the real problem with this generation is that theres no dead poets society or good will hunting to teach them that being smart is cool too On 10:23 PM Jan 14th 2010 from web

Posted in Twitter | No Responses »

30 million people without health care won’t like them apples (ironically confirming any unhelpful aphorisms about the fruit’s propensity for keeping the doctor away)

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Hey Maddow

Rachel Maddow and MSNBC covered the much ballyhooed election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts on Tuesday night, and as seems to be true of all news segments regarding Massachusetts these days, did so from a bar.  (Governor Deval Patrick appeared from a bar a few days prior to discuss the upcoming election.)  Jon Stewart had something to say about it on Wednesday night’s Daily Show.

Have a listen via the audio clip above, or watch it here.

Posted in Boston, References | No Responses »

What’s so great about apples, anyway?

Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Well, I got her number.

One of the most-referenced sequences in Good Will Hunting is, of course, the “apples scene.”

As the boys stumble from the bar, crossing Bow Street, Morgan sees the ponytail jerk sitting in Dunkin Donuts.  Will goes over and initiates a little confrontational wordplay through the glass.  (In the screenplay it’s not a Dunkin Donuts, but another bar.  We also learn that the original “Harvard bar” was intended to be the now-nonexistent Bow & Arrow Pub.)

EXT. BOW AND ARROW — LATER

Our boys are walking out of the bar teasing one another about their bar-ball exploits. Across the street is another bar with a glass front. Morgan spots Clark sitting by the window with some friends.

MORGAN
There goes that fuckin’ Barney right
now, with his fuckin’ “skiin’ trip.”
We should’a kicked that dude’s ass.

WILL
Hold up.

Will crosses the street and approaches the plate glass window and stands across from Clark, separated only by the glass. He POUNDS THE GLASS to get Clark’s attention.

WILL
Hey!

Clark turns toward Will.

WILL
DO YOU LIKE APPLES?

Clark doesn’t get it.

WILL
DO YOU LIKE APPLES?!

CLARK
Yeah?

Will SLAMS SKYLAR’S PHONE NUMBER against the glass.

WILL
WELL I GOT HER NUMBER! HOW DO YA
LIKE THEM APPLES?!!

Will’s boys erupt into laughter. Angle on Clark, deflated.

EXT. STREET — NIGHT

The boys make their way home, piled into Chuckie’s car, laughing together.

I was recently informed that in the new word game Appletters, from the makers of Bananagrams,  a player going out must yell “HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES.”  And so I’ve been wondering, beyond its popularization in Good Will Hunting, where does this idiomatic expression of smugness come from?

The Internet (Wikipedia) dates the phrase back to World War I.

It is likely that the phrase originated during the First World War, when allied soldiers used mortar shells known as toffee apples, because of their resemblance to the confectionery. After using them to successfully take out an enemy, soldiers may have yelled in a sort of victory cry, “How do you like them apples?”

Beyond its use in a John Wayne film and Polanski’s Chinatown, there’s not much of a pop cultural record of the phrase, though it has apparently been listed in idiom dictionaries since the 1920s.

It also seems that every newspaper or magazine article that discusses apples or Apple computers is required to use the phrase as its headline.  (Though it is best used by respected news sources who possess a photograph of a squirrel eating an apple.)

Interestingly, a peek into Google Trends indicates that the phrase “them apples” has received a large percentage of traffic from the fair city of Boston (data has only been kept since 2007).  In fact, our Commonwealth’s proud capital googles “them apples” more than any other city in the world. (Dublin, Ireland, comes in second.)

Yo Ireland, so, how do you like… oh — nevermind.

How do you like them apples?

Posted in Boston, References, The Film, The Post-GWH Era, Them Apples | 2 Responses »

Movie Review: Gerry (2002)

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010

When I first heard about Gerry, the 2002 film written by Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, and Gus Van Sant and starring two of our darling Bostonian golden boys—well, I was excited. Could this be a Good Will Hunting renaissance of some sort? Is this the film we’ve all been waiting for, after the promising start that was Good Will Hunting? After all, it was directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Matt Damon and, well… an Affleck! Not Ben, but pretty close. Maybe it would be almost like a sequel? Or would that be too much to ask?

And, I suppose, one could regard it as something like a sequel. It’s as if Morgan accompanied Will on his cross-country road trip and we find them somewhere in the southwest. And they’ve lost their accents. And Will got a haircut. And they don’t talk much. And–OK, in spite of the superficial similarities, I guess there’s not actually much of a connection between the two movies, despite how badly I was hoping to find one.

The beginning of the film, however, does almost seem like an oblique, teasing reference to the final scene in Good Will Hunting where we watch Will’s car disappear down the highway while Afternoon Delight plays and the credits roll. Gerry opens in much the same way—a car traveling down a road, through a dry desert-scape.

Gerry

It’s like we’ve picked up right where we left off! It’s Good Will Hunting, but without the Afternoon Delight!

Gerry

Alas, nearly immediately it became obvious that these were not Will and Morgan that we were dealing with. Gerry aspires to be a serious, high-art film: lots of long, unbroken takes; awkwardly long close-ups; long stretches where the only soundtrack is the sound of Damon and Affleck’s feet crunching against the gravelly desert ground for whole minutes at a time; grandiose, sweeping shots of the (admittedly stunning) scenery; and a deliberate vagueness as to who exactly our characters are and what they are doing.

It starts out with a long drive, as mentioned, and then our two heroes—both named Gerry—set out on a wilderness trail. They are headed for “the thing,” but after about 45 seconds they decide to “fuck the thing” and turn back. Unfortunately, within moments they manage to become spectacularly lost amidst an ever-changing backdrop of mountains, ravines, and desert scrub. No spoilers here, but you can probably imagine how this will end.

Gerry

As for the script, I imagine it’s probably about 3 pages long—there isn’t much dialogue, and I got the impression that most of it was improvised.

Certainly, this is no Good Will Hunting, but it isn’t bad. I guess you could say my taste in film veers more towards the popular than the high-art, but in the end I still appreciated this film and its intentions. It’s earnest and thoughtful and interesting, and visually very beautiful.

And I bet Will Hunting would have loved it.

Posted in Matt Damon, Recommended Viewing, The Makers, The Post-GWH Era | No Responses »

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