There’s a new Affleck trailer up, and while it’s not as exciting as the one for The Town, it’s certainly compelling. First of all, the cast for The Company Men includes Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Craig T. “Coach” Nelson, Rosemarie DeWitt (from Mad Men and Rachel Getting Married), Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, and Kingston’s own Chris Cooper. Hot damn!

This trailer has many highlights. Chief among them is this fact: the movie includes a scene in which Affleck, recently fired from a big corporation job, brings coffee for his colleagues on a construction site. Allow me to repeat that: In this movie, Ben Affleck’s character works on a construction site, and furthermore, in this movie, Ben Affleck brings coffee for others. Oh. My. God.

1997

2010

Another notable similarity to our Favorite Movie Of All Time: This movie has one egregiously terrible Boston accent. One might even go so far that, judging from the way he says “cahptenter” as if Katharine Hepburn on This Old House, Kevin Costner is the new Robin Williams. Congratulations, Costner; it looks like you’ve really out-Costnered yourself this time.

A one square mile neighborhood called… Charlestown!!

I incidentally did a quick Google search of Charlestown and “bank robberies” and came up with this article about a series of robberies in Charleston, Summerville, and Dorchester. Apparently there’s a parallel universe of Boston neighborhoods in South Carolina, slightly misspelled. I wonder if they each have a Boylston Street?

Read all about the filming of The Town in Harvard Square, right here in a Blog Will Hunting post from last winter.

I’ve learned from the best that a good blog isn’t afraid to bring you right into the conversation, into the formation of its ideas as they are being constructed and processed.

So I figured I would go ahead and share the following online conversation I recently had with a friend, former Bostonian Dave C.

I bring you a discussion of life, masculinity, and the conceptual underpinnings of Good Will Hunting.

If you haven’t seen The Super Secret Project‘s “Granite State of Mind” New Hampshire tribute (and Jay-Z send-up), go do that, quick, because it’s amazing. Then check out their recreation of the Perfect Strangers opening, Boston-style…. (They also did the Good Will Hunting Louder “remake” we posted a while back.)

Next up, maybe they can do Step by Step, but on the Green Line instead of a roller coaster?  Terrifying!

Until last weekend the only time I had been to the South Boston St. Patrick’s Day Parade was in 2005 with a friend from high school, a friend of my friend, and a my friend’s friend’s 8 to 12 teenage English-as-a-second-language students.  I really only remember three things.

1. It was crowded.
2. Some guy was selling a green long-sleeved t-shirt that said “What happens in Southie stays in Southie” and I’ve always regretted not getting one.
3. There were Storm Troopers marching in the parade, and they were wearing leprechaun hats.

This, Boston’s official St. Patrick’s Day parade, has been held in Southie since 1901 — and unofficially since 1737.  It is such a distinct part of South Boston history and tradition that Team Affleck/Damon intended their Good Will Hunting would open with it.  The opening credits were to take place over scenes from the St. Paddy’s marching and motorcading, and the subsequent opening scene would take place at the crowded Southie bar as Chuckie regales the boys with a story.

Gus Van Sant actually shot and cut together a sequence, which is available for viewing as a deleted scene on the Good Will Hunting DVD.  They shot it at the real parade, months before the film began principle photography.  This is notable for a couple reasons: shooting at a live event with a small crew, the footage actually looks like a Gus Van Sant movie.  You know — “gritty,” “intimate,” etc.  Second, according to Van Sant on the DVD commentary, since the hairstyles of the characters hadn’t yet been determined, they are all wearing ridiculous hats as they goof around at curbside. This combined with the actors’ odd clothing in these scenes points to how much those decisions about costume and makeup (and maintaining their consistency) matters in creating a set of authentic characters.

As someone who blogs regularly about Good Will Hunting, I was determined to make it to this year’s parade, rain or shine.

And rain it did.

Still, I’d say it was worth it.  I shook hands with the staff of multiple candidates for Auditor, received some green bead necklaces and 2010 Census chapstick, and saw unicycling floutists, an old-timey canon, and the coldest, wettest bagpipers I’ll probably ever see.

As far as the subsequent scene of the boys in the bar, it’s not the most eloquent introduction to the characters and themes of the film. (Otherwise, the film’s strongest moments lie in the relationships amongst Will and his friends.  Compare Will’s climactic scenes with Sean, his therapist, and with Chuckie, his best friend.  Both communicate to Will that he must let go of his fear, but the “it’s not your fault” sequence with Robin Williams is as forced and melodramatic as the later construction site scene with Will and Chuckie is frank and stirring — “you’re sitting on a winning lottery ticket.”)

Besides making it completely unclear who the main character of the film is, the St. Paddy’s Day bar scene is territory essentially retread by Chuckie, et al,  when Will introduces them to Skylar at the bar later in the film.

So, let’s be thankful Gus Van Sant served up a kaleidoscopic meditation on Will’s solitude, stuck inside his brain, instead of a story of a cat getting beaten to death, in those early moments of Good Will Hunting.

Turns out the upcoming Damon-Affleck project will likely be The Trade, the story of two New York Yankees in the seventies who swapped wives.  The blogosphere is all atwitter with the notion that we may soon see the Boston duo in pinstripes.

You can thank the crackerjack photoshop staff at the MTV Movie Blog for the image above.

Thanks to Adam, for the heads up on this one.

A post from Universal Hub — a car in the parking lot of local eatery Kelly’s Roast Beef (discussed here on Blog Will Hunting).

But which Kelly’s shall we go to?

A while back the Blog Will Hunting crew payed a visit to the Christopher Lee Playground, the South Boston location in which the GWH boys watch some little league before picking up some burgers (and then getting into some street fights).

The screenplay, as written, is a little different from the scene in the film:

The next scene shows them in Chuckie’s car — with Kelly’s Roast Beef bags, of course.  As you will recall, in the film the exchange doesn’t have Chuckie dissing Kelly’s this way… it’s a bit of a surprise to see such anti-Kelly’s sentiment on the page, as the local chain is regarded as something of an institution.  (As we noted a couple weeks ago, guest star Julianne Moore namechecks Kelly’s in a recent episode of 30 Rock — “Let’s go to Kelly’s! Let’s get some roast beef!”).

Founded in 1951, Kelly’s lays claim to the invention of the Original Roast Beef Sandwich — “before 1951, no one had ever heard of eating such a creation!“  Their original location is their beachfront outpost in Revere, and over the years four other locations have sprung up around Boston.  One is inside a Jordan’s Furniture.  (Also in that Jordan’s Furniture: an IMAX theater.  I’m pretty sure I saw The Dark Knight there.  At that furniture store.  It’s weird, I know.)

Celebrating six decades of quality, customer service, and value, Kelly’s is still a family owned and operated business that continues the original philosophy of our founders. Many of Kelly’s hourly employees and managers have been with the company over thirty years! Kelly’s is open 363 days a year, providing our valued customers with the quality and consistent standards they have come to expect over the years. Now when people ask, “Why is Kelly’s So Famous Anyhow?” Our answer remains: because of our loyal customers.

They of course also mention Good Will Hunting as one of their many claims to fame.

Their marketing plays up their sense of tradition and customer service, and though Chuckie would have found some allies in his discontent on the Yelp customer review message boards, most Yelpers have positive things to say about the staff, and especially the food, often using the word “fried” as an adjective of deeply satisfied approval.  The reviews tend to prefer the flagship restaurant at Revere Beach, despite the seagulls’ attempts at food theft, and perhaps indicative of nothing, at least one reviewer at another location admits to being drunk during his visit.

So on the day of our visit to Southie, we left the Christopher Lee playground wondering, which Kelly’s did they go to?

It essentially comes down to the flagship Revere location and the one in Medford.

We know that is that it is 15 minutes out of their way… according to Google maps (assuming they were coming back to Southie afterwards) it would take 37 minutes to drive to Revere Beach and back, but only 25 to get to Medford.  Also, the Medford location has a drive-thru, and Chuckie’s comment as they squabble in the car on the return trip — “I know what you ordered, I was there” — suggests they did the drive-thru and Chuck did the ordering (and the paying).

So we drove by the Medford location, and… well… it looked pretty boring….

Despite the fact that is probably the one they went to (CORRECTION: This has been disproved, thanks to Patrick. Check out the comments) … we wanted to go to the beach.

So on that summer day we had a wonderful meal — open air seating, a sea breeze, seagulls, Bostonians, and more than once, someone would sing out, “Chuck I had a double burger!”

Tired of hearing about the iPad?  Everyone loves it!  Everyone has a complaint about it!

Among the over-hyped complaints about the revolutionary new Apple device is that certain accents and regional pronunciations make the terms “iPod” and “iPad” indistinguishable.

Cult of Mac blogger John Brownlee writes:

I wanted to point out quickly why I think this is such a terrible product name. I’m from Boston originally. We have an interesting way of pronouncing our a’s.

Call up a friend with a Boston accent and ask them to say “iPad.” They might just pronounce it pretty similarly to “iPod.” We’re weird that way. Or as Jake von Slatt just said to me: “Here in Boston, we’d say ‘Do you haave the big iPohd or the little iPohd?’”

Even if the pronunciation is different for everyone, though, iPad still seems a bad choice. A one letter difference makes for a lot of possible confusion.

The following send-up of the product uses good ole Good Will Hunting to elucidate this point. (And at last, someone jokes about the iPad and steers clear of feminine hygiene.)

Enjoy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

Scenes from the movie The Social Network, the story of the creation of Facebook in a college dorm room, were filmed in various locations throughout Cambridge—although apparently the Harvard University campus won’t have a starring role in this film, as Johns Hopkins has been cast instead. And alas, Justin Timberlake did not grace the streets of our fair city: locals were disappointed to learn that his face would be inserted post-production via CGI in scenes recently filmed on the Charles River.

In other movie news, Ben Affleck recently returned to his native turf to star and direct in The Town, a thriller based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan and adapted for the screen by Affleck himself (perhaps an argument against those who seek to discount his contributions to the Good Will Hunting screenplay?)

Ben Affleck and John Hamm on the set of The Town in Harvard Square.

Walking to work through the production crews, camera equipment and massive coils of cables during a recent filming brought to my mind a favorite scene in Good Will Hunting and a fixture that will be familiar to anyone who regularly passes through Harvard Square.

Spare Change News is a local alternative newspaper here in Cambridge that is produced and sold by homeless and formerly homeless volunteers. Locals will be familiar with the vendors who take up posts on the city streets to sell the paper to passersby.

One such post is located directly in front of the large Au Bon Pain situated in the middle of the Square. This just happens to be the location of a key scene from the movie in which we learn that, although he can’t paint, play music, or hit a homerun out of Fenway, when it came to math, Will could always “just play.”

Sure enough, in the background of this scene, you can see Spare Change News Guy.

(True Cantabrigians may also notice the incongruity between the coffee cups from Peet’s coffee, and the location, Au Bon Pain.)

It’s a great tribute to the city of Cambridge that so much of it is still recognizable and intact. It’s one of the things I love most about this movie.

I was reminded of this lately as I passed crews from The Town filming in almost the same location. Spare Change News Guy was nearby, as always. I couldn’t help but wonder whether he will be making what promises to be (as far as I know, anyway) his second major film role. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Update: I was mortified to learn that there was a mistake in my inaugural Blog Will Hunting post!

Peet’s Coffee was served at Au Bon Pain locations between 1995-1998, so there were actually no incongruities in that scene. Obviously, I’m not a true Cantabrigian (full disclosure: I’m actually from Rhode Island.)

I stand corrected.

Katherine once gave a high school film studies class presentation on GWH and showed a scene from the movie on a VHS cassette tape from the library. However, instead of the scene in the NSA office, she inadvertently showed the end of the masturbation scene.

This is Katherine’s inaugural Blog Will Hunting contribution.

Looks like Robin Williams is out-therapizing Gabriel Byrne.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  Though Williams’ character has fewer ethical violations, as far as I can tell.

I find it interesting I actually have two of these films from Netflix currently.  Can you guess which two??

And no, despite having rented Rashomon from Netflix twice before, and keeping it for several months each time, I have neither seen it, nor am I renting it now.  (It’s back on my queue at #298.)

Early in the film the boys are brownbagging it at a little league game… you remember:

This was shot in Boston’s own Christopher Lee Park.

We visited last June.  No baseball was being played, sadly.

A fence was added, but little else had changed.

Christopher Lee Playground

Take a visit yourself; you’ll be glad you did.

Ben Affleck as a T employee.

Thanks to Katherine for submitting a photo of Ben Affleck dressed as a T employee, in a new film shooting in Boston.  Unfortunately she could not illuminate what the deal was with “the state of his belt/pants,” responding “I guess we’ll have to see the movie.”

Will Affleck be texting while operating the train?  Will he save someone’s foot?  Will he yell at me for not paying my T fare even though I already paid but stepped out of the crowded car to let people out?  We shall see.

Thanks to Dave, for alerting us that “Matt Damon is NOT dead,” which we didn’t know was a possibility.  A few weeks ago the internet went crazy with the rumor he had died in the desert or something.  Associated Content cleared up the confusion, stating, “Academy Award-winning actor Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting) is not dead, but, rather, is in Venice, Italy, attending the Venice Film Festival.” 

Bollywood 91, which looks like a fake website anyway, reported a very detailed account:

Matt Damon, an American actor and philanthropist, was found dead in California’s Palo Verde mountain area on Wednesday. He was 38.

According to TMZ’s web site, Damon, who was officially reported missing Friday, was on a camping trip. His body was found by an Imperial County Sheriff’s Department deputy on Wednesday.

The cause of death is unknown.

According to TMZ.com on Wednesday, law enforcement headed into the desert near San Diego on Tuesday. That day, TMZ.com reported, “Damon sent a text message to a friend that he was out of water and needed help. There was a massive search that ended abruptly.”

On his personal blog, Damon wrote last month he was going to the desert because of his friends talking about “treasure hunting and lost gold, and my own insatiable appetite for adventure and exploration . . . I plan on going so deep into the desert, that any failure of my equipment could cost me my life.”

Later on, however, he downplayed such fears, writing, “It seems some websites have reported on the story, posting up that I might die out in the desert, or that it might be my greatest opponent yet, etc. Come on guys. It’s really common down in southern California to go out to the off-road recreation areas in the desert about an hour away from L.A. and San Diego. So my plan is to go out to the desert, do some camping, ride the motorcycle, and shoot some guns. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. A lot of people do it. This isn’t a version of Into the Wild. I’m not going out into the desert with a pair of shorts and a bowie knife to try to live off the land. I’m going fully geared up, and I’m planning on having some fun.”

Damon won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his screenwriting in Good Will Hunting, and was nominated for his lead performance in the same film. Growing steadily in popularity from the 1997 film, he was since matched up with A-list actors in mainstream films, and today is rated among the top actors in Hollywood.

Damons agent, John Hayner, said his client led a simple life and always had an appreciation for the outdoors.

“He was always planning on going on some sort of adventure,” Hayner told TMZ.com. “And his my mom got scared and said ‘You’re moving with your auntie and your uncle in Bel-Air.’ I whistled for a cab and when it came near the license plate said “Fresh” and there were dice in the mirror. If anything I could say that this cab was rare but I thought, naw, forget it, yo holmes to Bel-Air. I pulled up to the house about seven or eight and said to the cabbie “Yo holmes smell ya later.” Looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the prince of Bel-Air.”

Apparently no one who believed this report read the last paragraph.  Though I will now be using the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song lyrics in the place of lorem ipsum text for all future text-filler.

Thanks to Heather for forwarding the press release that Affleck and company would be shooting a scene in Harvard Square.  We thought it would cite exciting opportunities to be an extra or watch the magic happen, but apparently it was chiefly concerned with “parking restrictions.”

We received a film schedule from the folks that are currently in production of a Warner Bros. film called *The Town*. Cambridge native Ben Affleck will direct and star in the film. The film is based on Chuck Hogan’s novel, _Prince of Thieves_, a dark, heist-romance centered around Charlestown, MA.

They will be filming on Tuesday, September 15 (6AM-8PM.) In order to facilitate their production they will be parking some equipment vehicles on streets surrounding the filming location.

Filming Location:

Grendel’s Den
89 Winthrop St

There will be parking restrictions on:

*** Tuesday, September 15 (6AM-8PM) ***

JFK St from Eliot St to Mt Auburn St (both sides)

Eliot St from Bennett St to Mt Auburn St (Winthrop St. sides)

Plympton St from Mt Auburn St to Memorial Dr (both sides)

They assured us that they will do everything they can to minimize the impact of their presence on the area.

Boston.com provided some behind-the-scenes magic of sorts.  Well, a photo.  That’s cool I guess.

The Boston-based bank robber movie “The Town’’ - which has already filmed in Charlestown, Dorchester, and Fenway Park - made its way to Harvard Square on Sept. 15. Director and star Ben Affleck and his crew descended on Winthrop Park at about 6 a.m. to film outdoor scenes in front of Grendel’s Den and UpStairs on the Square.

And thanks to everyone who urgently informed me immediately upon learning about a Zipcar-sponsored outdoor screening of Good Will Hunting.  It was in a little park birthed by the Big Dig, and in true Big Dig fashion, the screening was delayed for at least an hour and a half due to technical difficulties with an electrical problem blamed on the transit authority.

The inflatable movie screen would then begin to gradually deflate. Hey  Zipcar: It's not your fault!

As per Mike’s suggestion, Dave and I got a pizza in the North End and ate it sitting in the grass, and had a fine time despite leaving before it started… if it ever started.

Blond Matt Damon is back! Hooray!

To readers of this blog, a towheaded Matt Damon has many nostalgic associations. But when was the last time we saw Matt Damon with goldilocks? A quick browse through his filmography leads me to believe that it was probably 2000′s The Legend of Bagger Vance, not one of Damon’s more memorable roles.

Which leads me to a second thought: while Damon hasn’t had the identity problems of his friend Ben Affleck and has managed to maintain a degree of both professional respect and profitability, I think we can all agree that there has been a second act to his career. And you can track it through his follicles.

Matt Damon burst onto the national scene as a fresh-faced young man ready to make good on all his potential, and it was a character we grew to love, from Good Will Hunting, through Rounders, to Titan A.E. As his darker roots grew out, though, he began to take on more serious roles (his turn as sociopath Tom Ripley being an obvious exception). The real shift came with 2003′s The Bourne Identity. Matt Damon reinvented his career. I think Paul Rudd’s character in The 40 Year Old Virgin best summed up the feelings of many pleasantly surprised viewers, who previously had ignored Damon’s talents: “I always thought Matt Damon was kind of a Streisand, but he is rockin’ the shit in this one.”

Yes, he was.

It was this Matt Damon we watched in the Bourne sequels, in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, in The Good Shepherd, in Syriana: a Matt Damon with a past he wasn’t ready to deal with; a Matt Damon with secrets he would hide from everyone, including himself; a Matt Damon driven by something he couldn’t understand or even name.

What will Matt Damon’s return to his blond roots bring for his career? We’ll have to wait and see. I will say this, though: It’s good to have you back, Blond Matt Damon. We missed you.

Actor Ben Affleck leans in to speak to players and coaches in the Boston Red Sox dugout during their baseball game against the Florida Marlins at Fenway Park in Boston Tuesday, June 16, 2009. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

But let’s step back a minute and observe how far we’ve come from Southie (and Cambridge Rindge & Latin)….

Brown-bagging it at Little League.

One of the many safe and stable realms of male bonding that Good Will Hunting establishes is baseball. This is of course a recognized Bostonian phenomenon: the Sox, the Curse, the brotherhood of “Red Sox Nation.” There is a key sequence in the film that invokes this (occasionally) unspoken bond among Bostonians — Will and his therapist’s nostalgic recollection of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Director Gus Van Sant intercuts archival footage, so soaked in nostalgia it has gone grainy and soiled, with the boys’ energetic reenactment of the game’s climax.

I can’t help connecting the dots from Good Will Hunting‘s grimy nostalgia for 1975 into the future to the Red Sox “Dirt Dogs,” mucked-up helmets, bunch-of-idiots, dirty-water sensibility. This aura clung to the authenticity of the true fans, sitting in the stands in rain or sleet or heartbreaking loss for decades.

That said, recent years have lent the franchise a slew of other connotations, many not in keeping with the underdog mentality so many have cheered for.

So here we are, back from 1975 and 1997, on June 16, 2009…

Affleck and Kevin Youkilis (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

How weird and false and inappropriate it is to see a dashing, cleft-chinned version of Chuckie Sullivan on Boston’s plasma screens, in Fenway’s front-row, coyly sporting a Celtics t-shirt like an expatriate with something to prove.

How strange it is to see Kevin Youkilis (his shaved head distinctive though out-of-focus) and Affleck in the same AP photograph, their worlds-colliding romantic-histories seeming so much more Hollywood than Boston. (Youk is married to former Affleck beau Ezna Sambataro. Just please, don’t call them Kevezna).

(And Ben and Youk, encountering on this public stage…. Awkward!)

There is a real cognitive dissonance in seeing Morgan in the Little League stands and then Ben at Fenway. Affleck is such Glossy Movie Star these days (but hardly even in movies people sees anymore) and it invalidates that grainy authenticity of Southie, the unrefined Morgan Sullivan, and good ole Will Hunting’s modest dream to grow up taking their kids to little league together.

Affleck’s post-GWH transformation into Tabloid Cover Boy is paralleled by the Fenway Faithful’s transformation into “Pink Hats” (as lamented by tried-and-true Sox fans).  Are we mourning the loss of authenticity?  Has the Dirty Boston in Affleck been reduced to a crisp Pink Hat? Is the Matt & Ben we-won-Oscars-for-a-middling-screenplay-but-we’re-best-friends-so-it’s-adorable fairy tale just marketing hooey?

I don’t know, but I do know that the photographer at Tuesday’s Red Sox game should have been focusing on Youk (the first-baseman! leading the team in on base percentage and helping kids and awesomeness!); not on some Supertramp fan in the front row.