Honestly, the cinetrix may have to break down and study German after all, because I'm certain that there's a term for the weird homesickness you feel when you watch a movie set somewhere you know as well as your own name. A pal nailed the English translation, complete with a superabundance of capital letters: "I'm a sucker for Places I Know in the Movies."
Until last night, the 'Fesser had never seen Good Will Hunting. So what, you say. Big deal. Plenty of people haven't.
But he grew up in the same city as Matt and Ben, and I've spent a good stretch of my adult life there, so we inhabit the locals' unique position of appreciating the little things that a movie shot--at least partially--on location can get right. Or really wrong. Nothing can shatter that critical suspension of disbelief moviegoing hinges on faster than a false note.
God is in the details. A good example of getting it right is the decor of the bar in the movie Beautiful Girls, which was set in Massachusetts, even though it was shot in Minnesota [they thought they'd have guaranteed snow there. Didn't happen.] Behind the bar were portraits of the pope and JFK. Just like you'd see stepping into any old-man bar in the commonwealth. I think it's part of the publican's license here. See, little things.
A roll call of the things gotten right in Good Will Hunting would be long, much longer than those for With Honors, Legally Blonde, Soul Man, or pretty much any movie set even partially in Cambridge going back to The Paper Chase and Love Story. There's a surprising amount of fidelity given that Damon and Affleck had next to no pull at that point in their careers to insist on anything. The red line subway cars have the old molded plastic seats, and the guy hawking the homeless newspaper in the background of a couple of shots is real--you can see him most any day, right there.
But I'm thinking about just two details today. The "Hahvahd bah" where Damon's Will first meets Minnie Driver's Skylar is the late, lamented Bow and Arrow Pub, a rare joint in the increasingly Disneyfied environs of Harvard Square where town and gown rubbed elbows while they drank dollar drafts and played Pop-A-Shot. The bar really was next to the Baskin-Robbins of "How'd you like them apples?" fame. It, and the Tasty--the greasy late-night burger joint where Will and Skylar first kiss--have since been forced out of existence by their landlord [Harvard]. But they remain suspended forever in the amber of celluloid because someone along the way insisted that real locations be used.
Mein gute, that sure was a long-winded way to say that the impending release of a certain holiday movie starring America's Sweetheart and her maidens in waiting is making me really anxious. Folks in the psych profession call when an analysand brings up the most important topic at the very end of the session a doorknob moment, I think. Which seems like something that would sound better... in French.
