Movie review: The Boondock Saints

Written and directed by Troy Duffy, 1999's The Boondock Saints is a variation of the gangster movie, where the antiheroes at the center wreak havoc around themselves.  Connor and Murphy McManus, Irish-Catholic brothers (possibly fraternal twins) from South Boston, are tough customers.  When they interrupt Mass to pray by themselves up at the altar, nobody says anything - these boys are not to be messed with.  But they're good boys, loyal, and when some Russian thugs decide to close down their favorite pub, they stand up for their friends and kill the Russians.  The McManuses turn themselves in but the Boston cops treat them like heroes rather than arresting them, and the boys decide it's a message from God: they should clean their city up.

Aided by a doofus Italian mafia errand boy who knows all the players, Connor and Murphy start a killing spree that wipes out a number of high-level Russian mobsters and then start in on the Boston mafioso, developing their own rituals and saying prayers over their kills.  An FBI agent is sent after them because of the mob angle but he's always one step behind, plus he actually approves of what they're doing.

The Boondock Saints is a much-loved cult-level film, full of violence, cuss words and loving homages to Boston.  The McManuses are played by Sean Patrick Flanery and my current crush, Norman Reedus ("Darryl" on The Walking Dead), Willem Dafoe is the flamboyant FBI Agent Smecker and Billy Connolly is an implacable murderer sent after the boys by the Italian don.  The accents are sketchy - except for Detective Greenley, who is played by Maine comic Bob Marley (I totally didn't recognize him) - but Boston landmarks are everywhere, from the Pru to Copley Square to the "salt and pepper bridge".

I had a good time watching the entertaining TBS although I'm not going to rave about it as do many fans.  It's quite violent and then funny in spots, but not nearly as violent, funny or clever as similar films from Tarantino or Ritchie.  The plot is simple and the characters largely undeveloped, although the two leads are pretty dang cute.  I'm glad I watched it, having heard so much about it, and it was nice to revisit Boston, but I don't think I'm going to run  out and watch the sequel right away (which by all accounts is far inferior and incoherent compared to this first one).

Movie review: The Town

Normally I am not a fan of Ben Affleck the Actor.  I find him stiff and unnuanced, boorish.  But in The Town, which Affleck also directed and cowrote, I liked him just fine.  Pluswhich, there's very few actors who can do a more authentic Boston accent than he can.

The Town is about a group of Charlestown (a Boston neighborhood) thugs who are very good at robbing banks.  Led by Doug McCray (Affleck), they've caused a lot of grief to the local cops and FBI guys (Jon Hamm and Titus Welliver - and the latter's accent is pretty good, no doubt because he's from Maine).  When the boys pull a bank job in Cambridge, Doug's childhood buddy, Jem (a very menacing Jeremy Renner), takes a hostage, Claire (Rebecca Hall), the bank manager.  They let her go but Doug later approaches her in an attempt to determine if she can identify any of the bank robbers.  She can't, and the two of them hit it off, and it goes from there.  In fact, Doug likes her so well that he wants to get out of the 'Town and try a new life.  But before he can, his crew has to pull one more job, a big one: robbing the "Cathedral of Boston," a/k/a Fenway Park after a NYY-BOS series.

The cast in The Town is loaded.  Along with those already mentioned are Pete Postlethwaite (R.I.P.) as the local heavy; Chris Cooper as Doug's incarcerated dad; and Blake Lively as Jem's gorgeous drug-mule white-trash sister who has a thing for Doug.  (Note: her Boston accent is not so good.)  Shot on location all over Boston, the city is almost another character and it was fun for me to see places I'm familiar with from my three years living in Beantown: the Charlestown bridge, Fenway Park, Harvard Square, the T, the North End (they did a car chase in the narrow streets of the North End! that's some ballsy filmmaking!).

I quite liked The Town with its solid, well-paced story, strong acting and ring of authenticity.  I'm still not willing to entirely approve of Ben Affleck's acting, but the nice job he did in this movie has redeemed him somewhat in my eyes.

Boston Weekend Redux

We just had our second annual girls’ weekend and, in spite of the terribly hot and sticky weather, it was a rousing success! This time we (my mom, my sister-in-law and three dear family friends – including Friend of the Blog, AnnaB) spent Friday night at AnnaB’s wonderful, funky 1890s farmhouse, dining on chicken and veggie kabobs, Mexican-style corn on the cob (shucked, grilled, slathered with mayonnaise and sprinkled with cheese and spices) and strawberry shortcake.

Saturday morning we piled into the borrowed minivan and road-tripped to Boston where we:

• Took a Duck Tour
• Stayed at the 463 Beacon Street Guesthouse
• Had a great lunch and pitchers of margaritas (regular and blood-orange) in Central Square, Cambridge
• Gleefully spent money at Ten Thousand Villages, next door to the margaritas in Central Square
• Strolled down Charles Street, through Beacon Hill, the Public Garden and the Common
• Walked to the North End where I was bitterly disappointed to learn that Dairy Fresh Candies – my favorite place ever in all of Boston – has closed its doors after 45 years in business (website does not appear to be updated w/r/t the closing)
• Drank beers at Boston Beer Works while watching the Belmont - I should have learned by now never to bet on the grey horse
• Walked back to and through the North End for our fabulous dinner at Monica’s which was fabulous for two things in particular: the food (especially my delicate fettucini with prawns and littleneck clams) and the extremely attractive staff (yowza!)
• Picked up postprandial cannolis and tiramisu at Mike’s Pastry (because the line at Modern Pastry was just too long) and ate while dangling our toes in the wonderful fountain in the new park between Haymarket and the North End
• Had a fantastic Sunday breakfast at Johnny D’s in Somerville (they have the best oatmeal in the world! plus the rest of the menu is awesome too) before walking through Harvard Square and then heading home, tired, happy and extremely well-fed

P.S. to AnnaB - in case you haven't seen it yet, Friday's BSG was not the season finale ... there's still more to come!

Springtime in Boston

You may have noticed that my Lost recap went up a few days late. This is because my husband and I took his parents to Boston for two days. We’d taken his folks to NYC for his father’s 65^th birthday; this trip was for his mom’s 65^th, and I got to be tour guide this time since I used to live in Boston. We had pretty terrible weather – high 40s and raining, low 50s and raining, low 50s and not raining – but we managed to pack a fair amount into our two days.

Since you really don’t need a car in Boston (and parking is neither readily available nor affordable!), we took full advantage of public transportation: the bus from Maine, and multi-day unlimited T-passes. I found a great little guesthouse in Back Bay (on pretty, residential Beacon Street, just blocks from the Hynes T-stop … and one block away from the Crossroads Irish pub – where we ended up no less than three times. Sure do love me some Guinness.).

The first order of business was the Duck Tour. We had a fantastic guide - stage name of “Ace Bandage” - who was funny (but not over the top), well-spoken and full of information. The tour is a great way to see the whole of the city before you go off exploring on your own. After the duck, we took the Red Line to Cambridge for lunch at John Harvard’s Brew House in Harvard Square; I was disappointed that they were out of porter but made do with a yummy red ale instead. A stroll through Harvard showed not much action on-campus, so we headed back to Charles Street and prowled around Beacon Hill for a while. It is amazing how quiet that neighborhood is, even being in the heart of the city. We took Newbury Street via the Public Garden back to check in and rest our feet briefly, then jumped on the T to Government Center. We saw the Holocaust Memorial, peeked in the windows of the Union Square Oyster House, and made our way to the North End.

My favorite place in the North End is Dairy Fresh Candies at the start of Salem Street: in my three years living in Boston, this candy store is the only place I was ever recognized as a regular. They carry imported and domestic chocolates, candies and nuts of all kinds, fresh fudge and roasted nuts, pasta, sauces and cakes. I managed to get out of there after spending only $36.00 (my usual is closer to $50, especially around Christmastime). We explored for a bit, finding North Square and the Old North Church, and took our time perusing menus before settling on a place for dinner. Our waiter, Joe, was great; the antipasto and bruschetta appetizers were quite nice; my shrimp and asparagus risotto was tasty but could have been a little creamier. As we headed out, Joe asked me if I was a football fan and pointed out Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, dining with a girlfriend in the back dining room.

Friday was pretty much pouring rain all day, so we decided to be indoor kitties as much as possible. We grabbed bagels at a Finagle-A-Bagel (mine: chocolate chip bagel with plain cream cheese) and zipped over to the Museum of Science. Luckily for us, they had a Bank of America/MBNA promotion going on and all four of us were admitted for free – yay! We explored for a couple hours (along with about eight million field-tripping grade schoolers) and then decided that we needed more sustenance. On to another one of my favorite places: the Parish Café on Boylston Street. Each sandwich recipe on the menu has been contributed by a local celebrity chef: I was tempted by the mussel po’boy special, but ended up with smoked ham and cheese on warm banana nut bread with peach chutney. Mmmmmmmm. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was our next stop – the one thing my mother-in-law really wanted to see. I had never been there before and can now wholeheartedly recommend it. Mrs. Gardner was a rich Bostonian who liked to collect art, and she designed and built this museum to house her collection. She placed the artworks in the rooms as she wished, not grouping them by any rhyme or reason, and instructed that the collections be left as she had put them. She also decreed that anyone named “Isabella” should have free admittance for life – very cool. We wished that more of the exhibits had been tagged, but were fascinated by the collection even so.

Our final stop was dinner at Tapeo on Newbury Street (another of my favorite restaurants); I was glad I’d thought to make reservations because it filled quickly, even with the dismal weather. This is a Spanish restaurant with a large tapas menu, and I knew it might be pushing the envelope of my in-laws’ food comfort zone a little. But they totally rallied and, I think, enjoyed it quite a lot. I had sangria (several glasses, actually), and we all shared a number of tapas: skewered spiced pork with dates, sole stuffed with asparagus, salmon in a dill cream sauce, empanadas, garlicky chicken, and beef tenderloin on toast with pimiento. So delicious! Also, Tapeo serves their bread basket with a little scoop of hummus instead of butter: flavorful and a bit healthier.

Since it was still raining Saturday morning, we decided to just head home; frankly, I couldn’t have stomached anything for breakfast at that point! I’m going to call our mini-trip a success: my husband enjoyed himself for the first time ever in Boston, my in-laws wore big grins the entire time, and me, I always like being back in the city for a visit.