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Another Boston mob movie to open, but this time the gangsters are Russian and the neighborhood is Eastie
By adamg on Thu, 09/18/2014 - 12:17pm
Don't worry: The movie still has the obligatory shots of the Tobin. The New York Times reflects on the impending "The Equalizer" and why recent Boston movies tend to be about a depressing city beset by crime. With requisite Dennis Lehane quote and bonus fun fact: The Denzel Washington movie was originally going to be set in New York, but Boston won because we're cheaper to film in - and, it turns out, grittier.
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Comments
Boston's image on screen
Boston's image on screen since the late 90's is now pretty much how 'Drop Dead' New York was viewed in the early 70's in films like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, The French Connection, Serpico, etc...ever since Rudy Giuliani 'cleaned up' Times Square, NYC is now portrayed as some kind of Disney 'Big-City Land' - backdrop to either sparkling rom-coms or destruction-heavy CGI-fueled superhero/alien invasion battlegrounds with plenty of easily-recognized landmarks to be pulverized. When added to the fact that there are fewer and fewer gritty, poor working-class enclaves in Manhattan and Brooklyn due to gentrification and income inequality, you can understand that there will never be another Scorcese coming out of the Big Apple.
If I were a paranoid guy, I would even say that it almost seems as if the Times and the NYC Visitors Bureau were colluding with the Weinsteins to sell NYC as the place where dreams come true while pissing on Boston for being a crime-infested racist shithole solely defined by the unfortunate events that happened 40 years ago.
I, for one, am getting tired of the working class anti-hero crime cliches that seem to be de rigueur in portraying Boston on screen these days - and oops, the Whitey film hasn't even been released yet.
You can also blame the fat
You can also blame the fat hack that created Boondock Saints, whose "Boston" (actually Toronto) became a "cool" place filled with crime and racism and Irish vigilante stereotypes that inspires college kids to want to come here and ruin pubs with lines from that shit movie.
Ugh...you had to bring that
Ugh...you had to bring that up? I'll never understand how such uneven, indulgent crap got as popular as it did. Horrible, horrible, horrible.
You mean...
Troy Duffy? Who is from Boston by way of Exeter, New Hampshire?
F*ck what The Times thinks
of Boston. The movie looks awesome and it was filmed in Eastie.
Soon, NYC is going to be so
Soon, NYC is going to be so expensive for film crews, it's going to price itself out of the american film psyche entirely.
Whew.
I know he's a film critic, but that's some heavy-duty overthinking going on in that article.
Dont think the critic saw
Dont think the critic saw "Friends of Eddie Coyle" because it was a sad sad movie but loved all the local scenes. Didn't notice "the verdict" in there either but that movie was really shot mostly in nyc .
"Boston: we're grittier and cheaper"
I kinda like it.
This actually looks pretty
This actually looks pretty decent. I'd go see it...
I saw the Pru in the trailer!
I saw the Pru in the trailer! OMG I used to live right under it! I can't wait to see the movie and point out other landmarks that I know by whispering loudly to the person next to me!!!!!!