The Ultimate Love Letter to Boston

I've seen FEVER PITCH three times now since it came out in 2005, the year after the Red Sox won their first World Championship in 86 years. As a Bostonian, it is the one movie that I feel is absolutely and quintessentially Boston. There would have to be a movie made about clam chowder to come closer to the Bostonian's real lived experience. Every time I see it, I am more certain in my belief that it is the ultimate love letter to Boston. While many movies have captured the feel of Boston - think THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE or MYSTIC RIVER or GOOD WILL HUNTING - everyone knows that Boston follows its beloved baseball team more passionately than just about anything else: the Farrelly brothers captured a piece of our soul in their depiction of Ben Wreitman's love affair with the Red Sox.

From the opening narration when Al Waterman - he of Waterman Sponge fame - tells about the first time Ben's Uncle Carl took him to Fenway, we know we are in for a special treat. I can remember, in vivid technicolors, my first trip to Fenway with my late grandfather, Joe Murray. Pop was an executive at the American Tobacco Company and, as part of his sales territory, would sometimes hand out cigarette samples out on Landsdowne Street outside of Fenway (my own son was conceived during the 2004 World Series and born nine months later in a spike of "Red Sox babies" reported at local hospitals). In the film, the loyalty goes beyond the team to the almost mystical attachment to the ballpark itself and the ethos of the team. "Careful kid," Waterman tells Ben (Jimmy Fallon) at that first game, "they'll break your heart."

When Ben meets Lindsey Weeks (Drew Barrymore), it's clear that his obsession with the Sox is not something immediately understandable to those outside of "the Tribe"... She falls in love with him in wintertime, but when summer rolls around...well, he's a different animal. He lives and breathes Sox, agonizes over the team's every move, whips himself into a frenzy when they're playing the Yankees. "Ben," Lindsey says at about this point in the season, "I didn't realize how big the Red Sox thing was for you..."

Well, they are that big a deal. And, when Ben mans up enough to sell his season tickets to keep his relationship alive, it suddenly dawns on Lindsey how much he loves her (ah, happy endings!).

The Sox are in 2nd place now -- two games behind the dreaded Yanks. Since 2004, the new generation of Sox fans coming up only knows a championship team. For those of us whose formative years were spent following a Greek tragedy called the Boston Red Sox, we will always have FEVER PITCH, the ultimate love letter to the team and its fans.

Handling Dissapointment

The title of this post may seem a little strange. After all, screenwriting is a rejection-oriented business. Writers will get turned down 99% of the time. Even if an option on a script is secured, the odds of the film getting produced are low. So how does one handle the constant disappointment of projects that don't work out? There's no easy answer, but one must keep one's head up and keep going.

The Sages have written about our period, epic screenplay about the 19th century Irish revolutionary Thomas Francis Meagher. We have been working with an LA-based management company on the script for the past year. We were introduced to these managers about two years ago after a trip to LA. Over the the first year, they read some of our material and concluded that a large, epic script with commercial appeal would be something we should pursue. The story of Meagher is akin to "Braveheart" and something we had long had interest in so off we went to do research and write a treatment. Over the last year, The Sages, working with the managers, wrote three drafts of the script--each one getting better and tighter. The managers were consistent in that they told us it would be a tough sell and hooking a big name actor would be the key to getting the project sold.

The climate for spec scripts is very tough right now. And even tougher for period pieces. So our eyes were wide open going into this, but after a year working with the managers on this script we thought they'd be a little more game to get it out there. Alas, a call with them last week revealed they were not willing to take it out to studios and actors. Too tough a climate they said.

It was difficult to hear. A year's worth of work and an unenthusiastic response. There are disappoinments and then there are blows to the stomach. This was perhaps in between. How do we handle it? How do we move on?

The small silver lining was that the management team said we should do legwork and feel free to use them if we need submissions to high level producers or studios. This may come in handy, and it has been great working with these managers. We got what we believe is a strong script and a great contact in this management team. Still, it feels like small solace.

But we can't feel sorry for ourselves. We must do what we've always done, aggressively market ourselves, make new contacts, expand our network, and keep writing. Five years ago, we would not have had the opportunity to work with a management team such as this. The screenwriting game is, more often than not, a long slow climb up a steep hill.

Where are we on the hill? Always climbing and always hoping to reach the top. If there's one thing a screenwriter must learn --and learn well-- it's how to handle disappoinment and keep going despite it...

Ode to the Capitol Theatre

When I moved to Arlington, MA, in early 2001, my wife and I chose the neighborhood based on our sense of it being a vibrant residential area close to the city of Boston. For me, personally, there was another draw: Arlington's Capitol Theatre was a short walk from my new condo in a converted two-family home. Over the next seven years, the Capitol Theater would be my secret get-away spot on a night when my wife and I had a fight or during a sweltering summer evening when I just had to escape the heat. I would use the theatre as therapy on those occasions and I came to love the place.

Since moving to the other side of Arlington, I no longer have the old theatre located conveniently across the street from my home. But, tonight I brought my son to the theatre to see SUGAR, a wonderful art house film about a Dominican ballplayer's struggle to make it pro in America. It was a spectacular independent film that broke your heart even as it entertained you. And it's the kind of film that makes its way sooner or later to the screens of the Capitol.

It's hard to explain what makes the Capitol so special. Part of it is the history that breathes in every crevice of the building. Opened in November of 1925, the Capitol Theatre's evolution parallels that of the entertainment industry of the last century. Like the Somerville Theatre just down the rode in Davis Square and owned and operated by the same family - the Locatelli family - the Capitol hosted all kinds of vaudeville shows and other live entertainment. Enormous pipe organs played on both sides of the cavernous main auditorium. It was the crown jewel of the neighborhood theatres and entertained area residents with prize nights and other attractions during the bleak days of the Depression.

In time the classic theatre had to be 'multi-plexed', but it was done in a way that completely honored the original look and feel of the single-screen theatre. It debuted in 1989 and Theatre 1, still houses the main stage and the grates where the pipe organs were located.

There are times when I miss my old neighborhood, and, in particular, I miss being able to run out and see movies like SUGAR across the street!