IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME, AND WORK, AND SPEND:

Massachusetts-made movies burst onto the national scene in a big way, garnering a record-setting sixteen Academy Award nominations last month. One of the other nominated pictures, TOY STORY 3, could not be made here in the Bay State. And yet it wasn't made in Hollywood either. This latest installment in Pixar's fabulously successful franchise has been an economic boon for more than 15 years to (of all places) the city of San Francisco. To paraphrase the Cowardly Lion, "What do they got, that we ain't got?" At least not yet. Take a look:

Melissa Leo talks about shooting "THE FIGHTER" in Lowell, MA:

By John Lopez


February 4, 2011

As Oscar season enters its homestretch, Academy voters receive their final ballots, consensus gels around the favorites—and one name you hear over and over is Melissa Leo. She’s already won a Golden Globe and a SAG award for her portrayal of Alice Ward, the tough-as-nails Massachusetts mother in The Fighter. Now her second Oscar nomination has the pundits predicting a win for both her and co-star Christian Bale (whose charismatic performance goes a long way toward rehabilitating public perceptions of crackheads everywhere). Little Gold Men caught up with Leo before the shower of accolades began, and she shared with us the process behind The Fighter’s bravura performances, how the real-life community of Lowell helped create the vibe, and the key to creating a great girl fight on-screen.

John Lopez: What’s remarkable about The Fighter is how real the characters feel. People I know from that part of Massachusetts say it’s like watching old home movies.

Melissa Leo: You know, people that have spent time in that area feel that it’s so of that area. But one of the most extraordinary things I find doing press for The Fighter is there’s a lot of places like that. You know, a town that once was gonna be something…and then, it’s just been dying off ever since.

The film really captures the energy of the community—is that David O. Russell’s direction coming through?

It is indeed David O. Russell. The man has a huge heart. You know, he’s not like Mark, who’s grown up around those people. It was a whole new world to David; he didn’t know what to expect. But he fell head-over-heels, madly in love with everyone in Lowell. He did, we all did.

How do you deal with such dramatic material while still retaining an essential lightness?

First, it has to do with the Ward-Eklunds themselves. They’ve lived complex, complicated, and extraordinary lives, a lot of rough water and some pretty high mountaintops. So the openness from the family was a big part of it. But it also goes back to David O. Russell. I’ve never met someone so non-judgmental. Looking at the portrait of the crack addict in the movie—yes, he’s a crack addict, but [David is] not making a judgment about it. It’s just a fact. And that’s a brilliant touch.

I assume you prepared by working with the family?

It was very important to me, and I’ll mention this so we don’t have to linger on it, but Alice Ward is actually very sick right now. She’s come down with pneumonia and had a heart attack, and we thought we lost her. Within 10 minutes of this occurring in the hospital, 50 people show up at the hospital! So that’s where Alice is, and talking to you, I can’t forget that. Anyway, my agents were all very excited about this role, and working with David and Mark and Christian, but then I thought, Wait a second, I’m supposed to play their mother?! Back up here! I mean, I’m 10 years older than the boys. Alice might’ve started having kids young, [but] not at 10!

Not even in Lowell.

Even in Lowell! But it was in meeting Alice that I saw in her my mother’s mother—not so much the circumstances, but a time in America growing up. A woman with a brain, a woman with a fierce love for her children, living the American dream by making a better life for her kids. You can dress somebody up, but if their internal mechanism isn’t living and breathing the character, you have only half a character. And, [from her perspective], I’ve never had the woman playing me dropping by the set and seeing how I’m doing with her kids all there, every day!

Was there a single moment, a gesture, a prop, when you knew you had her character down?

I don’t know if there was a single moment, but I did have that exact experience just recently working with Kevin Smith on Red State. Kevin saw one photograph of me, and, [he told me later,] there was something in the way I had jammed my hands in the pockets of the hoodie for the photo. It was so brilliant, too, that he shared this with me; some directors might think something like that and never share it with the actor. However, Alice was not easy.

Well, she’s a pretty complex character, and you’re right, she’s so fierce.

I’m not like Alice. I don’t feel myself as a pushy, step-to-it, take-care-of-it kind of gal at all. That was a reach for me, and I think that what got me the confidence was David’s belief in me, and the town of Lowell. I got all up in Mark Bridges’s costumes and the hair and makeup, and they were delighted to see her 20 years younger than she is today. Their belief in me was the final bridge to cross to come to the set with the confidence I needed.

It sounds like you guys really engaged the community on set.

That’s something that the big Hollywood film misses out on. It happens all the time in little independents where you’re shooting in real locations with real folks and the vibe you pick up from that. There was no doubt we were doing something important and each one of us—Amy, Mark, Christian, Jack, the sisters—we all showed up with a very serious job to do and had a good time doing it.

I bet you had a fun time shooting the girl-fight sequence where Alice and the daughters come over to take down Amy Adams.

You know, as a female, I’ve been asked to do some fighting, a punch here and a kick there, but I have yet to meet a female fight director. I know that Amy Adams, in her great wisdom, nailed the one of the sisters who had the most experience, which was Dendrie Taylor, the first one that gets shoved to the ground. Amy and Dendrie spent a long time with the male fight director and the male director getting it to be a real girl fight.

It’s one of the best, most realistic girl fights I’ve ever seen in cinema.

You even see Mark step back out of it.

We’ve all been there. As a male, you never, never get in the middle of that.

Yeah, and it’s something that I know from experience is hard to capture on film. And you get a female involved in the action…. It’s a cagey beast.

So you’ve had your share of girl fights, huh?

Along the way, indeed, I have…

So you guys pulled David aside and said, “Listen, this is how we throw down.”

Well, not that I’ve done that much throwing down in my actual life, I did a play called Cinders, and I think there were nine of us girls in a Polish reform school. And there was a fight when all the girls gang up on one of the girls. It was a man who was directing it, and he kept not being happy with it, because it was being choreographed by a guy! Finally, when us women began to take over the fight, the choreography of it, that’s when it really became this brutal moment onstage.

Maybe you should pitch your own spin-off based on Alice’s character: The Girl Fighter.

[Laughs.] Yes, The Girl Fighter!

Seriously, though, this can be a male-dominated industry, but even just creatively it’s important to get that female perspective up on-screen.

Well, Kathryn Bigelow gave us a lot of help last year. You’re just starting to hear more and more about women directors. You know, it takes a while for people to evolve.

Sometimes I feel Hollywood is secretly one of the most conservative cultures—

Yeah, it’s thought of as a trend-setting thing. But it’s sort of the opposite.

Hub is ‘Boom’ town for James:

By Gayle Fee And Laura Raposa

   Photo by Herald file

Production is scheduled to begin in Quincy this month on a new Kevin James flick, “Here Comes the Boom,” and the comedy about a teacher who tries to save his school’s music program by becoming a mixed-martial arts fighter is going to save some real-life music programs.

Columbia Pictures has contracted with the city of Quincy to lease the old Quincy High School on Coddington Street for six months and will pay a whopping $80,000 in rent. Mayor Thomas Koch has said the money will go to the school department to save music classes. Now there’s a Hollywood ending!

The old Quincy High, which has been replaced by a spanking new facility, will be typecast as a high school in the comedy about a physics teacher who decides to moonlight as a mixed-marital arts fighter to save jobs and programs.

It is the first big-budget flick to return to Massachusetts after a long drought that followed Gov. Deval Patrick’s proposed cap on the state’s generous tax credits to the film industry. Opponents of the cut argued that Hollywood brings jobs, money and very good publicity to the Bay State and the $80G to the Quincy schools should bolster their claims.

“Here Comes the Boom” is the third big-budget flick James and his producer-buddy Adam Sandler have made in the Bay State in three years. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” starring the former “King of Queens” as a police-academy washout who saves the day when a gang of high-tech robbers descends on his mall, made a whopping $180 million at the box office worldwide. It was shot in 2008, primarily in the Burlington Mall.

“Grown Ups,” Sandler’s made-on-the-North Shore flick starring Adam and most of his Hollywood posse, made a whopping $267 million worldwide. And “Zookeeper,” starring James as a zoo attendant who talks to the animals, is scheduled for a big summer release. No wonder the boys like making it in the Bay State!

Salma Hayek, who also starred in “Grown Ups,” reportedly is on board for “Here Comes the Boom,” and Frank Coraci, who directed “Zookeeper,” will direct. He has been in town recently to scope out locations and prep for the start of shooting.

Also slated to shoot here in the spring is “Ted,” an R-rated comedy starring Mark Wahlberg as a man who, when he was a kid, wished for his teddy bear to come to life. Twenty-five years later, the bear is a smoking, cursing delinquent voiced by “The Family Guy’s” Seth MacFarlane, who also wrote and directed the flick. Mila Kunis, hot off her buzz-making turn in “Black Swan,” will co-star. BTW, “Ted” has a $65 million budget.

File Under: Roll ’Em.

Kevin James coming back to Bay State:

Hollywood to descend upon Quincy

Old high school building will be rented by Columbia Pictures to shoot movie

By Jack Encarnacao

February 5, 2011

QUINCY — The city has reached an agreement with Columbia Pictures to rent out the old Quincy High School building for a movie shoot.

The interior of the vacant school, which is next to the new high school on Coddington Street, will be the setting for scenes that are tentatively scheduled to be filmed starting next month, said Christopher Walker, a spokesman for Mayor Thomas Koch.

The deal, signed by Koch and Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. of California, calls for the city to receive $80,000 in rental fees for use of the old high school from Feb. 2 until Aug. 26.

Koch will earmark the $80,000 to benefit the school department’s music program, Walker said. A separate term of the deal allows Columbia to rent additional city property at a rate of $3,333 per day. The agreement requires Columbia to obtain at least $1 million in liability insurance for the shoot. It also bars any party to the agreement from claiming damages.

Built in 1922, the old high school was targeted by the city for demolition this summer. It is unclear if those plans will have to change, Walker said, because it is unclear when the film crew will be finished shooting in the building.

According to the agreement, the movie to be filmed is titled “Here Comes the Boom.” Movie industry media have tied that title to a movie that will star the comic actor Kevin James. James has shot several movies in Massachusetts, including scenes for the sleeper hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” at the South Shore Plaza in Braintree.

James said in an interview last year that he was scheduled to start work on a movie about a high school teacher who moonlights as a professional fighter in an effort to save the school’s music program.

The shoot would not be the first time Quincy has provided the backdrop to a Hollywood production.

Scenes for the Boston-based films “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Departed” were shot in the city’s quarries and shipyard. In 2009, actor Ben Affleck shot scenes for “The Company Men” on a residential street in Quincy Point.

NBC's TODAY SHOW headed to Lowell next week:

'Today' in Lowell

By Mark Shanahan & Meredith Goldstein

We’re told a crew from NBC’s “Today’’ show is headed to Lowell next week to shoot a segment on boxing brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund, whose stories are the basis of David O. Russell’s Oscar-nominated film “The Fighter.’’. .

Casting for Hub boys

Casting directors for the soon-to-be-filmed Mark Wahlberg movie “Ted’’ are looking for 7- to 9-year-old boys with Boston accents. You can sign your kid up at the Boston Casting website. “Ted’’ is being made by “The Family Guy’’ creator Seth MacFarlane and costars Mila Kunis. . . . “Fighter’’ Micky Ward has been named grand marshal of the 2011 Cape Cod St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which will be held March. 6. Ward should be back from the Oscars by then.

FAIRHAVEN meets Fairhaven

From left: actress Alexie Gilmore, director Tom O’Brien, 

and script supervisor Abbe Novack on the set of “Fairhaven’’ in 

the Town Hall. (Photo by Steve Haines for The Boston Globe)

By Mark Shanahan & Meredith Goldstein

The first floor of Fairhaven’s Town Hall was nice and quiet on Saturday morning, as it should be. But upstairs, the historic building was packed with camera equipment and a bustling movie crew working on the indie movie “Fairhaven.’’ Actors took over the Town Hall’s big, open room and circled around the film’s director/star, Tom O’Brien. 

A camera followed the Medford native as he and actress Alexie Gilmore, who plays O’Brien’s love interest, finished a scene that involved her character teaching a laughing yoga class. Crew members watched from the next room, giggling at the interplay. Spirits were extra high because it was the end of the monthlong shoot. The out-of-towners were to return home on Sunday and had plans for a wrap party at the Seaport Inn’s bar.

 “It’s been amazing,’’ said “Fairhaven’’ producer Massoumeh Emami, of the local shoot. “I don’t think we could have made a movie with this budget in many places.’’

“Fairhaven,’’ which is about a local guy on a quest to bring meaning to his life after hearing an inspiring interview with Tom Brady, shot at a long list of South Coast spots including the First Congregational Church near Town Hall and Temptation Gentlemen’s Club in New Bedford. Emami, who produced the 2009 Rosemarie DeWitt movie “How I Got Lost,’’ and worked as script supervisor for the yet-to-be-released Matt Damon movie “Margaret,’’ said she and her crew didn’t anticipate being covered in snow for the entire shoot, but the weather worked out just fine. 

Actors who live elsewhere (including Chris Messina, of “Julie and Julia,’’ and Rich Sommer, of “Mad Men’’) managed to arrive and depart when they were supposed to, despite the storms. Everyone just kept tabs on how much would fall and when. “Logistically, it wasn’t fun to deal with, but it’s so beautiful,’’ Emami said. No word on when “Fairhaven’’ will be released, but O’Brien and Emami are getting ready to edit. We’re hoping there’s a nice, big local premiere. Maybe at Town Hall?

Oscar's unsung local heroes:

The job of the producer(s) is the least understood and most under-appreciated in Hollywood. Producers perform any or all of the following critical tasks on a successful motion picture: see the original vision, secure the essential rights, attach the critical elements, provide the necessary funding, oversee production---in short, by their often herculean efforts, they make the project happen.


So here's a shout-out to two hard working local producers who have a lot to smile about these days:

Dorothy Aufiero, PRODUCER

"THE FIGHTER" is nominated for seven

Academy Awards including BEST PICTURE.

Christy Scott Cashman, PRODUCER

"THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT" is nominated for

four Academy Awards including BEST PICTURE

CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU BOTH

AND GOOD LUCK ON FEB 27th!!