May 18, 2011, 10:41 AM |
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by Michael Ruffino, Southie Sidekick
Author of Gentlemanly Repose and of The Unband
Los Angeles, Dec 2010
Exodus
At quarter after three in the afternoon I ran a red at Franklin and Wilcox, directly into a swarm of locusts at Cahuenga. The intersection utterly consumed by a massive, undulating, cloud about 25 yards across by same, exoskeletons pinging off the Bronco like diabolical popcorn. Hipsters bolt into the crepe place for cover. The phone rings. It’s Tony’s people, saying about some type of difficulty in Cuba so now Boston show is shooting January, not April, and can I make it. Didn’t catch details, phone died.
Google turned up nothing on SoCal locusts but Nathaniel West. Continue reading: ABNR: SOUTHIE – NOTES »
Posted By: no reservations crew
May 4, 2011, 2:26 PM |
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by Sally Freeman, Producer
Don’t work with 1970’s Camaros and beware of kids with guns, that’s what our Boston shoot taught me.
The Camaro, is a phenomenal looking car without a doubt, ours was lime green and the owners were game enough to bring it on a trailer to Boston for our homage to Eddie Coyle. The car in Tony’s favorite crime novel-turned-film wasn’t actually a Camaro, but it was the closest muscle car we could get, with a few days notice and snow on the ground.
As on many of our shoots it was FREEZING, real balls-off-a-brass-monkey type temperatures and we were willing the snow to stop.
Driving through Boston, Tony’s at the wheel of the Camaro and we’re filming from a pick up in front. Everything’s great, our camera guys Zach and Todd are singing 70’s funk soundtracks along with the driving shots they’re capturing and the bright green paint job is popping against the grey winter streets.
I think it was the first stop light that the car died at, and after a quick jump start it would sputter and die every time we then asked Tony to drive under 10 miles an hour. Cue Tony revving hard, driving off and leaving us in the dust just to keep it ticking over (and partly I suspect because him and Mike Ruffino were getting into their gangster characters a tad too much).
Todd and Zach are quite a sight bouncing around in the back of the pick-up secured by bungee chords, body harnesses and wearing black ski masks against the cold. When a state trooper asks us to stop and explain what we’re up to, we just keep driving in case the beast breaks down again. He wisely decides we’re too weird to pursue.
Following at least eight more break-down’s, jump starts and some phenomenal cursing – to the delight of the owner’s young son listening to crew chatter over the walkie talkie’s – the Camaro finally gave up the ghost in a windswept car park in Southie. RIP green Camaro.
The gun came into play on the night Tony and Mike went on a pub-crawl of Southie’s bars. They’d already drunk their way through Murphy’s Law and the L Street Tavern before staggering over to the Quencher.
The kid came out of nowhere and the first thing I realize is that Tony’s been shot and the assassin is reloading his gun with ice. He was jamming fist-fulls of it into the side of what looked like a nerf gun and they came out of the other end compacted and scoring direct hits.
He was unperturbed by the presence of a camera and carried on unleashing merry ice hell on Tony and Mike, alternating between crotch and head shots. He had the presence of mind to bring an inflatable shield on this mission with him and was waving it in defiance.
We later learnt that this ice avenger patrols the streets of Southie waiting for drunks to come pouring out of the pubs so he can dole out this stone-cold justice. We all agreed that this child was brilliant and we wish he’d stuck around but instead he slipped off into the night like the lonesome hero he is. Ice boy, we salute you.
Posted By: no reservations crew
