Visiting Boston Part Two

            Originally, our things to do in Boston list was only going to be one post. Boston, however, has too many places to visit to cram into one little blog post. So we decided to expand it to another. (Honestly, we could probably make a whole series about this… and we just might.) So this week, we decided to offer five more things to do in Boston.

Fenway Park: The home of the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park is the oldest baseball stadium in the United States. Opened in 1912, just days after the sinking of the Titanic, Fenway is nestled in the Kenmore-Fenway neighborhood resulting in the ballpark’s quirky dimensions. The location of Lansdowne Street forced the construction of the fabled Green Monster, a 37-foot tall wall spanning left field. From April to October, Fenway hosts 81 Red Sox home games. Thanks to the ownership group that took over the team in 2003, Fenway has undergone significant structural improvements and has played host to numerous concerts, soccer games, and outdoor hockey in the winter. The new ownership group also created a new section of seating on top of the Green Monster, offering a great spot to watch a game.  

Make Way for Ducklings! 

Boston Common/Public Garden: Nestled under Beacon Hill and the State House, the Boston Common is the oldest public park in the United States. Opened in 1634 as a place for Puritan settlers to graze their cattle, the Common has remained in continuous use since then. After the city of Boston banned cattle grazing in the 1830s, the park took on new life as a green space inside the ever-growing city. Today, it serves as the beginning of the Freedom Trail, and boasts softball and baseball fields, and numerous walking trails. In the winter, Frog Pond serves as a public ice-skating rink. Next to the Common is the Public Garden which includes the famous Make Way for Ducklings installation in honor of the famed children’s book by Robert McCloskey.

North End: Surrounded on three sides by water and Interstate 93 on the other, the North End is Boston’s oldest neighborhood. Originally settled in the 1630s by the Puritans, the neighborhood has been populated by a variety of ethnic groups. Beginning in the early 20^th century, Italians came to dominate the neighborhood. That influence continues today. It’s nearly impossible to walk 10 yards down Hanover Street (one of the North End’s biggest streets) without encountering an Italian restaurant. Any trip to the North End requires a trip to Mike’s Pastry for their world-famous cannoli. The North End also houses much of Boston’s colonial history including the Old North Church and Paul Revere’s house.  

Newbury Street 

Newbury Street: Located in the Back Bay and running from the Common to Brookline Avenue, Newbury Street is famous for its quirky shops and restaurants. Newbury Street emerged as a shopping district in the 1970s with the opening of the original Newbury Comics. The comic book seller and music store sparked an outpouring of new art galleries, eateries, and independent book stores. Over the ensuing decades, many of the independent businesses have closed or moved due to increasing rents. They’ve been replaced by high-end chain businesses seeking to capitalize on Newbury Street’s reputation. Despite the encroachment by big business, the street has retained its charm.

Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market: Faneuil Hall opened in the 1740s as a market house for Boston’s merchant class. During the run-up to the American Revolution, it hosted speeches by Samuel Adams and James Otis. Throughout the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Faneuil Hall served as a public meeting place for the citizens of Boston. It is currently part of the Freedom Trail and the Boston National Historical Park. Located right behind Faneuil Hall is Quincy Market, a historic market dating back to the 1820s. Currently, the lengthy rectangular building houses a wide range of restaurants and storefronts. It is a popular lunch spot for tourists and locals alike.

Visting Boston

            Boston is one of America’s oldest cities. It is rich in history and culture. Despite its small size (relative to other metropolises like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles) and occasionally brutal weather, Boston has remained a hub of education and innovation. We at DGA have many friends there and have been travelling to Massachusetts for years. So if you’re thinking of going to Boston, we decided to offer a few spots that you should visit while you’re there.

Freedom Trail: The Freedom Trail is a two and a half mile walking trail that passes through downtown Boston. It begins at Boston Common and weaves its way through the North End before culminating at the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. The trail provides an easily accessible path through Boston’s colonial history. Highlights include the State House, the site of the Boston Massacre, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church (of “1 if by land, 2 if by sea” fame) and the USS Constitution. For anyone interested in the history of Boston or Colonial America, the Freedom trail is a must.

A Triceratops Fossil at the Museum of Science 

Museum of Science: Located just across the Charles River, the Museum Science is a science museum and indoor zoo. It features over 700 interactive exhibits, many of which are specifically designed for young children. The Museum also houses a planetarium that features daily movies and presentations about space and the solar system. The Mugar Omni Theater is New England’s only domed iMAX theater that shows a variety of programming geared towards adults and young children alike.  The indoor zoo features over 120 species and many of the animals have been rescued from less reputable zoos and animal habitats. Overall, the Museum of Science is a place that’s great for families or just adults.

New England Aquarium: The Aquarium, located on the waterfront, features a 200,000 gallon tank simulating a Caribbean coral reef. The tank houses sharks, sea turtles, stingrays, eels, barracuda, and a host of other fish. A spiral walkway surrounds the tank allowing visitors to observe the marine life from a variety of angles. Another prominent feature of the Aquarium is the penguin exhibit that is home to a variety of penguin species. The Aquarium also hosts a large exhibit housing a number of different types of seals, including harbor and fur seals and California sea lions. The rest of the Aquarium is filled with a variety of exhibits that feature marine life from around the world. Like the Museum of Science, the Aquarium is a great spot for families and adults alike.

A Humpback Whale from a recent Whale Watch 

Whale Watching: From April-October, the Aquarium also runs whale watches. The four-hour trip takes visitors out to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary about forty miles from Boston. This sanctuary is rich in marine life and has long been a popular spot for whales in the summer months. The feeding ground attracts a variety of different types of whales including humpbacks, finbacks, minke, pilot, and occasionally right whales. Over the years, the scientists who work alongside the whale watch have named and identified the whales that return to the sanctuary year after year. Humpbacks, for example, have life expectancy of 60-100 years and will return to the same feeding grounds for years. They are also curious and friendly creatures, so they frequently swim right alongside the whale watching vessels.  

Museum of Fine Arts: The fourth largest museum in the United States, the MFA features more than 450,000 works of art. Due to the size of its collections, the MFA has a wide-ranging and comprehensive collection. It features a large collection of Egyptian artifacts, French Impressionist and post-Impressionist works including originals from Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Van Gogh, and Cezanne. Due to Boston’s historic location, the MFA also boasts an impressive collection of American artists including John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, and Gilbert Stuart. It houses over 5,000 pieces of Japanese pottery and a Japanese garden.

Grumpy Gods

Two biblically based epics, Darren Aronofsky’s Noah and Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings, slogged their way into movie theaters in 2014. Aronofsky and Scott embedded their films with a clear message for contemporary audiences: God is pissed and he’s not going to take it anymore. What does the Almighty do when he gets mad? He unleashes floods, plagues, burning bushes, and visions of himself as a petulant child for Christian Bale to argue with. But why is God so angry? In Noah, mankind, led by the descendants of Cain, has ruined the Earth, stripping it of all its natural resources. The film’s environmentalist message is as subtle as Russell Crowe’s acting. In Exodus, the Egyptians have kept God’s chosen people in slavery and won’t let them go. Led by Pharaoh Ramses, they’ve revel in their power (and eyeliner), justifying their oppression with derogatory remarks about the inferiority of the Jews and concerns about the economy. These films argue that humanity is to blame for God’s anger and it’s time for Jehovah to set things right.

Noah recalls the famed flood that represented God’s do-over on humanity. God warns Noah (Russell Crowe) of the impending catastrophe and orders him to build an ark to save the animals. Since Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden, humanity had been heading downhill, turning the paradise of earth into a post-Industrial wasteland. Only a seed leftover from Eden can restore the landscape and provide the trees necessary to build the ark. Noah’s grandfather Methuselah, hides away in a mountain desperate for some berries. Apparently it’s been centuries since he had some. His pursuit is successful right up until he drowns in the flood. Along the way Noah gets some help from the “Watchers” fallen angels in the form of giant rock monsters. They agree to aid in building the ark because they care about people; they were kicked out of Heaven for helping Adam and Eve after their exile. The “Watchers” fight alongside Noah as he defends the ark from the rest of mankind who understandably don’t want to drown. The “Watchers” sacrifice themselves as water engulfs the undeserving and Noah launches the ark to safety.

Noah's not gonna take it anymore 

Crowe’s Noah epitomizes single-mindedness. God has given him a mission and he has to carry it through. First, this means letting the rest of humanity die. He fights and kills those who try to save themselves by boarding the ark. Later, Noah becomes convinced that God wants his family to die out as well. This becomes a problem when his son’s wife becomes pregnant. So he resolves to murder the child if it turns out to be a girl. This determination drives his family away, at least emotionally—they can’t go too far, they’re stuck on an ark after all. Jennifer Connolly plays Noah’s long suffering wife and spends most of the film crying, horrified at what God and her husband have done. Emma Watson plays the pregnant daughter-in-law, sobbing at the idea of having her child immediately killed. When Noah’s son builds a raft to escape his lunatic father, Noah burns it. God gave him a mission and he’s going to see it through. After a climatic confrontation with the villain who somehow secreted himself away on the ark, Noah finally comes to his senses. As he looks into the eyes of his twin grandchildren he lowers his knife and professes his love for his family.

The sets are the most impressive thing about Ridley Scott’s Exodus: Gods and Kings. That is to say they’re real, built on soundstages to the cost of something like $140 million dollars. They add a level of realism that so many filmmakers fail to replicate through CGI. But they’re not used for any particularly interesting or useful purpose. The film begins with sort of brothers Ramses and Moses heading off to battle against their enemies. A soothsayer predicts that one of them will save the other’s life and become a great leader. In a gigantic shocker, it’s Moses who saves Ramses’ life. Everyone is troubled by this mostly because it is Ramses, not Moses, who will become Pharaoh once his father dies. Scott has explored this ‘the man who should be king vs. the man who would king’ dynamic before in Gladiator. Only in that movie, he had Joaquin Phoenix chewing up the scenery left and right. Phoenix embodied Roman decadence while searching for some twisted notion of familial love. Joel Edgerton’s Ramses is engulfed by petty jealously, anger, and an absurd amount of eyeliner.

After some boring bureaucratic infighting, Ramses banishes Moses. Moses goes away, falls in love, has a kid, and becomes a shepherd. All is well and happy in the world until a burning bush appears. Well it’s not so much a burning bush as it’s a bunch of sticks drizzled in Sterno. Then a boy appears, he claims to be an angel of God, but he’s really the Man Upstairs himself. Moses needs to go back and lead his people to freedom. He agonizes over his decision, but like Noah, decides that he should obey the Almighty. Moses goes back, meets his brother, and begins training an army. God, however, is unhappy with Moses’s progress. Again in the guise of a young boy, he wants freedom NOW! And if he can’t have it NOW! Then he’ll unleash a wave of plagues on Egypt. Ramses can’t muster up any excuses better than releasing the slaves will ruin the economy, so God sends forth his worst. The plagues come and come. Scott’s filmmaking seems to revel in the death and destruction. Swarms of insects devour cattle and people. Crocodiles gobble up sailors. Boils burst and rivers run red with blood.

Moses pleads with God to stop, but he won’t. In case you weren’t paying attention, he wants freedom for the Jews! In the scenes with Bale and the boy playing God, the Almighty isn’t interested in Moses’ opinion. He knows what he wants and it’s Moses’ job to carry it out. Moses is rightly skeptical of this young boy who talks like a prepubescent Brit. In Scott’s conception of Moses, he’s more harried babysitter than Messiah. Yet Moses, like Noah, obeys. By the time the plagues finish, Moses and Jews leave, only for Ramses to change his mind one last time and chase down his escaping slaves. The movie is two hours old by this point, but Scott includes one more final battle as Ramses drives his men to their deaths and Moses parts the Red Sea. What should be the film’s triumphant climax instead becomes a moment to wonder how much longer this is going to drag on.

Aronofsky’s Noah and Scott’s Exodus present a ruthless and angry God. He’s not looking for followers or interested in the salvation of his flock. He wants blood and he’ll have it. God needs a little bit of help from Noah and Moses, but he wants faith and obedience, not some much needed perspective. Noah’s faith in this version of God turns him into an ideologically consistent, but hardly sympathetic fanatic. He’ll kill his own granddaughter, if the Almighty wishes it. Moses, too, reluctantly obeys as God smites the Egyptians. He wants the killing to stop, but God isn’t satisfied until all the first born sons are dead. Ultimately God isn’t some doting deity, he’s an omnipotent bully. Too often in the world God is used as a cudgel against others, turns out it’s the same in the movies too.

Manchester-By-the-Sea

Led by Casey Affleck, Manchester-By-The-Sea had the potential to be the latest installment in the gritty Boston movie kick that Hollywood has been on over the last decade or so. Between The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, The Town, and most movies with Mark Walhburg including the recently released Patriots Day and The Fighter, there’s certainly been enough movies about Boston. But Manchester-By-The-Sea isn’t some excuse to let Casey Afflect chew the scenery with his accent. Rather it argues that there are some tragedies you just can’t recover from.

The film begins with a flashback where we see Lee Chandler (Affleck) on his brother Joe’s (Kyle Chandler) boat, playing around with his nephew Patrick. Their affection for one another is clear. It resumes with Lee’s life as a janitor in Quincy, MA when a phone call lures him back to his hometown of Manchester. Joe has died of a degenerative heart condition and needs his brother to tend to his funeral arrangements and take custody of the now 16 year old Patrick (Lucas Hedges). Lee, however, is reluctant to relocate back home after having left as the result of great tragedy involving his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams). As Lee settles in back in Manchester he confronts his past and writer-director Kenneth Lonnegan reveals the horrifying tragedy through a series of cleverly structured flashbacks. 

            Casey Affleck offers a deeply internal performance as Lee. He has no loud screaming matches or stirring speeches. Rather he mumbles or sarcastically quips his way through life. He exists—shoveling snow, fixing the plumbing, changing lightbulbs—with a world-weary numbness. He occasionally erupts out of his torpor by punching random strangers in bars. He rejects any attempts at reconciliation or forgiveness, especially in an especially devastating encounter with Randi. Michelle Williams is fantastic as the other half of this tragic couple. She’s believable as someone who was once deeply in love with Lee and someone who has tried to undergo her own healing. Lucas Hedges is the unsung hero of Manchester-By-The-Sea, as Patrick. He’s a relatable and understandable teenager mourning the death of his father. He shifts between happiness and sorrow. He’s also recognizably a teenager. He mouths off to his hockey coach, plays in a believably mediocre high school band, and is desperately trying to get laid by one of his two lady friends. He’s also functionally parentless. Lee is making the decisions about Patrick’s future, but barely seems present. Patrick’s mother is a recovering drug addict and after an awkward reunion, her boyfriend insists that Patrick not contact her again.

            Besides the tragedy, Manchester-By-The-Sea is a very funny movie. It has a situational humor derived from the experiences of its characters and their everyday lives. There’s the dark humor of a family coping with the diagnosis of a terminal illness. There’s the way that Lee and Patrick banter back and forth as Lee insists on his way of doing things as Patrick calls him out for not considering his feelings. Lee sarcastically questions his nephew about whether he has actually managed to have sex with any woman and Lee responds, “I’m working on it.” After Lee attempts to pawn Patrick off on his brother’s best friend George,  George stumbles through an answer about trying to get rid of his own children. There’s also an even darker thread of humor. As paramedics try to load Randi into an ambulance the stretcher gets stuck. In a moment of unfathomable tragedy, when the universe should cut her a break, the paramedics can’t get her in. After going to the funeral home and learning that they can’t bury Joe until the spring and learning that he’ll have to be kept in a freezer until then, Lee and Patrick can’t remember where they park. There’s no escaping the mundane cruelties of the universe, even in light of great tragedy.

            Manchester By the Sea offers a few glimmers of hope, but they’re not much. Lee refuses to move back to Manchester, unable to overcome his grief. Yet, he secures Patrick’s future by convincing George to adopt him. Lee tells Patrick that he’s getting a new place to live in Boston, one with an extra room for a bed or futon. It’s the most that Lee is capable of—giving his nephew the chance to visit. He’s given Patrick a chance for his own life, more than he’ll allow for himself.