Mass Movietime

I am a complete and utter sucker for any clickbait that promises a list, especially when the list is of whatever, shown by states.

Worst/best states to retire in. Favorite cookie in each state. Craziest roadside attraction. Doesn’t really matter what the topic is, I’ll give it a click. When the set up is that you have to click (vs. scroll) through every state, if the subject isn’t that interesting, I may not make it through Arkansas. But I’ll almost always give a state list a try.

The last one I looked at showed the highest grossing movies set in each state. I don’t tend to go to highest grossing films, which are mostly super-hero or violent action, and predictably, I’d only vaguely heard of most of the state champeen grossing movies to begin with. But I did want to check out what was up in the New England states.

Connecticut: The only film I could think of that took place in Connecticut was Holiday Inn, the 1942 musical that gave us “White Christmas.” But I knew that couldn’t be the top grosser. Readers, it wasn’t. The highest grossing film to take place in Connecticut was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Which I actually did see, nearly 40 years ago, but I had no recall that there was a Connecticut connection. I thought it all took place in places that had things like lost arks. Anyway, Indiana Jones was a professor at a fictional college in Connecticut. So there. (Gross: $389.9M)

Maine: Hmmm. Something to do with the state’s favorite son, maybe. Stephen King. Bingo! IT ($700.3) which -  like most (all?) Stephen King sagas takes place in Maine - is that state’s top grosser. Matters not that I’d never heard of it/IT. Plenty of other folks did. Not that I’m an anti-Stephen King snob. I really enjoyed Under the Dome and 11/22/63. And I loved his book Faithful (co-authored with fellow Red Sox fan – and my favorite novelist ever – Stewart O’Nan), which chronicled their attendance at most Red Sox home games in what turned out to be the club’s greatest season ever. (They had the contract for the book before anyone knew it would turn out to be 2004 and the breaking of the curse.) Plus I think that King is a completely underrated and brilliant short story writer. No one portrays working class people more authentically. Unless it’s Stewart O’Nan. But, no, IT wasn’t familiar to me.

Massachusetts: I knew it wouldn’t be Friends of Eddie Coyle, Love Story, or The Verdict, all of which were made too long ago to be top grossers. Even Good Will Hunting I thought would have been too old. But never in a million years would I have landed on War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise ($591.7M). Once I saw the name, I did manage to remember that the plot  brought Our Hero Tom Cruise and his kids to Boston to reunite with their mother. But “set in Massachusetts” seems as stretchy as setting Raiders in Connecticut. And in any case, I much preferred the 1953 movie of the same title, which was set in California and was one of those brilliantly cheesy 1950’s Red Scare sci-fi films. Not quite as brilliantly cheesy as The Day the Earth Stood Still or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but right up there…

New Hampshire: Seriously, who would make a movie in New Hampshire? I mean, other than the makers of On Golden Pond and that one with Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid that ends up at the naval base in Portsmouth, which was only partially set in NH. But the Jumanji movies are set and filmed in the Granite State, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle grossed $962.1M. Turns out it was filmed in Keene, NH, which is a fairly charming small city not all that far from the fairly uncharming town of Bellows Falls, VT, which is where my husband grew up. I’ve never seen any of the Jumanjis, but knowing they were filmed in Keene kinda-sorta makes me want to give one a look.

Rhode Island: The Conjuring ($319.4) is Rhode Island’s top grossing film. It almost goes without saying that I’ve never even heard of it. (Or if I had heard of it, I’ve forgotten about it.) While it was filmed in North Carolina, it’s set in Harrisville, Rhode Island. Harrisville is one of the many villages in the town of Burrillville, from whence haileth my old and dear friend Joyce and her almost equally old and dear to me husband Tom. Joyce was from the village of Pascoag, Tom from Wallum Lake. In a few weeks, I’ll be visiting Tom and Joyce who, for some foolish reason – oh, yeah, it was their careers – live in Dallas, Texas. We may well decided to Netflix The Conjuring and see whether fake Harrisville bears any resemblance to real Harrisville.

Vermont: As can happen on occasion, things in life have come around to Bing Crosby. No, not that any top grossing film had Der Bingle in it. But just as the only Connecticut film I could come up with was Holiday Inn, starring Bing Crosby, the first movie set in Vermont that came to mind was White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby. My husband and I had few Christmas traditions – he hated the holiday – but we always watched White Christmas at some point in December. It is a true howler, but there’s some decent music and dancing in it. Still, it’s mostly a preposterously corny howler. The December before Jim died, we decided not to watch it yet again, as Jim said that he didn’t want to spend any of the last few hours he had on earth watching a dreadful movie. Anyway, the highest grossing movie set in Vermont is not White Christmas. It’s What Lies Beneath ($291.4M), yet another movie I’ve never seen, even though I like Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer just fine.

So of the big deal movies set in New England, seems that I’ve only seen Connecticut and Massachusetts. Looks like I have some film viewing to catch up with. Too bad I just started watching Downton Abbey. I’m only a few episodes in. Just far enough to dislike two of the three Crawley sisters, not to mention Carson and O’Brien. Could be a long slog before I get to Jumanji…