This year, we have been blessed with a mercifully Boston-free slate of Oscar nominees, but the awards circuit has seen a rash of Bay State-set films in recent years. This miniature canon provided Seth Meyers with plenty of cannon fodder in a compact and solidly entertaining new short titled “Boston Accent Trailer” lampooning such films as The Town, The Departed, Gone Baby Gone, and many others. The late-night host, a native of Illinois who spent his formative years in New Hampshire (pronounced Nuhampsha), puts on a wide array of Beantown brogues to spoof the specific strain of gritty, no-collar crime epics that have made Boston home as of late.
He takes a few easy potshots — though Brits with the temerity to half-ass the demanding Boston accent are deserving of any and all dragging — but the particulars of his parody are surprisingly specific. Beyond the basic cliches of cahs being pahked in Hahvad Yahd and the obsession with the cataloguing of small towns, he digs into what really defines these Boston movies. The sense of loyalty to one’s own over all else, even the law, unites the disparate entries in the microgenre of Boston crime flicks. In getting at the overarching thematic connections between these movies, Meyers has created a more thoughtful parody than usually graces the late-night airwaves. But of course the truest MVP of the sketch is Rachel Dratch, making a cameo appearance and showing off some linguistic skills she picked up during a childhood spent in Lexington, Massachusetts. As a native of Massachusetts’ North Shore, may I personally say that that Harvard-educated lace-curtain pansy Meyers did right by Mass. on this one.