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“There are bars – I’m not naming names – down on the main strip, where guys have been known to get stabbed. And the projects are on the other side.” He’s not talking about the Boston of Paul Revere, Old Ironsides and the Red Sox [team stats]. Ben Affleck is relating the sights in that part of Beantown – just a mile and a half from where he grew up – where he has filmed two movies. The rough “brown bag” (as Affleck calls it) neighborhood of Charlestown was the setting for “Gone Baby Gone” and Affleck’s second film as director, “The Town,” which opens Friday.

A host of Hollywood heavyweights hit Boston yesterday, gathering at friendly Fenway for a screening of Ben Affleck’s latest film, “The Town.’’ The movie’s A-list cast — Affleck, Jon Hamm (who brought his longtime girlfriend Jennifer Westfeldt), Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Chris Cooper, and Blake Lively — all made the scene, and walked a red carpet in front of the first base dugout. The surprise guest of the night was Matt Damon, who brought his pregnant wife, Lucia, his mom, Nancy, his dad, Kent, his stepparents, and his brother Kyle.

Across the span of his life, Maurice “Moe” Gillen has known most of Charlestown’s sinners and all of its saints.

The stars of “The Town,” Ben Affleck, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Chris Cooper, Blake Lively and Rebecca Hall – and Ben’s BFF Matt Damon – shone at Fenway Park [map] last night for the world premiere of Affleck’s set-in-Charlestown flick about some extremely good-looking cops and robbers who do battle in the bank-crime capital of America.

1997’s “Good Will Hunting’’ was set in Cambridge and South Boston and made Affleck both a famous actor and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. A decade later, “Gone Baby Gone,’’ shot in Dorchester, made him a respected director. Now comes Affleck’s second feature as a director, the heist thriller “The Town,’’ which got a celebrity-studded local premiere last night at Fenway Park and opens nationally on Friday.

The romance is the the part of THE TOWN that works best. As an actor, Affleck is a nice visual match for Rebecca Hall — they’re both big, rangy people who seem comfortable in their own skin — and we root for them to make it even as we know that the big revelation (I’ve been dating the guy who held me at gunpoint and ditched me in East Boston!) might possibly be a deal killer.

The town of Rockport, which can count its murders on one hand, provides the backdrop for “The Last Harbor,” a thriller filmed in town last year, featuring a face known in police-like roles, Wade Williams.

THE TOWN is already being hailed as the most authentic of the recent made-in-Boston films, including “The Departed,” which copped the 2007 Best Picture Oscar. “They can’t wait to watch this film. The last time it was like this was when ‘Miracle’ came out,” said Ed Callahan, a life-long Townie and member of the Charlestown Historical Society, referencing the 2004 film about the 1980 men’s Olympic hockey team that included Townie Jack O’Callahan.

The actor/director and Hub native came back to Boston to film “The Town,” a crime drama based on Chuck Hogan’s book “Prince of Thieves,” set in Charlestown.

In “The Town,” Affleck’s adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s Hammett Prize-winning 2004 novel “Prince of Thieves,” Ben Affleck skips another junk-movie paycheck to make a film closer to his heart and his hometown.

“It was a tremendous advantage to be able to hang out with and talk to several of the law enforcement officials in Boston, both at the federal level and at a state level and local level,” Hamm said.

Ben Affleck is one of the biggest names in Hollywood. And he’s a pretty big name back in his hometown of Boston as well. Russ Mitchell pays him a visit for this CBS Sunday Morning Profile.

Sometimes it takes 10 years to become an overnight sensation. Just ask Stephanie Lemelin. The actress (inset) has done 11 TV pilots in nine years, but she’s only getting traction in Tinseltown now. Lemelin, whose dad is former Bruins goalie Reggie Lemelin, has a recurring role on “The Whole Truth’’ — Jerry Bruckheimer’s new legal drama on ABC costarring Rob Morrow — and also shows up in the new issue of Esquire, dubbed one of the “Sexiest New Faces of Fall TV.’’ (Daniella Alonso of “My Generation’’ and “Lone Star’’ lovely Eloise Mumford are a couple of the others.)

Four Massachusetts-made films (THE TOWN, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, COMPANY MEN, and THE FIGHTER) lead a parade of new films opening nationally in the last quarter of 2010.

A first for the Boston Film Festival this year is that all screenings will take place at the much-heralded, invitingly intimate Stuart Street Playhouse, a 425-seat, stadium-style, state-of-the-art independent cinema at 200 Stuart St., in Boston’s Theater District.

The critics have spoken, and early reviews out of Venice for Ben Affleck’s made-in-Boston thriller “The Town” are mostly positive. The set-in-Charlestown bank-robbery drama debuted at the Venice Film Festival earlier this week, and most of the critics say the flick is a worthy successor to Hub classics such as “The Departed,” ‘Mystic River’ and Ben’s earlier work in “Gone Baby Gone.”

“Everyone in this business was an extra,” said Angela Peri, owner of Boston Casting. “I was an extra.” According to a 2010 University of Massachusetts study, the Bay State is among the fastest growing states in the country for film production. And while employment is down, film production jobs have increased, the study said. Case in point: Ben Affleck’s “The Town” was shot here and opens Sept. 17.

The stars of director Ben Affleck’s new shot-in-Boston heist drama will attend the Sept. 14 screening at Fenway Park. Warner Bros. yesterday announced that “The Town’’ will premiere at the ballpark, and the all-star cast, including Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, and Chris Cooper, will join Affleck for the special event in the outfield.

The production company Moderncine has spent the past four weeks in mostly remote parts of Greenfield and Montague shooting the movie “The Woman,” and some of the scenes are not for the faint of heart or the weak of stomach. 



Massachusetts native Taylor Schilling is taking Hollywood by storm. Best known for her role as tough Iraq vet nurse Veronica Callahan on NBC’s “Mercy,” Taylor will hit the silver screen as Zac Efron’s leading lady in the film adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks’ novel “The Lucky One.”