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Boston Travel Guide

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Southwest Intensifies Boston Turf War With JetBlue And AirTran

Where: Boston-Logan Airport [map], Boston , MA, United States
October 15, 2009 at 5:33 PM | by Omri | 0 Comments

The outlook for the 2010 airline industry is unremittingly bleak, but you wouldn't know it from the way that Southwest is acting. The low cost carrier is adding 104 flights to its spring schedule. In the process they're turning the Boston turf war they started with JetBlue and AirTran into a full-blown bloodbath:

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All Work and No Play For Ben Affleck On Set In Boston

October 5, 2009 at 10:38 AM | by cmb | 0 Comments

If you were in Boston over the weekend, you may have thought someone got hijacked on the Charlestown Bridge, but it was actually just Ben Affleck causing all of the commotion. Ben is back in his hometown directing and starring in The Town, about a bank robber being chased by the FBI. The movie, which also features a Gossip Girl (Blake Lively) and a Mad Man (Jon Hamm), has been filming at at various locations, including Fenway Park and Copley Square, around the city for the past month or so.

The latest scene filmed on the Charlestown Bridge involved police vehicles chasing burglars (in creepy habits and masks) and was all filmed from a helicopter above. The scene is sure to look cool in the movie, but it had traffic backed up all weekend as they closed the bridge completely so Ben could get his shot.

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Delicious Plants Await You At The Boston Veg Food Fest

October 2, 2009 at 11:18 AM | by kjb | 0 Comments

Bust out your favorite organic cotton T-shirt as it’s time for the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. Things kick off on October 31 and run through November 1 at the Reggie Lewis Athletic Center in Beantown. We know that it’s hard to resist bacon for an entire day, but festival organizers have such a full lineup that you won’t even remember what a pig tastes like.

There will be plenty of exhibitors hawking their vegetarian wares and offering a ton of free samples, so you may want to skip breakfast for this one. Once you’ve discovered your new favorite ingredient, take in a presentation by professional chefs so you can learn how to prepare some new dishes. Maybe they’ll even teach you that you really do enjoy broccoli—you were just making it wrong for all those years. This is the longest running festival of its kind in the country, so you won’t be disappointed. They just want to share a love for delicious plants with you and your friends.

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Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz Explode in Bridgewater, MA

September 28, 2009 at 11:30 AM | by cmb | 0 Comments

Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz were up all night Friday, but not for a hot Hollywood party, instead they spent the night in a Bridgewater, MA field. The pair were shooting scenes for Wichita, aka "The Untitled Wichita Project", their new movie which has been filming around Boston for a few weeks. In one scene shot Friday night, just off of Curve Street, a 747 "crashed and exploded" in a a large field. Though it looked and sounded like a real crash, no planes (or humans) were actually injured in the shoot. The plane arrived to the field on Friday already in pieces and the explosion was nothing more than a little Hollywood magic.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie focuses on "a lonely woman (Diaz) whose seemingly harmless blind date suddenly turns her life upside-down when a superspy (Cruise) takes her on a violent worldwide journey to protect a powerful battery that holds the key to an infinite power source." So how does this plane crash fit into the this "worldwide journey"?

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Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz Take On Boston in 'Wichita'

September 23, 2009 at 12:19 PM | by cmb | 0 Comments

Boston is looking more like Hollywood every day. For starters, Ben Affleck is directing Jon Hamm in a movie called The Town at Fenway Park today while Kevin James is wrapping up his latest, The Zookeeper at The Franklin Park Zoo. But the biggest celebrity news in Beantown has to be that there have been sightings of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz filming the comedy/action flick Wichita in and around Boston for the past week.

Yesterday, Tom and Cameron shot scenes for Wichita at Gaslight in the up-and-coming SoWa district of Boston's South End. Gaslight is a classic neighborhood Parisian brasserie. Their specialties include Duck Confit, Steak Frites, Roasted Salmon Fillet and Rotisserie Chicken, all ranging between $15-$20. For dessert try the Chocolate Beignets, which are small pastries filled with chocolate and dusted with powered sugar, yum! Reservations are suggested and can be made online.

More Cruise/Diaz sightings, after the jump.

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Attend A Screening of 'Motherhood' With Uma Thurman This Weekend

September 15, 2009 at 1:27 PM | by cmb | 0 Comments

With megastars like George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey touting their new projects at the Toronto International Film Festival each September, the Boston Film Festival, which kicks off this week, has traditionally been overshadowed. This year marks the 25th Anniversary of BFF which has an impressive line-up of over 30 films and 22 shorts that will be screened between September 18th and 24th. Here's how you can get the most out of the festival this weekend.

What To See:
This year, BFF is honoring Uma Thurman with the Film Excellence Award. Uma's new movie, Motherhood will open the festival on Friday, Sept. 18 at the Landmark Kendall Square Theatre in Cambridge before the official awards ceremony. The independent comedy is about a New York City mom who has no idea what challenges she is about to face while planning her 6-year-old daughter's birthday party. Tickets for the Motherhood screening are still available via Landmark Theatre for a mere $9.75.

Where to stay and eat, after the jump.

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Southwest Triggers Turf War And Lower Prices By Landing In Boston

August 24, 2009 at 8:59 AM | by Omri | 0 Comments

Southwest began flying out of Boston-Logan last Sunday, a move that their CEO once declared would never ever happen. Nonetheless, we weren't particularly surprised: we flagged the expansion back in April when they announced their routes, and again a few weeks ago when AirTran gave them a "welcome to Boston" by announcing free WiFi for Boston flights.

What is much more interesting is what the move means for the LCC niche and the airline industry as a whole, two different markets that are increasingly difficult to untangle.

The Wall Street Journal just published a must-read article on the industry, taking Southwest's expansion as the centerpiece and moving on from there:

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Massachusetts' New Slogan Might As Well Be 'Home Of The Obnoxious Foodie'

August 18, 2009 at 8:56 AM | by Omri | 0 Comments

Actually the new slogan is "Massachusetts. It's all here." But that (a) sucks and (b) isn't what they actually mean. What they're really talking about is how the Bay State is the national epicenter for mind-blowingly obnoxious foodies. No joke. They sent out a press release on this:

Foodies Drawn to State of Ultimate Gastronomic Excellence... Massachusetts is a natural culinary haven that inspires, delights and encourages unique dining experiences and memories to savor on the taste buds... Travelers can dine in the finest of establishments, participate in Restaurant Weeks through our various cities, experience farm-to-table freshness from the many farmers’ markets and celebrate with authentic flavors at an Italian cheese festival in Boston’s historic North End.

This is why we encourage tourism boards to focus group their campaigns outside their home states. Because if you limit yourself just to your own residents, you end up thinking that Boston Restaurant Week is a recession-friendly culinary safari rather than a way for petulant chefs to offload lemon chicken while increasing their wine-driven profits.

So what's the newest Boston foodie fad? Perhaps Massachusetts' Tourism Board must have missed this; it's "subversive" underground cooking clubs. Seriously.

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Take That Southwest: AirTran To Offer Free WiFi From Boston in August

July 20, 2009 at 9:14 AM | by kjb | 0 Comments

For those who haven’t been taking notes, Southwest Airlines is set to take off from Logan Airport in Boston starting halfway through August. Hopefully their low cost model will help lower flight prices out of Beantown; it has already brought some freebies to flyers thanks to a little friendly competition.

AirTran knows the stakes are high, so they are offering free WiFi aboard all their flights that travel between BOS and BWI—one of Southwest’s main routes. The free in-flight WiFi will be available for the whole month of August, in hopes that travelers will choose their WiFi planes over the other guys.

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How To Be In A Movie With Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg

July 6, 2009 at 5:24 PM | by cmb | 1 Comment

Did you always want to be an extra in a movie but can’t be bothered with head shots and SAG cards? Lucky for you, Be In A Movie is looking to fill a stadium in Massachusetts for the new Christian Bale/Mark Walhberg movie, The Fighter, and frankly, they don’t care who shows up.

The movie is shooting a boxing scene for three days in Lowell, MA, just outside of Boston, on July 14th, 15th and 16th. "Be In A Movie "has teamed up with Paramount Pictures to find unpaid extras who can fill the stands for these three days. So if you're looking for something to do for your summer vacation, this might be the ticket.

To register, all you have to do is RSVP at Beinamovie.com and commit to attending the shoot on one of the scheduled days from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They will be provide free parking and raffles for CDs, DVDs and Gift Cards.

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Porter, The Little Airline That Could, Adds Boston Route

June 30, 2009 at 9:02 AM | by JetSetCD | 0 Comments

This is the story of a little airline that could; Porter Airlines has expanded service against all odds. Their original route, from Toronto City Airport to Newark, has sprouted into a full few destinations from Toronto including Montreal, Quebec City, Halifax and more. They even made the jump across the border last fall with the addition of service to Chicago-Midway.

This month brings some new meat for Porter fans to chew: they'll begin flights to Boston-Logan from Toronto three times daily on September 14.

Long a favorite airline of Monocle magazine, Porter seems to favor slow and steady expansion. We've been dying to try them out, but we're going to need a better reason to head to Toronto than "just cause" if we're paying $99+ each way without taxes and fees ($306 total).

Related Stories:
· Porter Airlines Announces Service To Boston [Porter Airlines]
· Porter Airlines Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Eric Begin]

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Reading One Heck Of a Huge Book For One 'Infinite' Summer

June 24, 2009 at 2:07 PM | by egw | 0 Comments

Pick a long enough book to take on your next trip and you'll have fodder for every pit stop and flight delay. This week marked the launch of Infinite Summer, a group reading project designed to get people to tackle one of those major doorstops of a book which might be sitting on your shelf this very moment. The choice book is David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

At 75 pages a week, infinite summer-ers [Ed note: count us among them] who start this best known novel from the late author will finish the week of September 21, fitting it thus to the solar definition of summer. Set in a dystopic future America, the book nevertheless adopts some locales from Wallace's life, from suburban Boston to Tucson, where he studied philosophy and fiction writing respectively. This great photo set points Boston visitors to the locales that inspired Wallace for the book's scenes there.

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