Pajiba

"Gang War: Bangin' In Little Rock"

...

Yep.

Ha Brian! People had the exact same reaction at the theater when I saw The Sixth Sense :)

I know Shyamalan is from the Main Line area of Philly, but his portrayal of Bucks County in Signs made me laugh. There's a lot of farmland in the area, but I grew up 5 minutes from Newtown where it was filmed and Cherry Jones' small town sheriff was a little too Gomer Pyle for me.

In Her Shoes, both the movie and the book set the tone of Philly rather well. When she got married at the Jamaican Jerk Hut I could almost taste the burning deliciousness of their chicken.

National Treasure made me laugh my ass off, because it took Nic Cage about 2 minutes to run from Independence Hall to Reading Terminal Market.

And I hate to admit it, but It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia gets some of the crazy loyal Philly pride thing right. Out of anything, that's the show that every five seconds I'm yelling about a location. "Mac and Dennis are sitting in a cardboard box across the street from the Old Nelson where I get my sandwiches, wheee!"

Being a North Jersey guy the opening of the Sopranos was always so much fun to watch, It showcased so many landmarks I have driven passed or by. As for a Movie that screwed the pooch I always site 'Harold and Kumar go to White Castle'. They Lived in Hoboken yet drove to south jersey (Cherry Hill)to get to a White Castle, when in truth the nearest White castle is in Jersey City a 10 minute Drive. To go all the way to cherry Hill is just plain stupid on truck 1&9 you pass no less than 4 or 5 White Castles.

My hometown has been briefly mentioned in a couple sappy movies about the Little League World Series, but that is pretty much it. Probably best that way, really.

I'm from Grand Prairie, Texas. As far as I know, thats never shown up in any movie. So I guess I claim Dallas? But fuck that, I hate Dallas. And I'm just as close to Fort Worth, which is fairly awesome. If Austin the jobless, smelly but incredibly knowledgeable and world travelling hippy of the family, Fort Worth is his slightly more responsible, job holding brother.

Yea. I'll go with Fort Worth.

A quick jaunt to the Googlez and HELL YEA! FORT WORTH IS A MOVIE! ABOUT A GUN FIGHTIN NEWSPAPER MAN!

I'll take that.

Also, Walker Texas Ranger. Chyea boi!

I know that Chris Nolan's Gotham City isn't supposed to actually be Chicago, but everytime I watch The Dark Knight I can't help getting excited for recognizing the location of nearly every scene. Bonus? I was on my way home one night during the summer they filmed it and stumbled onto a street they had closed off. At the far end were two dudes who were either stunt doubles or Christian Bale and Heath Ledger chilling in their full-on costumes.

I'm from New Jersey, the state currently being shit all over in the media by reality programming. Few things are a crappier representation of my state and hometown than Jersey Shore. I have friends with shore houses, I went to Ocean City instead of Seaside for prom weekend. NONE OF US IS LIKE THAT. It infuriates me the most that none of those people is actually from here. I am super proud to be a Jersey girl, and I am mostly certainly NOT a guidette. ::shudders::

Unrelated note, the title sequence of Ed and some of its scenes are filmed in the town next to mine.

London.

Every fucking Guy Ritchie and Guy Ritchie-esque disgrace that makes London look like it's a piss-soaked cockney paradise can fuck right off.

As can the opposite end of that spectrum where London is soley inhabited by whatever the new version of Hugh Grant is and everyone shoves scones down their gawping posh faces.

Oh wait, also Prague, but that doesn't count because it seems to be used as a substitute for any city that's used as a brief stop-over on our plucky hero's jaunt through mainland Europe.

So I guess that is something to be proud of: Prague; a whore of a city that can be anything you want it to be, sailor.

The Outsiders

I grew up in Tulsa just after the time in the book and I have no recollection of any similarity to the Tulsa I knew. Of course, I went to Catholic school. And left Tulsa when I was 12. Oh, nevermind.

Oh, and worst representation of my city would be Wicker Park. That was a terrible movie in general, but why name your movie after a highly specific place if you're going to film it in another country? And then make it a really shitty movie on top of that?

Pittsburgh has a pretty active film bureau so it shows up in movies a lot. There were some views of the city in "Unstoppable" and "The Next Three Days," and there are a bunch of others like "Groundhog Day" and "Adventureland" where area scenery is at least tangential to the movie. It's always cool to be able to locate yourself in the movie ("Hey! I've been there! I know where that is!"). What's the word, verisimilitude, is that right?

Michael Chabon set his early novels in Pittsburgh, so while I'm not a big fan of "Mysteries of Pittsburgh," at least I know exactly where he's talking about and can better visualize characters in plots in those settings.

The best example of a well and poorly illustrated San Antonio is Cloak and Dagger. While much of the movie was filmed on location throughout the city there were a number of scenes which were obviously filmed in a studio somewhere.

The best portrayals of home:

1. Henry Thomas's first encounter with the villain Rice - clearly filmed in the Sunken Gardens, the setting can't be mistaken.

2. Much of the movie seemed to be an advertisement for the VIA! Metropolitan Transit system. The kids get around cleverly with their VIA! bus passes on what are definitely early 1980s VIA! vehicles. The appearance of the buses evokes two very strong memories for me:

At the time this film was released the local advertising campaign for our bus system used a group of foam puppets (buses, of course) who sang a song to remind us to take the bus... "It's so easy... when you take the bus! VIA VIA!"

The second memory is far more irritating. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Burson. She and her husband were riding a VIA! bus home from the zoo on the day they filmed the aforementioned scene at the Sunken Gardens. She frequently reminded us that she was in the movie - "Look for me in the back of the bus!" No, Mrs. Burson, I don't think I will. You were easily one of the most disgusting human beings I have ever encountered in my life. Why? I shall tell you, fellow Pajibas: she picked her nose in front of class and insisted on touching us and our belongings when she stopped at our desks to 'help' and, no, she didn't leave regularly to wash her hands; I have no idea if she actually consumed alcohol during the day to induce sickness, but she also frequently vomitted over by the steps into our portable while she unlocked the door after lunch. I get the willies every time I recall that woman. *shudder*

3. The final showdown between Henry Thomas, Dabney Coleman and Rice was definitely filmed at the Riverwalk. Again, completely unmistakeable.

What was bad:

1. The mall the children visited where they found out their game cartridge was loaded with SR-71 blueprints was no San Antonio mall from the early 1980s.

2. The airport was definitely not our dinky little one terminal (well, one terminal at the time, now we have TWO!) facility. The colors were all wrong, as was the layout. That was truly laughable, even to my young eyes (my mother was travelling regularly for work, at the time, back in the olden days when one was allowed to wait at the gate for arrivals!).

******************

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Pee Wee's Big Adventure. The scene where Pee Wee runs up to famous facade of the chapel - DEFINITELY filmed on location. And apparently shot shortly before the patch of grass immediately in front of the chapel's doors was roped off to prevent people from walking on it. I don't recall, precisely, when those chains were put up, but I know it was before the film was actually released because all my friends and I scoffed at him running on that grass.

The INTERIOR of the Alamo, however, when he is famously told "There's no basement in the Alamo," was entirely hokey. The display she narrates about natives making tortillas doesn't exist in the Alamo and tours were not conducted in such a manner during the early 1980s. Tours are, in fact, rather uncommon as the primary attraction of the mission, the chapel, is considered a place of reverence and worship. Docents, staff and visitors are encouraged to whisper and speak as little as possible. The outer walls and barracks consist primarily of static displays and signs to serve the purpose of informing visitors of what they're seeing.

Oh, I remember being kind of pissed about the movie version of "Christine" being moved out of Penn Hills (a Pittsburgh suburb) and into iirc some generic SoCal location, when King wrote the novel with a very Pittsburgh orientation (though he got the geography all kinds of wrong).

Michaelceratops - I didn't grow up in San Diego, but I got quite a thrill out of seeing the San Diego Convention Center (I'm a Comic Con nerd) in the background during the scene when Hank's ex wife and her fiance held their engagement party.

There was an episode of the X-Files set around Helena, MT (about 90 minutes away), but they shot it in Vancouver.

A River Runs Through It was supposed to be around Missoula (where I lived for a couple years), but they shot parts of it in Colorado.

However, The Slaughter Rule was shot here in Great Falls MT, but I don't know if they ever specified what town they were in? They did okay in representing the area though.

Same with Northfolk in representing the bizarre weather changes out in the fields in Cascade County. That was an interesting movie.

THEN there was a movie called Holy Matrimony. Patricia Arquette and a Hutterite boy. Yeahhhh.... not so much a good movie.

I grew up around Washington D.C. and at the time, films coming to the area were a very special occasion. Mostly for the notoriety of spotting our area onscreen, but also for celebrity spotting -- which is definitely not the same as spotting politicians on the street.

The good: A car chase for The Pelican Brief was filmed in a parking garage right next to the building where my mom got her hair done. She also learned, from an employee at the salon who was looking for an autograph, that Julia Roberts is a bitch and Denzel Washington is (was, at the time) a nice guy.

The bad: Along Came a Spider, which was pretty decent until Morgan Freeman decided to chase a baddie into the D.C. Metro, and suddenly ended up in a subway station that was well-lit, metallic, and looked nothing like the vast, high ceiling-d caverns that make up underground D.C. Metro stations.

The dead-on: Not technically a movie, but there is a song by R.E.M. that is actually about my hometown of Rockville. It's called "Don't Go Back to Rockville", and the chorus drives the point home for me:

Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
Don't go back to Rockville
and waste another year

And I'm sure as hell glad that I didn't.

I'm from Minneapolis, so...Fargo? That's the only one that comes to mind right now. Did they drive to Minneapolis in Tommy Boy? There has to be more than that, I feel ashamed.

Wilmington, DE.

Fight Club ...nuff said.

annoyingmouse: Drop Dead Gorgeous and Mighty Ducks were both filmed in Minnesota, Mighty Ducks had that skating scene through the Mall of America and DDG was partially filmed in a school nearby where I grew up. Not sure if any of them filmed in Minneapolis but they are a little closer than Fargo.

No one wants to write about or film anything that takes place in salt lake city unless it's about the mormons which isn't something I'm interested in.

michaelceratops: Hodads is truly amazing! I ate there once over a year ago, and I still fantasize about the onion rings.

DeistBrawler

Texas always gets fucked. TV Shows (I'm thinking of the first episode of "Heroes" when we see the cheerleader) and movies always fuck it up.

In Needful Things, the Devil proclaims to be from Akron, OH. Though he can't pronounce it correctly. Fucking kraut.

There's this misconception that the entire state of Texas is a desert.

It's not. In fact, there are many varities of geography in the state.

The eastern part is where the great piney forests of the southeastern United States end. Davy Crocket National Forest (among others) is in east Texas and it is a sight to behold.

We have coastal plains down south, from Houston to beautiful South Padre.

The hill country in central Texas is so gorgeous, I can't even put it into words. Lovely area. It's the transition to the high plains/high desert of the west. So yeah, we DO have desert. But it's WAY out there. The panhandle is high plain. West Texas is desert.

But Dallas? I saved that area for last, because I HATE HATE HATE when some TV show or movie is supposedly set in Dallas/Ft. Worth and all you see is yellow sand and tumbleweed. REALLY? Obviously the camera crew never came here. You can't find that shit in Dallas. It's the southernmost part of the Great Plains! There's nothing desert about it. It's fairly flat (except for some lovely rocky areas in south east Dallas and Cedar Hill and other areas), and if it weren't covered with buildings, strip malls, housing subdivisions, and roads, roads, and more roads, it would look like a beautiful prairie. (Almost all the prairie is gone except for parts being saved, thank goodness.)

So it's the geography factor that gets to me. In the X-Files movie, they show the kids who discovered something sinister underground and the caption reads "Dallas, Texas." There's NO grass to be seen. Everything is just yellow sand as far as the eye can see. And you can see houses with chain link fences distinguishing their little part of the SAND.

I saw that and wanted to yell "THAT'S MIDLAND/ODESSA, YOU FUCKSTICKS!" It looked NOTHING like Dallas. Not even anything a hundred miles radius from here.

I mean, how insulting. They couldn't even ASK someone? Do some BASIC research?

Also, people don't ride around on horses in Dallas, unless you're a mounted police officer downtown/West End, and there aren't even very many of those. Also, you have to go really far out to find oil wells bobbing up and down. I quite literally never see those. I'd have to get on I-20 and head west PAST Ft. Worth and quite near Abilene before I spotted one. (Gas wells are another deal altogether, but those aren't pretty or poetic and are surrounded by big temporary walls, so you can't see them anyway, really.)

Basically I wish filmmakers would bother to realize Dallas/Ft. Worth is a big urban area with something like 6.5 million people. The suburbs also are massive (sprawl). Dallas now has first ring suburbs, second ring suburbs, outer ring suburbs. You're-Crazy-To-Commute-From-There-Every-Day Exurbs. The congested traffic that goes with all of that. It's not farmland, either-another depiction I see a lot. Hasn't been in a very very long time.

Gah.

SCG
You see? You SEE??? I knew there was something to it!

We once made the channel 3 news when a horse trailer turned over on the highway and the hay in the horse trailer turned out to be MARIJUANA!

No shit. Bales of dope.

Hey Brian, which college? JMU, EMU, or Bridgewater? Mary Baldwin?

Shenandoah Valley representin'!

By the way, Staunton, VA had roles in Gods and Generals, Hearts in Atlantis , and Assault at West Point: The Court-Martial of Johnson Whittaker.

It's a pretty little town. Lame, but pretty.

Only one film comes to mind about anyone from my hometown, and I'm not sure, but I don't think much of it was actually filmed there; Gary Busey in the days when he was still slightly coherent. Buddy Holly didn't get to be really famous until he left Lubbock, and he met his wife in New York. I guess it was a pleasant, if less-than-accurate portrayal of how people treated Maria Elena, a Puerto Rican, when she showed up in the cracker heaven that was Lubbock, Texas, in 1958. After that, Buddy left town more or less for good (as most talented people with sense do -- thanks Ms. Maines!).

Lubbock, like Midland/Odessa, is squarely in the part of Texas that is full of pump jacks bobbing up and down, and if such a thing could be captured in film, smells like burning natural gas from the fields mixed with methane from the feed lots, all blowing from east to west. I think I was in my twenties before I ever inhaled air that smelled like air.

In terms of movies that "get Texas right," Don Johnson/Virginia Madsen, sorta kinda, in The Hot Spot, which they shot on location in Taylor, Texas, a bit to the northeast of Austin down here in the Hill Country. Looks just like Taylor, only Madsen's accent was a bit extreme, at least to my ears. With "Walker: Texas Ranger," we can say that at least the casting director was using actual Texas talent while the show was still shooting in Texas (Toni Cobb is from Lubbock and got knocked up in Dallas, and kept putting her agency clients up for work where she was casting associate).

I'm from New York City, and there have been so many references to my hometown that it's hard to figure out what to single out. However, The Real World makes me cry acid tears of disgust.

I'll also point out that for all the shitty projects NYC's had to answer to (Cloverfield, what the fuck?) we also have The Godfather.

Being from the suburbs north of Chicago (known as the North Shore), and now living in Southern California, I always tell people I'm from the town that Home Alone was filmed in.

Also, Cameron's house in Ferris Bueller brings back memories, as do scenes in Ocean's Twelve.

And finally, the upcoming Contagion was filming on my block.

Linny: "The best book for that sweet little town [Des Moines] would have to be "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson, about his childhood there in the 60's."

Personally, living in Waveland & Windsor Heights a decade later, I thought Peter Hedges' An Ocean in Iowa was pretty accurate. Maybe not complimentary, but accurate.

I also was an undergrad at Iowa State University in the early 90's (and now work there) - I found Jane Smiley's Moo pretty deadpan accurate of ISU's culture, even though it's (supposedly) fictionalized.

For my hometown the nearest thing I can come up with is Corner Gas. But One Week has some beautiful shots of the prairies. And then there's Tideland. Yeesh.

My favourite Alberta reference in a movie is in Your Friend The Rat (the short that comes with Ratatouille). Our impressive government rat control program of having goalie Mounties fighting giant rats shooting fireballs out of their eyes continues to work to this day.

@Snuggiepants:

I feel your pain about the whole faux-geography of Texas that permeates a lot of movies and television shows. And I had to physically restrain myself to keep from yelling at the movie screen when that shot in the X-Files movie came on!

Another movie that gets a Texas town is right for the most part is Grindhouse: Death Proof set in Austin. Everyone who's ever lived there or visited there knows about Guero's or the Texas Chili Parlor. Although I didn't like that they shifted the Chili Parlor out into the woods for their version of it. But for the most part the film really had the "feel" of Austin.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles got New York down pretty well.

Red Dawn re-make
Posted by: Forbiddendonut at January 11, 2011 12:54 PM

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I knew it was inevitable but fuck! Really?

Pissboy - How about Dead Poets Society? Never identified as DE, but filmed at St. Andrews and in my neighborhood.

I'm from St. Louis, so let's see...

There's National Lampoon's Vacation. That's a pretty big no.

And then there was a SyFy Original called The Black Hole. At least it used some actual shots of the city, and was partially filmed here. And then the black hole destroyed part of the city while Judd Nelson and Kristy Swanson fought some sort of energy creature that traveled using power lines.

I'd say that's also a no.

Oh, and for Houston, Urban Cowboy of course. I have a friend who grew up in one of the Houston suburbs and that movie does remind her of some of her childhood in the early '80s.

Watching just about any movie creeps me out/gives me a sense of utmost familiarity (depending on whether it's a disaster flick or ...etc).

Vancouver = Everytown.

I'm from Prince Edward Island, so clearly I must pick Anne of Green Gables (the first one - the other movies are abominations). It certainly captures the Island's beauty - well the parts that were filmed in PEI, of course. Most of it was filmed in Ontario. There is one scene, though, where Diana and Anne are pledging to be BFFs or something and they are standing on top of a dune....Oh I love that part! Makes my heart ache when I'm away from home.

One time my hometown the answer to a Final Jeopardy question and a joke on "How I Met Your Mother". Winnipeg, Manitoba is basically famous now.

lubeg Uh oh. Don't go to Dallas. Older people here still tend to say San Antone.

My new hometown is Portland, OR, I won't acknowledge Salem anymore.

Various movies have been filmed here, and the new show Portlandia (Where young people go to retire)is sure to make an appropriate mockery of this town. But the most fun movie-in-Portland experience I have had was watching "What the (Bleep) do we Know?", an existential docu-movie starring Marlee Matiln at the historic Hollywood Theater, in which scenes for that same movie were filmed. EVERYONE walking out of the theater paused to look at the specific spot that Matlin shot a particular scene. I was just there Saturday, probably for the first time since I saw that movie 7 years or so ago, and I STILL think about it.

idiosynchronic, did you see the trailer for "Cedar Rapids"? I guess they filmed that one in Michigan, but there you go. The upcoming movie "Butter" might have some Iowa goodness in it too, because it ought to have scenes from the Iowa State Fair.

I remember being in a movie theatre many years ago and seeing the trailer for Camilla, which prominently displayed the CN Tower. I think that might have been the first movie I ever noticed where the characters are actually supposed to be in Toronto (rather than it just being where the movie is filmed).

There are lots of movies filmed here but don't take place here - maybe my favourite of those is Urban Legend. It was a terrible film, but was filmed at U of T. I saw it at an advance screening there and the audience applauded every time a familiar building was shown.

But the best movie set in Toronto that I've seen so far is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World because Toronto is allowed to be Toronto... and it's not all about the CN tower (even though it appears in a good joke) and the downtown core. I love that they actually go to the Wychwood Library.

Houston in the Movies/TV:

The TV show "Houston Knights" has a segment where the heroes travel from Houston to Galveston and pass some bee-yoo-tiful mountains that don't exist.

Stand-in for Detroit in "RoboCop 2". Nice shot of the Wortham Center getting all smashed up.

Horrible depiction in "Reality Bites". Nobody, not even douche-bag hipsters, hangs out on the rooftops. The pollution alone would kill them, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Cool shot in "My Best Friend is a Vampire" from the Pierce Elevated (I-45) through downtown when the characters are on the way to school. Not that anyone would take that route to school.

The ultra-rich River Oaks neighborhood is in "Terms of Endearment", though I doubt any retired astronauts live there.

During filming for "The Chase", there were about a dozen badly painted "police" cars parked in the lot of the shopping center at TX290 & Jones, since the highway scenes were shot on the Sam Houston Tollroad nearby. The border crossing scene is actually one of the tollbooth plazas near the I-10 ramp.

"Urban Cowboy" did get the whole Gilley's thing right, though noone calls the city "Houston proper".

Anyone ever see the movie Mickey? Came out in 2004, stars Harry Connick, Jr.? Written by John Grisham? Anyone? Bueller?

Sigh. Well, that is the one movie that was shot on location in my hometown of South Williamsport, PA, aka the home of the Little League World Championship for two weeks every August. It does a pretty good job of capturing what it's like here during the Championship each year. Swarms of tourists and media. For us locals, that's the two weeks of the year that we completely avoid that area of town, as well as all restaurants and hotels. We're not a big town to begin with, so when you cram thousands of players, spectators, sports announcers, writers, and their crews into that stadium and the surrounding area... well, like I said, everyone who lives here pretty much stays home for two weeks and *shudders* hangs out with their families.

I just scanned the comments - Siege, are you from Williamsport or nearby?

I am from the suburbs of Detroit, and I can say that while 8 Mile didn't make the "D" look all that pleasant, Eminem did an awesome acting job, and so I was proud of him.

Sadly- and I am a huge hypocrite given my yet to be published book is a Suburban Detroit bashing tale of why and how I left- there isn't much media that treats Detroit well. Even Michael Moore shits on her suburbs.

What I can unequivocally and un-hypocritically say is the place is abyssmal but the people are the best, and the "D" grows some of the toughest, practical, good, generous kind salt of the earth people you'll ever meet.

My hometown is only famous for being where Michael Vick is from. No movies.

I grew up in Washington DC, and though I have the occasional moment of going, "hey that's the place where the thing from that movie happened" it doesn't happen often. Most movies shot in DC revolve around politics. This really annoys me as there are a lot of people in DC not connected to politics and most politicians don't live within DC but live in Maryland or Virginia. Anyhow, Enemy of the State had a great scene were Jason Lee got hit by a car in the Dupont Circle under pass. It is my favorite hey... place.

Chuck Norris shot a film in my hometown of Parkdale, OR, in 1995 called Forest Warrior, in which he shape-shifts between mean, bear, and bald eagle, all the while kicking ham fisted bad guy actors in the chest with his cowboy-booted feet. Beyond that, I have no idea what it's about. I can't remember ever making it through the film while retaining any of the rest of the plot.

I auditioned to be a bike riding stunt double for the film, and I remember being bitter as fuck when I lost the audition to some rich kid with a BMX bike. In the end, I'm glad I didn't make it- the film was a joke (surprised?). It made our town look like was filled with dipshit, drunk rednecks that clearcut all the trees off the hills (I'll have you know, dipshit drunk clear-cutting rednecks only make up 65% of the population).

Brilliant idea! Could someone at Pajiba review Forest Warrior? Because that would be awesome. I might finally know what the film is about.

Of course, I mean Aberdeen, Scotland, UK.

Alias was ridiculous as it showcased several European cities I've lived in. They would pan over quaint cobblestoned streets, tilt up to scenic cathedrals and opera houses - and inevitably cut to undeniably North American traffic lights.
My favorite though is the James Bond movie in which 007 and his blonde paramour sled down THE ALPS in a cello case across the Iron Curtain and into Vienna. Ain't nothing east of Vienna but vast sweeping plains and one of Europe's biggest shallow inland lakes.
Also, Sound of Music wrought havoc with Salzburg and parts of Bavaria, much to the chagrin of American tourists looking for easy access photo opps.

The interwebs ate my comment. Le sigh.

Oh, I forgot, though it really doesn't count, but dammit, I want something cool so the Steven Segal thing isn't the only thing said about my homeplace. Timothy Olyphant's show Justified, while filmed in Pennsylvania, is set in Harlan County, right over the mountain from me. Used to be a righteous violent place too, back in the day. Also, Harlan County U.S.A., about the coal mining strikes during the 70's, was in Harlan County. So I guess what I'm saying is lock your doors if you ever happen to be driving through there.