The chase scene around Las Vegas in the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever makes no sense at all. They switch between The Strip and Downtown. and downtown at the time wasn’t all that big, so they keep going back through it from different angles.
On the Bridge to Nowhere?
That was hilarious to anyone from the area, because that bridge had sat there half-finished forever. Friend of mine said “Finally! That bridge was good for something!”
(I still hear people giving directions like: Take the Bridge to Nowhere, but stay in the right lane for the first exit…")
Hah. I was going to say that nitpicking about the roads in a scene that included the Blues Brothers’ car doing an aerial back flip and the Nazis jumping a bridge and somehow ending up falling from at least the height of the John Hancock Center to the ground below was perhaps a bit trivial.
Another one: Ray’s Music Exchange is supposed to be set in Calumet City. There is clearly an El stop and substructure in the background of the outdoor dancing shots. El service does not go to Calumet City. (The scene was filmed on 47th Street in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicgao.)
AND twisting around off-camera to be facing the other way when sailing over the Nazis.
The Netflix series Messiah, many important scenes are set in and around south Texas. One location is the town of Dilley, which is a real town southwest of San Antonio. The show depicts Dilley as a tiny village with a church and a few houses. In reality, Dilley is not a huge metropolis, but is much larger than shown. Dilley is located on Interstate 35, a huge superhighway that stretches from Laredo, Texas, to Duluth, Minnesota. As its number indicates, 35 runs north/south. However, as the characters leave Dilley, they pass a sign indicating East Interstate 35. No. Also, 35 is shown as a two-lane country highway. It is anything but. It is one of the busiest freeways in the world.
Before the exodus from Dilley, a character arrives at San Antonio International Airport. I have been in and through SAT many times. The airport they used for the exterior shot looked much more typical of a Southern California terminal than SAT. The real SAT is not designed in a Spanish colonial architectural style. The arriving character then takes a taxi to Dilley. Dilley is far enough from SAT that it would almost be cheaper to buy a used car than take a cab.
Then there’s 9-1-1 Lone Star. There is not one bit of that show that reflects the actual geography, culture, architecture, or much of anything else related to Austin. Austin is a large government/college city with a very strong high-tech manufacturing presence. There aren’t really any large refineries around. (Interestingly, the University of Texas has a tokamak reactor just a few blocks from the State Capitol. That could make an interesting fire/rescue episode.)
Since someone posted a Wayne’s World image on their timeline today, I am reminded that the geography, especially of the Bohemian Rhapsody scene, is completely nonsensical. There’s a part when the headbanging part starts where they’re driving eastbound on 63rd Street, then the next second they’re driving westbound by an Italian beef stand on Cermak, near Cicero, and then they’re near Irving and Western way up north by Chicago Joe’s (which, sadly, is closing soon.)
It’s all inside baseball, and nobody really cares about the geography making sense, especially in a comedy, but as a Chicagoan playing along while watching the movie, it’s hard not to notice.
Someone brought up Harold and Kumar go to White Castle earlier. The writers were Jersey guys and threw in a bunch of local references then didn’t bother with any accuracy. They first try to go to a White Castle in New Brunswick to find its permanently closed. There has never been a White Castle in New Brunswick. Instead of going to the one a few miles away in South Plainfield or the one in Green Brook they decide to go to the one in Cherry Hill which is 60 miles away (and doesn’t exist). There is a White Castle about 15 minutes away from where the movie started. Then when they get to Cherry Hill there is a big plot point involving a cliff. Despite its name Cherry Hill is pretty flat and there are no cliffs. The movie was filmed in Canada.
I was stationed at Guantanamo Bay for a year. I haven’t seen any show or movie that gets it right. “You need me on that wall…” doesn’t have the same punch when you know that there is no wall. There is a chain link fence with observation towers every so often. Most times they also ignore the fact that there is a big freaking bay that cuts the base in half. It’s also shown as being very green when that part of the island is basically a desert. At the golf course you have to carry a square of artificial grass so you don’t ruin the clubs in the dirt. Tom Cruise lands at an airport that is filled with fighter planes. There are no fighter planes. The Navy portion is a sleepy little ship refueling station. Bad Boys 2 with its giant metal wall looking like a medieval fortress was the most ridiculous. Now that I think about it these aren’t “subtle inaccuracies.”
I knew a fellow who’d been stationed at Gitmo decades ago and he mentioned taking an LCVP across the bay to get from one side to the other.
Considering they just decided to have a fucking ACTIVE VOLCANO show up in Austin, scare some scorpions then suddenly disappear again a week later I think the geographical anomalies are the least of the issues with that show. I honestly thought it couldn’t get an dumber than the original 9-1-1 but I stand corrected. These two shows are my current favorite hatewatch.
Any piece of media that refers to ‘living on the Oklahoma rez’
George Pal’s movie The Time Machine has a volcano erupt in downtown London.
Really.
Nuclear weapons in the Sixties could do stuff like that…at least in the movies.
I liked at the end of Harold and Kumar GTWC when they hang-glided off of a hundreds of feet high escarpment, if I remember correctly, in central Jersey somewhere. I was like “What?” I grew up in NJ and have a soft spot for NJ movies (the Clerks movies, Garden State, H & K, etc.) and how they depict these weird little tucked away places but that was a new one.
I was always amused at the sidewalks and storefronts in the exterior scenes in Seinfeld. They screamed Hollywood backlot.
Oops, just saw Loach’s post. Anyway…
Although they did, interestingly, in Breakfast At Tiffany’s - Paul and Holly gave their request to the desk clerk, were notified when the book had been retrieved from the stacks, and gave it back before they left.
Sixty years ago we knew it was dumb and yet it’s still happening today. 9-1-1 is exceptionally egregious with the huge disasters that, weirdly enough, seem to have zero ongoing effect on the cities they happen in. Huge tsunami hits the beach and floods Venice ONOZ! Two weeks later, in the same neighborhood and it’s completely fine with no rebuilding or cleanup needed. A dam breaks and floods out all kinds of people and the earthquake that caused it made massive landslides and fucked over the Hollywood sign ONOZ! I bet you there will be a shot with that perfectly intact sign and no indication of the massive landslides before the season ends. Hell, they’ll probably have somebody almost drown after waterskiing on that same reservoir with its instantly restored dam. This show is the perfect hatewatch. 
The Day After Tomorrow has all sorts of egregious geographical errors about New York City. Offhand, there’s the fact that Long Island is missing when the tsunami hits New York Bay (NYC is not directly on the Atlantic as portrayed). The wave going straight up Fifth Avenue (which means it had to originate from inland New Jersey. And, most egregious of all, the super cold air coming from the north, but hitting the Empire State Building before the NYPL (15 blocks north of it).
In the Honeymooners episode “TV or Not TV”, Ed pronounces “coin” as “kern”.
My grandmother who came over from Italy as a baby and lived her whole life on Staten Island would say berl, erl and terlet for boil, oil and toilet. She also said my brother went to Rutchers instead of Rutgers.