What movies have been made in your neck of the woods?

Cafe Society
1

The other day, I watched Brokeback Mountain. The apartment where Jack lives is above the old plumber’s shop, directly across from the Elk’s hall in the town I lived for 9 years, Fort Macleod, Alberta. I believe the whole film was made right around there, and it nearly broke my heart to watch (I haven’t been home in quite awhile), aside from the touching storyline.

Legends of the Fall was also filmed in Southern Alberta, right down the road from where I moved to Maryland from. At the time I finally got around to watching it, my immigration status to the US was such that I was not able to go home, and didn’t know when I would be able to go back. I spent a lot of time crying after that one.

The Superman movies were filmed using Calgary, Alberta as a stand-in for Metropolis. I know the man who skiied down the building, as Richard Pryor’s stand in (well, knew. Years ago.); the Smallville school stands across the street from my parents’ home in Barons, Alberta.

Karroll’s Christmas (an A&E movie played over and over around Christmas), written by our own Anamorphic and his writing partner, was filmed in Calgary, Alberta. Knowing this before watching it instead of finding out during, was quite a difference. Usually I see something familiar and think “Oh! That’s in Calgary on Eighth Avenue!” or whatever.

Everwood (a WB show) had its pilot filmed in my town of Canmore, Alberta. They shut down main street for a day, and made the hotel look like it was old and run-down, and dressed the street for their liking. I caught a glimpse of Treat Williams as I was heading to the post office, but didn’t hang around to gawk.

These are just a few off of the top of my head. Canadian locations are often used due to the (formerly) weak Canadian dollar and incentives from the government.

We now live in a close-in suburb of Baltimore. I will quite often recognize locations in tv shows which are filmed in Washington, DC, only 30 miles away. Dave recognizes everything since he’s lived here nearly his whole life, and can tell me exactly where things are in relation to where we live - very helpful when you don’t know the area well.

What’s been filmed around where you live, or where you’re from? How do you feel when you’re in my sort of situation, miles and miles away and somewhat homesick?

2

There can’t be that many in existence, but the film Birthday Girl is both set and filmed in and around St Albans, which is the town (technically a city due to the cathedral but the town label is more appropriate for the size and feel of the place) in which I have lived for about 18 years now.

I haven’t actually seen it yet, all I know is that it stars Nicole Kidman as a mail order bride and the lucky guy is a bank clerk in St Albans. I’ll definitely watch it, if only to spot familiar locales and shout out at the screen like a loon. Infact, as I type this I am adding it as a top priority title to my ScreenSelect DVD queue. I really wish I don’t have to wait for it to be delivered; I want it now!

3

Tidelands was filmed in the Qu’Appelle area. I first realised that when I saw an article in TIME about the movie and saw a picture of Terry Gilliam crouching under a bush on a grey day on the prairies, and said to myself “that’s got to be Saskatchewan.” Read the article, and yup, Qu’Appelle.

Just Friends was filmed in Regina and Moose Jaw. I know the owner of one of the houses that was used as a set - we drove by it regularly and watched the set change as they filmed it. Was also in one of the local malls the day they were shooting. Went on for a couple of days, but was only about a minute of the movie.

The highly inaccurate tv movie, Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, was filmed in Regina, at the Legislature buildings, natch. Drove by one day and saw all the old cars in the parking stalls for one of the outdoor scenes. Also saw Michael Therrien, who played Douglas, walking down the street one day.

And of course, Corner Gas (“Forty Kilometres from Nowhere and Way Beyond Normal”) is filmed in Rouleau, just south of here, and occasionally shoots in Regina. The building I work in has popped up a couple of times, and of course, Taylor Field for the Grey Cup episode.

4

I’ve heard about Prairie Giant on the CBC (yay for Sirius Satellite!) and am waiting to see it. I’ve also seen Corner Gas - yeah, there’s just NO WAY you can mistake that for anywhere else but Saskatchwan.

5

I use to live about 3 blocks away from Stadium High School in Tacoma, Washington.

Also known as “Padua High” in Ten Things I Hate About You.

It’s a beautiful school, and the only thing I miss about that neighborhood.

The majority of that movie was filmed in Tacoma, not Seattle. However, all of the extras in that movie were shipped in from Seattle. Including a friend of mine, who had a small, but credited role. :slight_smile:

6

Well, I grew up in Astoria (Queens), New York, and a LOT of movies and TV shows have been filmed within blocks of the house I grew up in. My youngest brother got authographs from some of his favorite stars just minutes from home (for example, he got Harrison Ford’s autograph while he was filming “Presumed Innocent” in Astoria).

And Robert De Niro’s “A Bronx Tale” was actually filmed in Astoria. For several months, the street signs in my old neighborhood were changed around to look like Bronx street signs in the Fifties.

As for Austin… well, I was once late for work due to the traffic jam Mike Judge created for the opening scenes of “Office Space,” which was filmed in Northwest Austin.

A large part of John Travolta’s “Michael” was filmed in and around Austin.

7

All the college scenes in The Way We Were was filmed on campus at Union College in Schenectady when I was an undergraduate there.

The Age of Innocence had Troy, NY, as a substitute for turn of the century, NYC. Albany, NY, was used as a substitute for Boston.

8

Parts of The Time Machine were also filmed in downtown Troy, while I was going to school at RPI.

A little known movie called The Wizard of Lonliness was filmed in my hometown in VT.

Parts of What Lies Beneth were filmed in Addison County (the one I live in), and parts of Me, Myself, and Irene were filmed here too (though it was representing upstate NY, not VT.)

9

Surviving the Game was filmed in and around my city, Wenatchee WA. There were crowds of kids around trying to meet Ice-T, though I was more interested in meeting Charles S. Dutton, whose work I really liked on the TV sitcom “Roc”. A handful of local guys got to be extras in the film - they actually hired local homeless men to play … homeless men.

Some scenes from the Drew Barrymore/Chris O’Donnell flick, Mad Love, were filmed here as well. There’s a pic floating around the internet that shows Drew dancing on a bar - I haven’t seen the movie but I think the pic is a still from it. It looks like Wally’s Tavern, where they shot at least one scene.

10

The Douglas show is out on DVD now. However, it’s been heavily criticised for its inaccuracy. Two big ones were: (1) putting Douglas and Mrs. Douglas on the scene at the Estevan miners’ strike - they weren’t there; and (2) the hatchet job they did on Jimmy Gardiner, the Liberal Premier. The script-writers were evidently of the limited imaginative viewpoint that “we’re doing a drama, and we’ve got a hero, so that means there must be a villain.” Politics can be exciting to watch, but painting it solely as heros and villains is a disservice to the population.

11

Parts of Edward Scissorhands, Full Moon Junction and For Love of the Game were filmed in my town, Lakeland, FL.

12

Remember the Titans is the story of an Alexandria, VA high school a few blocks from my home. Except for some exterior shots, none of it was shot here.

I used to live in DC, near the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. At least three movies–A Few Good Men, In the Line fo Fire and Enemy of the State–were at least partially shot there. So was a Bruce Hornsby video, “Higher Love.”

13

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that both Major Leaque and Sudden Death filmed parts of their movies in Harrisburg PA.

14

Spiderman III just recently finished filming some street scenes here in downtown Cleveland. Welcome to Collinwood was set here and filmed here. A Christmas Story was filmed here.

15

Twenty minutes ago I was on the sidewalk near where Forrest Gump got stuck in the storm drain as a child.

16

The scene at the end of Dirty Harry, where Clint Eastwood is standing on top of a train tressle so he can jump on top of a school bus that a psychopath has hijacked, was filmed about half a mile down the road from my house in Corte Madera. The tressle itself, and the quarry where they fight are technically in Larkspur, though. Unfortunetly, they had to tear down the tressle about a year or two ago so they could widen the freeway underneath it. Kind of a shame, it was one of the oldest structures in the town.

17

I live in Brooklyn now, and too many films have been made in the NYC area to be worth mentioning (although the big free concert in Dave Chapelle’s Block Party occurred not far from where I live. I remember hearing about it when it happened, but wasn’t fully aware of the scope of the thing. Oh well.)

However, I grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska which Hollywood had pretty much ignored with a few exceptions. Most notably, Terms of Endearment was filmed there around 1984. The younger brother of one of my best friends in high school played Debra Winger’s elder son, the one who gets smacked (hard) by Shirley MacLaine. The University of Nebraska - Lincoln (where I went to school a few years later) stood in for Kearney state, or wherever Jeff Daniels was supposed to be working.

Debra Winger went on to famously date our then-governor Bob Kerrey for a while. They were apparently quite serious, but then she married Timothy Hutton.

Several years later, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar was filmed near there, I think a few scenes might have been filmed in Lincoln proper.

Alexander Payne filmed Election and About Schmidt in and around Omaha, where Payne is from. I competed in several high school speech tournaments at the high school where Election was shot (Creighton Prep), and where star Chris Klein was discovered.

18

Idaho isn’t exactly a choice location for movies, so the closest to come to my area recently was Napoleon Dynamite. It was filmed in the town of Preston, near the southeast corner of the state just a few miles from the Utah border, on the opposite side of the state from where I live.

The only other movies I know of that were filmed around here are Bronco Billy (1980), and Pale Rider (1985). There was also a short scene in Ghost Dad (1990), where the car falls over the side of the bridge.

19

Various bits of the **Matrix ** films and **Superman ** were filmed in Sydney CBD streets, completely fouling up the buses for regular commuters like me. Some bits of the **Star Wars ** films were also made at Fox Studios here.

20

Two episodes of SeaQuest:DSV were filmed on the Florida Southern College campus in Lakeland. One was filmed the summer in between my Junior and Senior year (I graduated on 95), the other was filmed Fall semester of my Senior year–that really messed up some class schedules.