Ever watch a movie then find out it was filmed near you? (1 Viewer)

[Jesse Skeen]

A while back I picked up the 1978 drive-in B-flick "Gas Pump Girls" on laserdisc and finally watched it last night and enjoyed it a lot. Most of the movie is filmed at an intersection and a street sign saying "Marysville Blvd" is visible several times. Though nothing in the movie looked familiar, I noted that there is a street with that name in Sacramento. At the very end of the film, it said "Special thanks to the city and residents of Sacramento, California for their assistance in the making of this film."
I went back through the movie still-framing a lot of parts and caught the name of the intersecting street (Arcade Blvd) so today I drove out there to see the location for myself. The plot of the movie concerns these girls running an old run-down gas station across the street from a big new station, and in the ultimate of ironies the old building is STILL there, now a California Recycling Center, but the big gas station across the street was torn down and paved over. There were 2 old guys there who said they'd heard there was a movie filmed there but they'd never seen it, so I told them I'd bring them a tape copy of it sometime since you can't buy it anymore.
One of the best scenes in the movie is a couple disco dancing in front of the old gas station while a crowd of people watch and clap along.

 

[Dan Brecher]

Well, a heck of a lot of stuff is filmed around the countryside where I reside, but of recent note, it wasn't until viewing the stills gallery on the Phantom Menace DVD that I discovred the gungan woods of Naboo is in fact the woodland where I frequently walk my dogs.
Dan

 

[ThomasC]

Well, not really, but...
Back in '99 or 2000, I heard on the local news that there was going to a film crew in town for a movie called Traffic. Little did I know that it would become one of my favorite movies.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Actually, I'm still trying to figure out how they filmed Harvard Man without my stumbling over the crew.
Or any movie with shots of Harvard, lately. I could immediately tell in A Beautiful Mind, for instance, that they shot Harvard on location but not MIT (perhaps the least photogenic major university on earth).

 

[Bill McA]

Actually, I'm still trying to figure out how they filmed Harvard Man without my stumbling over the crew.

That's because the majority of the film was filmed in Toronto, Canada!
Film shoots in my city include:
X-Men
Hearts of Fire
Exit Wounds
The Big Hit
The Third Miracle
John Q
Rated X
The Long Kiss Goodnight
Canadian Bacon
The Cutting Edge
Avenging Angelo
Glitter
Death to Smoochy
Driven
The Adjuster
Finding Forrester
Detroit Rock City
Movies not yet released:
Against the Ropes - Meg Ryan boxing flick
Wrong Turn - a horror movie that spent several weeks filming in my Dad's place of work, with Eliza Dushku & Emmanuelle Chriqui
Crime Spree - with Harvey Keitel & Gerard Depardieu
How to Deal - with Mandy Moore & Allison Janney
The Limit - with Lauren Bacall & Claire Forlani
The Wedding Party - with Michael Douglas, Burt Reynolds, Robin Tunney & Ryan Reynolds

 

[RobertW]

return of the secaucus seven, john sayles first film, i think. filmed entirely on location in my town. nypd blues' gordon clapp's first film role.

don't know if he was in that one, but david strathairn started out doing a lot of summer stock in this area.

 

[Francois Caron]

I live in a building which is currently used for transition shots in a French Canadian TV show. However, I rarely ever watch the show anymore.

 

[Jason Whyte]

You can't do this in Victoria, because the local newspaper shouts about ANY film production (be it X-Men 2 or a Knowledge Network documentary) coming remotely near Victoria, and is repeated again and again when the film is released.
An interesting story though: The final shot of Five Easy Pieces where Jack Nicholson drives away with the man in the truck, is a piece of the Trans Canada Highway right between Duncan and Chemainus, BC, where I drive by every time I travel to visit my parents just north of Nanaimo. There's no way I CAN'T think of this film as I pass the Red Rooster Cafe.
Jason

 

[Michael Reuben]

Living in one of the most photographed neighborhoods in New York City, I've lost count of the films and shows it appears in. Charlotte got her wedding dress down the block from me in Sex and the City. Keanu Reeves and Jeffrey Jones argued at an intersection near one of my favorite restrauants in The Devil's Advocate (and Keanu ran past a museum I like to visit when he finds Charlize Theron naked in church). Michael Corleone lived two blocks from me in Godfather 3. The funeral in The First Wives Club is at the nearest funeral home. Mel Gibson chased Gary Sinise past my old bakery in Ransom. The CIA office where Redford worked in 3 Days of the Condor is almost directly across the street.

And I'm not even counting the Woody Allen films.

M.

 

[Peter Mazur]

The scenes at Cyberdine Systems in T2. These were filmed at a building on the other side of the freeway from where I used to work in Fremont, CA.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Not quite a movie, but "The Scooby Doo Project" which Cartoon Network produced was filmed at the drive-in theater I work at.

I hate the flea-bitten mutt, but it was neat to have the place show up on national TV. (Shaggy shoveled popcorn from our 1920's machine into his mouth!)

 

[NickSo]

Yes, many.. I live in hollywood north! Vancouver BC!

 

[DeeF]

I also live on a street in NYC which is used in a lot of movies, and my building can be seen in several, too. My street, 112th Street, is short, quiet, and there are no modern buildings, so it works great for "period" pictures -- say, New York in the 40s.

Little Nicky
The First Wives Club
Enemies, A Love Story
Bed of Roses
You've Got Mail (Meg Ryan strolls leisurely along my building)
Mickey Blue Eyes (used our lobby and entrance because they thought it was suitably "seedy", LOL)

 

[DwightK]

Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Saw it at the mall it was filmed in. Monroeville Mall, the largest mall in the world at that time.
Slapshot. Was in the stands in the arena (Clinton NY) doing what the signs said. there wasn't an of the actors there at all. Just us people in the arena. Went to see the movie and not once was a camera shot used that potentially had me in it:frowning:

 

[Jesse Skeen]

I would love to go to that mall where Dawn of the Dead was filmed; I love that movie just because of all the cool 70's mall scenery!
I still think it's cooler to have had a movie like Gas Pump Girls filmed near me (and close enough to go visit!) than a 'real' movie like Beautiful Mind!

 

[John_Berger]

Scenes from "Mannequin" were filmed in a Boscov's store very, very near here - about three miles from where I live.

Scenes from "A Distinguished Gentleman" were filmed in the PA State Capitol in Harrisburg, about five miles from here.

I know that a lot of the scenes for a recent movie (the name escapes me) with Whoopie Goldberg and Winona Ryder were filmed about five blocks from my house since that part of town still has a very nostalgic 1920s look and feel, which is what they needed for the movie.

Of course, most movies that deal with the Amish have something filmed in nearby (~30 miles) Lancaster County. (Weird Al's "Amish Paradise" video was not, however.)

 

[Brandon_T]

Yeah, Roger & Me. :frowning:

 

[Colin-H]

I live near possibly one of the most-filmed prisons, East Jersey State Penitentiary (a.k.a. Rahway Prison).

A lot of movies have been filmed there (because of the distinctive dome and Jersey prison architecture), but off the top of my head, I can only think of the remake of Ocean's 11 and a Sly Stallone movie called "Lock Up". He climbs the dome in that one. It's sweet.

Oh, yeah, and of course it's the prison of origin for the "Scared Straight" franchise.

 

[SteveMo]

Well I found out a movie was shot near me after the movie was released in theaters and I saw the making of feature. It was Final Impact. I visited some cave they were supposedly near or at right (within a few months. Pretty sure.) before they shot the film. I don't own the film and it's been awhile so I can't say which part of the movie has the Missouri location in it. Anyone know which part is Missouri or in what specific location it was in?

 

[Eric_R_C]

In Charlie's Angels, I realized that the race car sequence was filmed at the new Fontana Raceway, about 10 minutes down the freeway from me.
The funny thing was, they chase each other out of the park and on the nearby street, which is Cherry Avenue. Next thing, they're on this huge red bridge.
Guys, the beach is 45 minutes away, and there ain't NO bridge there!
My friends and I always laugh at this "jump" from Fontana to San Francisco (?)