Sorry, folks. I’m working massive hours, have all sorts of real life stuff going on, and am as destroyed as Nostrils following his twenty-minute commute to work. I don’t know when I’ll be able to update again, but will shoot for tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a weird picture for ya. What the?? So wholesome, yet so menacing.
Also, I have a Question, suggested by my friend Steve. He said I should ask you what you believe are the best three movies set in your home state. I can’t think of too many West Virginia movies. Matewan, of course. Plus, October Skies… and We Are Marshall. Are there any others?
What do you have on this subject? Anything? If so, help me out, won’t you? Use the comments link below.
Yeah, I know this isn’t much of an update, but I had to get that Johnny Cash bitch off the top of my website.
I’ll see you guys again soon.
Now playing in the bunker
Use the Surf Report’s webhost: HostGator!
FIRST!
That’s a Rockwell classic called “Slaughter of the Innocents”. Interestingly enough, that truck is carrying 30,000 pounds of bananas.
You know – I had to look at Wikipedia to see what movies had been set in Ohio, because I couldn’t not think of a single one. I didn’t recognize most of the titles, but the best of the few I’d seen would have to be “Heathers”.
There was another movie listed that I haven’t seen, but I wanna: “A Wet Dream on Elm Street”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Wet_Dream_on_Elm_Street
Just read the first two sentences of the plot summary and tell me you don’t bust out laughing.
Heh, “Tommy Pistol”
By the way, Jeff – that crack about the truck carrying “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” comes from a song by Harry Chapin that a grade-school teacher tried to ram down our throats one afternoon. I just looked the song up on Wikipedia and – circle of life – it says this: “The song is based on an actual truck accident that occurred in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1965.”
Heck, Sunshine…..come to Scranton and I can show you the hill it happened on.
I KNEW there was a reason I moved to the armpit of PA…..lol
Oh I’ll be there, someday. I want to visit Centralia too. Jeff put me on to that smouldering little town.
A friend’s family grew up in Centralia. The next time she is here she’s going to take me to visit the cemetery there where a bunch of her ancestors are buried. They get a state police escort to the cemetery 2 x a year.
Jeff – How could you forget the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia?
As for my home state (SC), I can only think of a few off the top of my head…I’m sure there are others.
The Patriot
The Notebook (don’t judge me)
The Lords of Discipline
Don’t forget the classic Full Metal Jacket shot on site at Parris Island, SC.
The “BLOB” from the fifties was shot in and around where I grew up>
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania!
Somebody just tweeted me this map: http://declancashin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/J4DTn.jpg Cool!
I saw “Tommy Boy” in the wikipedia list for Ohio. Never saw it, though. Not a Chris Farley fan and never will be.
Well, look on the bright side, evidenatally his younger brother is stepping into his shoes!
Not very many movies set in Alabama, but a few come to mind:
To Kill A Mockingbird
Forrest Gump
My Cousin Vinny
Honorable mention:
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Miracle Worker
Talledega Nights
That’s all I can think of right now.
“My Cousin Vinny” wins the prize! Hands down.
OK, To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t have the subtle acting and plot of Vinny or Sweet Home (or Talledega Nights), but when the Aliens come and dig into the piles of trash left from us and our culture, if they find Mockingbird, they’ll say, “Well, at least they tried.” If they find any of the others, they’ll look up at the horizon of garbage and nod their green heads knowingly.
I’m just saying.
Agree. If there is a top ten injustice to humanity list, it would be led by the fact that Harper Lee only wrote one novel.
Add John Kennedy O’Toole to that list.
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“Whoa”, as a cloud of smoke shot up from the sunglasses.
John Kennedy Toole……..not…O’Toole.
……just sayin’
I fucked up. Mea culpa (that’s Latin for “my bad”).
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Ooo-wee! I migh be wokin’ fo less than minimal wage and seven feet from goin’ vagren…but I do know Latin.
Just looking to get a Nemesis Phrase in.
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Sweet Home Alabama with Reese Witherspoon… Before she went postal….
Hoosiers
Breaking Away
Going all the Way
I live in New York so there are too many to choose from but if I narrowed it down within say a 50 mile rdius excluding New York city I have:
Nobody’s Fool (filmed in part in Beacon, NY)
Ragtime (filmed, in part in Mount Kisco, NY)
Stepmom (Bedford, NY)
Valley of the Dolls (original) Katonah NY train station
Nobody’s Fool was, in my opinion. one of Newman’s best works.
All the American Pie movies
Grosse Pointe Blank
RoboCop
Wikipedia also says that Raging Bull and Megamind were set here. I’ve never seen Raging Bull and the only clue in Megamind is when the satellite death ray fires it appears to target a spot in Michigan.
And that poor pup is about to become roadkill. Why is the bkue car passing on double yellow lines UP a hill and around the curve? It’s like the artist got into Stephen King’s mind somehow!
“When you drive with Blizzaks…you drive with confidence”.
Thanks, dto. I just choked on a pretzel! LMAO!
“Wrong Turn” and “Silent Hill” were “set” in WV. “The Express” has a scene set in WV (which by the way is completely BULLSHIT {Syracuse played WVU in Syracuse, NY the year that movie takes place}), “Silence of the Lambs” partially takes place in Clay County, I could be wrong but I think “The Hills have Eyes” is set here too.
Rain Man comes to mind, well it started in Ohio.
I liked both of the Victor Nunez films I’ve seen (Ruby in Paradise and Ulee’s Gold). I remember liking Sunshine State as well. Errol Morris’ documentary about Vernon Fla is also good. Last but not least, all of the Porky’s movies are simply brilliant.
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters…
Wonder Boys – Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh
The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
The Deer Hunter
She’s Out of His League
Plus, there are tons of movies that were filmed in Pittsburgh, but not necessarily the story setting.
Oh, JK, another West Virginia movie… The Mothman Prophesies.
Mothman gave me nightmares, and I saw it in my 40s!
Lots of films are shot here in NC (like Iron Man 3) but I think you are referring to ones that use the state as a specific location to its story. Some good NC films:
Blue Velvet (BAM! Beat that any other state anywhere!!)
Bull Durham
Last of the Mohicans
Cold Mountain was set here in NC and was written by a native but they shot it in Bulgaria somewhere. Go figure. It wasn’t that good anyway.
-Nashville
-portions of Silence of the Lambs
-Evil Dead
-Walking Tall (only included because it was filmed in my area of Tennessee about my area of Tennessee)
-The Firm
-Hustle and Flow
Part of Groundhog’s Day was filmed nearby. A lot of Field of Dreams as well. The basketball movie Personal Foul was filmed entirely in my hometown, but nobody ever saw it.
I do live in Northern Illinois (not so far from Chicago) so we’ll keep it within 50 miles of my house like Madz1962 did.
clyde ware a doddridge county native, filmed couple civil war era movies here in doddridge county,wv, in the early 70’s
first one,” no drums, no bugles”, starring a very young martin sheen
another was, ”when the line goes through”, think, but not sure martin sheen was in it too
both forgetable, except for the electric lines on the alleged 1860’s houses and modern farm equipment in backround
The public library had VHS copies of those in the early 1990s. They are probably still there.
Along with a shift key.
Hmmm, I’ll go for the easy one first: Meet Me In St. Louis. Then, White Palace and Escape From New York (ironically). There’s also a George Clooney movie that was shot around here fairly recently–Up in the Air (or something–I wasn’t paying attention).
“Up in the Air” was a really good movie! I would recommend it.
Huh. I’ll have to give it a watch. The local “media” was so obnoxious in their coverage of the story (ooh, George Clooney looked at an extra for 3 seconds, so we’ll interview her!) that I didn’t want anything to do with even watching it. Stupid podunk non-mountain town!
Top movies set in my home state……let’s not do the big name obvious ones…..
The Last Detail….it begins in my hometown, Norfolk, VA but ends in Portsmouth, NH. Does that count?
Remember the Titans…..Alexandria, VA
That Elvis Presley classic Wild In The Country took place in the Shenandoah Valley of VA.
And of course, you have to include another classic filmed in my hometown, ROLLERCOASTER.
Filmed in 1976/77 while I was in high school. I knew locals used in that movie.
A couple of years later the owners of the property wanted to demolish the closed amusement park. They made a deal with Disney….they could film a movie there if Disney cleared the property afterwards. So they blew up the rollercoaster and filmed the awfully bad made-for-tv movie, Death Of Ocean View Park.
I missed them blowing the coaster up because I was off to college out of the state.
All of the good porn movies were made in the San Fernando Valley. Or so I’ve heard.
-Dude
Paradise Park
Paradise Park (1990), also known as Heroes of the Heart, is a film shot in West Virginia, written and directed by Daniel Boyd.
I forgot Fool’s Parade (1971).
Oh – forgot – both “Fatal Attarction” and “Big” had parts that were filmed in the historical Playland Amusement Park in Rye, NY.
Jaws
Ted
Star Wars
…..ok, maybe not Star Wars.
How ’bout TV shows?
-WKRP in Cincinnati
-Hot in Cleveland
-Family Ties (Columbus)
The picture at the top reminds of one of those pictures from “Highlights.” “Can you spot 10 things wrong in this picture?”
Here in Michigan, a James Stewart picture called ANATOMY OF A MURDER from around 1959 was filmed in the Upper Peninsula; area businesses where parts of the movie were shot were still trying to use the fact as tourist draws 30 years later.
COLLISION COURSE, a buddy-cop movie starring Jay Leno and Pat Morita was filmed partially in Detroit, so were parts of BEVERLY HILLS COP, a Disney Channel movie called TIGER TOWN with Roy Schieder, and the TRANSFORMER movies too. DETROIT ROCK CITY was set here, but was shot in Toronto, except for some atmosphere shots.
There are others, but I’m drawing a blank right now…
Movies;
‘Goin Down the Road’
TV Shows;
‘The Forest Rangers’
‘The Littlest Hobo
‘Adventures in Rainbow Country’
I grew up in NYC, so I will include the hell out of it. All of these were set within 50 miles of where I lived. Among the the best, aka my favorites…
. The Manchurian Candidate
. Goodfellas
. Coming to America
. Planet of the Apes
. Taxi Driver
. All That Jazz
. Escape from New York
. The Fifth Element
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Goodfellas may be my favorite movie of all time. Ironically, Pesci whacks Billy Batts in Goodfellas, but the same actor whacks Pesci in “Casino.”
I’m currently alive in Alabama. So I have to go with Forrest Goddamn Gump, of course. I think that might be the only one. There was something else featuring Ashton Kutcher, but fuck him.
As I am an overwhelmingly negative person, I will give the WORST movie in my state: George Clooney’s “Leatherheads”, filmed in SC. I’m not sure if the story actually takes place in SC because I can not physically make myself watch it for long enough to find out, despite the fact that I’d like to spot the locations, and a friend of mine was an extra.
The Lone Ranger was shot here in New Mexico and….I’m in it. Honest. I’m in the band. I’m one of the guys in the red uniforms up on the platform. I’m the trumpet player in the front row all the way to the left on the end of the row and seen in four shots. I’m also the guy bandaged up…head totally wrapped except one eye and and room for my mouth to play. There’s also a broken wagon wheel tied to my leg as a splint. You;’ll see me sitting there on the end with my leg out and playing “The Stars and Stripes” as the camera pans back from the band. It was a blast to be involved with that. I was on set for three weeks, paid and fed well aside for having that much fun!
Lots of movies here. Billy Jack, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Grapes of Wrath, No Country for Old Men, on and on….lots of scenery around this state and lots of middle of nowhere.
The Shawshank Redemption
Carousel
Message In A Bottle
Honorable Mention: The Hunt for Red October – ends in Penobscot Bay
SUPER 8 filmed in Weirton WV a few years ago. Scenes shot right here in my home town of Follansbee too.
A Christmas Story
Hoosiers
and….
Sleepwalkers just because I think Madchen Amick is really really hot in it
My home town is Las Vegas, NV. Obviously I have many to choose from but my personal favorites are:
Leaving Las Vegas
Casino
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Pay It Forward
Where the heck is JTB on this subject? Redmond,WA we actually had Richard Prior in “Bustin’ Loose.” My fave was “Say Anything” with a few shots of Seattle (my fave movie to watch during 14 months at the actual South Pole.)
Third, I dunno, there was “Harry in Your Pocket, or the John Wayne flick”McQ.”
Clint, you did an admirable job. I would add The Parallax View. Many scenes were filmed in Seattle and up on the Skagit River.
John Wayne was in Seattle for a couple of months (with his minesweeper) filming McQ and raising hell with the liberal establishment.
Both films were released in 1974.
Thanks for not including Elvis’ 1962 movie, It Happened At the World’s Fair. Elvis could have changed the world considerably more than he did; instead, he and the Colonel made crap like this.
jtb
Yes, but Elvis and The Colonel did build the monorail, didn’t they? You can visit Seattle today and ride on Elvis’ monorail. What a forward-thinking accomplishment!
Also, I believe that I’ve seen pictures of one or more of the Beatles fishing from out of their hotel room window at the Edgewater Inn. I don’t know where I am going with this, but I feel compelled to share this nonetheless.
I didn’t know Elvis built the monorail. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t take credit for it either, it’s a pretty crappy monorail.
Fair enough on the crappy part, but in its defense, The Seattle Monorail was built as a vision of the future, not a design of the future, at a time when the most sophisticated and expensive mainframe computers in the world could only run one program at a time — four years before the introduction of the IBM 360, only three years after the first commercially successful commercial jet airliner (the Boeing 707) and nearly 20 years before the earliest general purpose personal computers. It was early times.
jtb
….but to all my WV pals, the scariest movie I have ever seen was “Mothman.” I’m 57 and still have nightmares!
More WV movies:
Ghandi
Platoon
Stark Trek (all of them)
One time I ended up walking from Boston to Worcester at 2:00 AM. Now *that* was a stark trek.
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Fellow Ohioans, I’m slightly disappointed that nobody has yet mentioned Shawshank Redemption.
Maybe it’s the first thing I think of because I was born and raised in Mansfield where the Mansfield Reformatory is located. It’s really an amazing building and they still have a section of the tunnel Andy crawled through at the end of the movie. The famous tree isn’t too far off either.
Cheers to the weekend fellow surfers!
“A Christmas Story” was filmed in Cleveland, does that count too?
The prison in Shawshank Redemption was filmed in Ohio, but the story is set here in Maine. I lived one town over from Buxton, where Andy buried the box for Red to find, although the Buxton in the movie didn’t look much like the real one.
Ooooh, love Shawshank. That’s one of those movies that no matter how times I’ve seen it, when I pass it clicking through channels I have to stop. Just assumed it was filmed in Maine. As for my comment about Vegas movies, there r many more filmed here where the setting is supposed to be some exotic desert…
Please tell me you have seen the Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia? It’s on Netflix.
I live in Southern California, which means that I don’t have a single film to choose from! 😛
Memphis , Tn.
Silence of the Lambs
The Client
Walk the Line
Walking Tall ( the first one from the 70s)
Hustle n Flow
I saw Walking Tall way back when; didn’t know there was more than one. I remember it as a pretty damned disturbing movie.
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Parts of Walk The Line were filmed at the house next door to mine. That was quite an experience. Joaquin Phoenix is such a nice guy but oh so short and slender. I never did see Tom Cruise when they filmed The Firm; his “home” in the movie was also near mine. Personally, I hate Tom Cruise and think he is a total asshat. Saw nothing of the filming of Hustle n Flow as I’m to skeered to go into the neighborhoods where it was filmed. I had no idea that Silence of the Lambs was filmed in Memphis.
how about Deliverance?
Deliverance was set in Georgia. No idea where it was actually filmed.
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Deliverance was filmed in TN.
– Blue Valentine
– That Championship Seasonn
( sigh )
Ok, from my home state OH):
Shawshank Redemption
A christmas story
Rain Man
From My Current state (FL):
Edward Scissorhands
The Punisher
There’s something about Mary
“Andre” was set in Rockport Maine.
The real Andre was a Harbor Seal, but Hollywood changed him into to a California Sea Lion ‘cuz Sea Lions are cuter…
“Night of the Hunter” starring the terrifying Robert Mitchum. I saw that film on TV when I was about 12, and to this day (I”m 56) I’m still scared of Robert Mitchum. Dude’s dead, doesn’t matter, he scares the p out of me. “Fool’s Parade” with Jimmy Stewart was pretty good, too. Both from novels written by WVian Davis Grubb.
Fool’s Parade-Filmed around Moundsville.
Jimmy Stewart
Kurt Russell
George Kennedy
Strother Martin
Night of the Hunter-filmed up & down the Ohio River
Robert Mitchum
Shelley Winters
Parts of Silence of the Lambs
Striking Distance
The Dark Knight
Two movies I can’t remember the titles….maybe someone else can:
1. Jean Claude Van Dam filmed at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh with the Pens playing. And….
2. Tom Cruise filmed here two summers ago. Had downtown traffic so fucked up. It was deadlocked. I think it was Jack Reacher? or something…
Massachusetts films….just a partial list
Mystic River
The Departed
Good Will Hunting
Next Stop Wonderland
A Civil Action
Alice’s Restaurant
Field of Dreams (Fenway Park stuff)
The Thomas Crowne Affair
Ted
Summer of ’42
The Social Network
Rinning with Scissors
The Russians are Coming
Knowing
Legally Blonde
Little Women
Moby Dick