Pet peeve: Film directors who substitute Canada locations for US places!

[Radio_Lady]

I know, I know -- Canada gives BIG support to studios and producers for shooting in Canadian locations. It's cheaper, the weather is often better than other places where it's snowing, etc. etc. Also, Vancouver B.C. looks very polished and ALMOST like an American city.

However, it doesn't really work when the location is supposed to be the "East Seattle Freeway" and the signs say, EXIT "New Westminster -- Knight Street -- Vancouver." Those of us in the Northwest know that's not Seattle!

Oh, well, I'm talking about the 1990 movie "Short Time" with Dabney Coleman. There were some spectacular car chase scenes (kept my husband busy while I was folding laundry last night). Teri Garr was in it and a band of ruffians. The movie was all right -- I really like Dabney Coleman -- born in January 1932, in Texas, so he's older than my husband. He's been in 100 movies, and has three completed or in post-production this year and next.

Oh, the movie only made $4,000,000. It must have been in the RED big time!

Cute part where Coleman's character, a policeman just days from retirement, is talking to his cop partner and suggests he buy some Certificates of Deposits which pay "more than 9% interest." We laughed...

[terrya]

1. Well, the silliest was a television show "Queer as Folk"

I've been to both Pittsburgh and Toronto. I know Toronto especially well. "QAF" is supposed to be set in Pittsburgh. But it was filmed in Toronto. I've watched this show and I can recognize places in Toronto...especially the gay area (Church Street) that's supposed to be the gay area of Pittsburgh. These two citiex are absolutely NOTHING alike. It's laughable to suggest that there's any similarities between the two.

Another example: the film "Chicago" was also filmed entirely in Toronto. :-)

[Radio_Lady]

4. Ron Howard caught some flack for filming "Cinderella Man" about American

boxer James "Jim" Braddock, entirely in Canada.

Howard's explanation was that he had to do it in Canada because it was the only place he could take over a sports arena for the filming. I don't remember the details, but you could look it up.

"Cinderella Man" was a pretty good film, but tanked at the box office. It cost $88 million to produce, not including marketing costs, but has only garnered $60 million to date.

The film was hampered by Russell Crowe's injury, which delayed release until after December 31, 2004. Too bad. It deserved more attention than it got. Of course, "Million Dollar Baby" a movie about a woman boxer, went on to eclipse it completely the same year.

[Not Me]

13. They didn't even *try* in Queer as Folk...

lots of little things, like Canada Post Mailboxes on the sidewalks, and shops that were supposed to be on "Liberty Avenue" with their Church St addresses on their doors, along with their 416 area codes.

Another time, they did a pan down the street and you could actually see the top of the CN Tower.

[Twillig]

2. Rumble in the Bronx!

Such pretty mountains..

[CanuckAmok]

Ha!

I worked on that one... I can't believe anyone else has even seen it.

Not only was it an absolute bonkers version of the Bronx, but if you know Vancouver, you know how geographically schitzoid it was.

Example, the hovercraft drives up the "Bronx" beach, and in the reverse angle of the same scene, it's driving across Pacific Blvd, about 10 miles away from the beach.

The whole thing was absurd, but a little absudity never hurt anyone.

[Twillig]

10. I saw the reviews on TV

Sorry! :-)

[Kellanved]

3. It is not limited to Vancouver. Nor is it to Canada.

Another frequent example is Berlin: I don't think there are many western cities left, for which Berlin hasn't doubled.
Most famous example: Bourne Supremacy: the whole movie was shot in Berlin, including the car chase in "Moscow" - right through the governmental district of Berlin.

[Radio_Lady]

5. Thanks, Kellanved. Regrettably, the studios are interested in $$$.

It's an old story. When they started making westerns outside of the back lot, they often went to local California locales to substitute for many places.

Oh, another Canada story. There was one film which had a car chase scene and was supposed to be set in some American city. One car rounded the corner in front of the "Royal Bank" -- oops!

[trof]

6. Or Mississippi for Alabama.

My Cousin Vinny
Set in Alabama (natch).
Shot in Mississippi.

It's well known in Alabama that Mississippi looks a whole lot more like Alabama than Alabama does.

many times I've been on the way home and wound up in Mississippi.
:shrug:

[Deja Q]

7. 5 words:

N A F T A

[CanuckAmok]

9. BZZZZT. Wrong.

NAFTA doesn't cover film production, only hard goods and services.

What brings productions up here is a combination of a favourable exchange rate on the dollar, and tax credits and other incentives.

There are a few other considerations, but those are the two primary ones.

[Radio_Lady]

17. Thanks, CanuckAmok -- I have the answer! But not about films --

Well, off topic --

My husband and I were discussing your screen name. We didn't know what the meaning of Canuck was (I KNOW about "running amok...!").

So we consulted the BIG BRAIN, the Internet and found it at The Straight Dope:

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcanuck.html

Dear Straight Dope:

My girlfriend and I were watching an American game show the other night when the question (in multiple-choice format) was asked, "What are Canadians sometimes nicknamed?" or something of that sort. The answer was "Canuck" and was missed (I was surprised "beer drinkers," "cold," or "what's a Canadian?" weren't in there, but I digress). We both took to laughing because it was like us not knowing what a Yankee was. I then say to myself, "Self, what does Canuck mean anyway?" We had no idea. Now I feel stupid. Enlighten me, please, because not one Canadian I have asked knows or has even put any thought to the matter, till now. --Chris L. Bieredrinker

SDSTAFF Dex replies:

As with many word origins, the origin of "Canuck" is obscure. We start with the word "Canada" itself.

William and Mary Morris in their Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (1962 and 1967) say that the best authority seems to indicate "canada" was originally a word in the Huron-Iroquois language meaning "a collection of lodges." So the first Canada was an Indian village. Jacques Cartier, the French navigator who discovered the St. Lawrence River, first used the word in an account of his travels of 1535. He spent the winter in an Indian village near the site of present-day Quebec. The chief waved his arms about as if to include all the land stretching beyond the horizon and exclaimed, "Kanata!" Cartier thought the chief meant Kanata was the name for the entire area (along the St. Lawrence, from Grosse Ile in the east to near Quebec in the west), but it only referred to the Indian settlement nearby.

IMHO, that's not too far different from the "I don't know" origin stories for kangaroo. But different enough to be plausible.

The earliest recorded use of the term Canuck, sometimes spelled Kanuk, was in 1835. Similar terms such as Cannakers or Canukers were in use in the 1840s. The term was first used in lumber camps in Maine to refer to French Canadian loggers working in the Maine woods. It was used to distinguish them from other Canadians. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1970) suggests it was "possibly a corruption of Connaught, a name originally applied by the French Canadians to the Irish immigrants." This seems unlikely.

The usage had spread by 1850 to mean all Canadians, sometimes used as a derogatory term. Canadians generally use it with pride or light-heartedly. "Johnny Canuck" is a personification of Canada, dating from 1902, just as "Uncle Sam" personifies the U.S. There is at least one hockey team calling itself the Canucks.

The term "kanakas" meaning Hawaiian islanders is probably not related, although some authorities suggest there might be a relation. There is also the term cañada (note the tilde over the n), a Spanish word meaning a glen or small dale between two mountains, presumably also not related.

--SDSTAFF Dex
Straight Dope Science Advisory Board

[Deja Q]

18. So film production isn't a service?

Or the finished film being a hard good?

Oh, NAFTA also allows the US to take Canada's energy supplies in a time of energy crisis... part of the deal for "free" trade that seems to have some exclusions of its own (e.g. medicines)

[CanuckAmok]

23. yes, but it's not a service that crosses the border, per se.

Hey, I didn't write NAFTA or even pretend to understand it. I just know what applies to film production, and NAFTA does not.

The finished film being a hard good is sketchy; but until it's cut and distributed, it's not considered an "item" under NAFTA. So a can of unexposed film stock may be subject to tariffs if it is sold across the border (depending on where it's manufactured), but that same can can be sent across the border without duty or tariff if it was exposed in North America.

Like I said, it doesn't make any sense.

[Radio_Lady]

29. Lots of people thought NAFTA would be nifty (including me) --

but it hasn't turned out that way.

[maveric]

8. Saw a movie set in Billings MT. A cafe scene had palm trees and

San Diego Bay and Downtown in the backdrop.
I dont think that Billings has a body of water with an aircraft carrier in, nor does it have palm trees.

[Liberal Veteran]

11. I like the mountains and alpine lakes of Smallville, Kansas.....

Sometimes you can actually see the mountains in scenes of Smallville.

[Southsideirish]

12. I think the film "Chicago" was mainly filmed in Canada.

[Blue Gardener]

14. Or California for the whole rest of the country

Iowa does NOT look like California. I assume there are many other areas of the country that also don't look like California.

[MrScorpio]

35. Alien planets either look like the California desert or...

The B.C. rain forest


Why is that?

[Darth_Kitten]

15. My city fills in for Chicago

I thinks that's pretty cool. But that's just me.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. Little House on the Prairie supposedly took place in Minnesota

but the settings were obviously the standard-issue rocks and sagebrush that you see in all Hollywood Westerns.

This is what Walnut Grove, Minnesota really looks like.

[no name no slogan]

19. Shot mostly in Old Tucson

which was a very popular set for westerns in the 60s and 70s.

It's pretty funny to see the rolling hills and desert scrub in the "countryside" outside Walnut Grove-- especially for us native Minneesohtans, yah?

:hi:

[Radio_Lady]

27. Here are some results for a variety of pictures -- good point!

Filming Locations for
"Greetings from Tucson" (2002-2003)(TV series)

Columbia/Sunset Gower Studios - 1438 N. Gower St., Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA
(studio)

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

&&&&&&

And this classic added for FUN!

Trivia for
Crossroad Avenger: The Adventures of the Tucson Kid (1953) (TV)

Produced as a pilot for a TV series. At least one of the lead actors found it difficult to draw his pistol because of advanced arthritis!!!

&&&&

There are 265 entries for Tucson:

http://us.imdb.com/List?endings=on&&locations=Tucson,%20Arizona,%20USA&&heading=18;with+locations+including;Tucson,%20Arizona,%20USA

Here are just a few -- I didn't realize Tucson, AZ was a big film town. I've never been there, but we're going in February 2006!

Titles with locations including
Tucson, Arizona, USA
Here are the 265 matching titles:
Note: additional matches are listed below

"Ali G Show, Da" (2003) TV Series
...aka "Ali G in da USAiii" (2003) (UK)
"America" (1972) TV Series
"Antiques Roadshow" (1997) TV Series
"Baseball Bunch, The" (1982) TV Series
"Bearcats!" (1971) TV Series
"Bonanza" (1959) TV Series
...aka "Ponderosa" (1972) (USA: rerun title)
"Cimarron Strip" (1967) TV Series
"CollegeTown USA" (2003) TV Series
...aka "National Lampoon's CollegeTown USA" (2003) (USA: complete title)
"Desperation" (2005) (mini) TV Series
...aka "Stephen King's Desperation" (2005) (mini) (USA: complete title)
"Dream West" (1986) (mini) TV Series 6.6/10 (16 votes)
"DreamKeeper" (2003) (mini) TV Series 7.5/10 (231 votes)
"Dundee and the Culhane" (1967) TV Series
"Fugitive, The" (1963) TV Series
"Gunsmoke" (1955) TV Series
...aka "Gun Law" (1955) (UK)
...aka "Marshal Dillon" (1961) (USA: rerun title)
"Have Gun - Will Travel" (1957) TV Series
"Heads Up" (2004) TV Series
"Hey Dude" (1989) TV Series
"High Chaparral, The" (1967) TV Series
"How the West Was Won" (1979) TV Series
"Jessie" (1984) TV Series
"Little House on the Prairie" (1974) TV Series
...aka "Little House: A New Beginning" (1982) (last season title)
"Lucky Luke" (1991) TV Series
"Petrocelli" (1974) TV Series
"Raw Is War" (1997) TV Series
...aka "Monday Night Raw" (1997) (USA)
...aka "WWE Raw Is War" (2002) (USA: new title)
...aka "WWF Raw Is War" (1997) (USA)
...aka "WWF Raw" (2001) (USA: new title)
...aka "WWF Warzone" (1997) (USA: second part title)
"Reflexiónes" (1981) TV Series
"This Old House" (1979) TV Series
"Young Riders, The" (1989) TV Series
3:10 to Yuma (1957) 7.7/10 (562 votes)
5 Dark Souls, Part II: Roots of Evil (1998) (V)
Aces: Iron Eagle III (1992) 3.1/10 (626 votes)
Aerobic Man (2000)
Affection (2002)
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) 7.3/10 (2397 votes)
America 101 (2005) 9.6/10 (35 votes)
And Should We Die (1966)
Angry Young Man (2003)
...aka Dog Years II (2003) (USA)
Answer, The (1915)
Anytime (1994)
Arena (1953) 5.1/10 (36 votes)
Arizona (1940) 6.9/10 (72 votes)
Arizona Raiders (1965) 5.4/10 (59 votes)
At the Crucial Moment (1914)
Aztec Treasure, The (1914)
Badlanders, The (1958) 6.4/10 (148 votes)
Bar Cross Liar, The (1914)
Baraka (1992) 7.9/10 (3184 votes)
Bells of St. Mary's, The (1945) 7.4/10 (980 votes)
Billy the Kid (1941) 6.1/10 (126 votes)
Blind Passion (2004) 5.8/10 (5 votes)
Blue Rodeo (1996) (TV) 6.1/10 (38 votes)
Blunderer's Mark, The (1914)
Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993) 5.4/10 (780 votes)
Bombshell (1933) 7.9/10 (306 votes)
...aka Blonde Bombshell (1933) (UK)
Boxes (2005)
Boys on the Side (1995) 6.2/10 (2892 votes)
...aka Avec ou sans hommes (1995) (France)
Broken Arrow (1950) 7.3/10 (743 votes)

(More at web site)

[Radio_Lady]

21. Besides "mistaken" cities, there are other "goofs" in movies...

You might enjoy looking at the sites talked about here.

Dear Yahoo!:

Is there a web site dedicated to mistakes in movies?

Just Curious
Fredonia, Kentucky

Dear Just:
You're in luck. Not only are there several sites devoted to film mistakes, but there's even a Yahoo! Movie Blooper category! From the mammoth archive www.Movie-Mistakes.com to the slightly more esoteric Little House on the Prairie Nitpickers Guild, the Web is bursting with cinematic goofs.

Type "movie mistakes" or "film bloopers" into the Yahoo! search box and the result will lead you straight to this much-cherished category. Then prepare to burn several hours enjoying a thorough dissection of Jurassic Park or seeing a stormtrooper brain himself on a low-hanging Death Star rafter.

www.moviebloopers.com does a great job of supplementing goof-ups with screen grabs. You'll see magically disappearing signs in Clerks, and self-cleaning hands in the Blues Brothers. Of course, let's not forget the possessed ironing board in Forrest Gump, confusion between day and night in Wayne's World, and the classic "crew in the reflection" shot in Driving Miss Daisy.

Most of these blunders, of course, are relatively minor: cigarettes switch hands, drink levels bounce up and down, etc. Still, they're telling reminders that film-making is a tricky undertaking, and that the folks in Hollywood are only human, just like us.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. I HATED Little House on the Prairie, but my parents loved it

so I saw a few episodes when I was visiting them. (I read all the books when I was a kid, and I thought Michael Landon's version was a travesty. My mother just thought it was "a cute show," "cute" being her highest form of praise.)

My top nitpick: There's an episode in which a black man is reminscing about a childhood Christmas when he was a little slave lad waiting for Santa Claus. First of all, Santa Claus was not a commonly known figure in the American South in the pre-Civil War era. Secondly, the only way the slaves celebrated Christmas was that it was the one day of the year when they didn't have to work. Each family was given a ham and a jug of corn liquor. That was it. Certainly no presents.

It bugged me the way pioneer-era Walnut Grove was portrayed as being so multi-ethnic, which it would not have been in real life. When Nellie married the young Jewish man and both families were so happy, it also struck a false chord. In those days, anti-Semitism was at a high level among Midwesterners, and most Jews would have disowned a child who married a Gentile and perhaps even held a funeral for him.

[Bouncy Ball]

20. In the X-Files movie they are supposed to be in north Texas

but it looks more like the El Paso area.

ALL OF TEXAS IS NOT A FUCKING DESERT, PEOPLE!

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. When the subtitle said "Dallas, Texas" in the film and I'm looking at this place that's mostly sand and tumbleweeds, I was like "what the fuck???"

[MrScorpio]

22. That's what pissed me off about Steven Segal's Exit wounds

After two seconds, I knew that that wasn't Detroit

Here's why:

Filming Locations for
Exit Wounds (2001)

Calgary, Alberta, Canada
(bridge scene)

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
(Detroit motorcycle chase)

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0242445/locations


Detroit doesn't look anything like these places

[CanuckAmok]

24. Of all the things that could piss you off about a Steven Segal movie...

...that's what pissed you off?!

[MrScorpio]

26. Don't fucking diss Detroit

That movie did it BIG TIME

[u4ic]

25. Prague

looks nothing like Victorian London...

[CanuckAmok]

28. Nope, but Prague is CHEAP!

It was the be-all of period exteriors for a while, because the local economy was very production-friendly, but not so much anymore.

Sees the latest "Victorian" European city location is in Romania.

[Radio_Lady]

30. "Cold Mountain" was filmed in Romania --

It looks like the director preferred places that end in the letter "a" ::sarcasm:: Romania, South Carolina, Virginia (Isn't that odd?)

The mountain scenes were beautiful. Jude Law and Nicole Kidman in the snow ::sigh::

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Filming Locations for
Cold Mountain (2003)

Carpathian Mountains, Romania
(all mountain scenes)

Carter's Grove - 8797 Pocahontas Trail, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
(military hospital exterior)

Charleston, South Carolina, USA

College of Charleston - 66 George Street, Charleston, South Carolina, USA
(town square where Inman talks with the blind man)

Potigrafu, Romania

Richmond, Virginia, USA
(River where Veasey finds large saw)

Romania

South Carolina, USA

Virginia, USA

[alarimer]

31. In the movie Caracara

the actual bird in the film was a Harris' Hawk, not a Cara Cara.

Here is a picture of a Crested Cara cara, a bird native to Texas and northern Mexico:



Here is a Harris' hawk:


You'd think the filmmakers might actually consult an ornithologist. But I think it might have something to do with the fact that it might not be as easy to train a Cara cara as it is to train a Harris' hawk. Or maybe they couldn't find one already trained. But it is funny and I am not the only one who noticed. This froma birders' website:

http://listserv.arizona.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0006a&L=birdchat&F=&S=&P=4511

Anyhow, the protagonist is a NYC single white female who keeps a
(supposed) Caracara, and has some kind of museum affiliation.
(Lauren Hutton plays her alcoholic mother...) But it was
actually a Harris's Hawk. Yet another case of wrong ID, in this
case clearly deliberate, in the movies. I suppose someone liked
the name Caracara, but they couldn't locate a Caracara.
Harris's Hawk just didn't have the right ring, even though it's
a suitably cool-looking bird. Or maybe an actual Caracara was
too big?

[AntiCoup2K4]

32. I remember watching the original "Rambo" movie "First Blood" in the 80's..

It was supposedly set in a small town in Washington State, and all the cop cars had the license plates. The small town itself looked authentic enough. But I recognized the town, having passed through there the previous summer. It was Hope B.C.

So next time a Freeper boasts about the patriotism of Rambo, just remind them that he "deserted to Canada" to make his movie :evilgrin:

[Ivan Sputnik]

33. Isn't this because of unions?

I'm guessing that film production workers are heavily unionized in L.A., but not so much (or at all?) in Canada and some other places.