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What Is the Best Movie Set and/or Filmed in Your State?
Yesterday in the GLoP cast there was a discussion of the best New York City film. It is not an easy choice, just as picking the best Los Angeles film or the best Chicago film isn’t easy.
Last year my wife and I traveled to every state. There were a number of things we did in every state, along with going to a church, a bar and to a movie theater. We also watched a movie that was set or filmed in that state. The DVD folder we travelled with covered most states, but not all — and sometimes we didn’t have a DVD for a state or access to a DVD player, so we needed to stream. Sometimes it was hard to pick the film because there were so many choices (see above). Sometimes, in places like Delaware and West Virginia it was difficult because the choices were so limited. And some places we felt we had no choice. We had to watch Oklahoma in Oklahoma. But we persevered, and here are the films that represented each state (and the District of Columbia):
- Nevada – Lost in America (1985)
- Arizona – Raising Arizona (1987)
- New Mexico – Silverado (1985)
- Texas – Office Space (1999)
- Oklahoma – Oklahoma (1955)
- Kansas – Elmer Gantry (1960)
- Missouri – Paper Moon (1973)
- Arkansas – True Grit (1969)
- Louisiana – Miller’s Crossing (1990)
- Mississippi – My Dog Skip (2000)
- Alabama – My Cousin Vinny (1992)
- Florida – Matinee (1993)
- Georgia – The General (1926)
- South Carolina – The Great Santini (1979)
- North Carolina – Bull Durham (1988)
- Tennessee – Starman (1984)
- Kentucky – Goldfinger (1964)
- West Virginia – A Killing Affair (1977)
- Virginia – The Littlest Rebel (1935)
- Maryland – Broadcast News (1987)
- Delaware – Clean and Sober (1988)
- Pennsylvania – Rocky (1976)
- New Jersey – The Station Agent (2003)
- New York – When Harry Met Sally (1989)
- Alaska – The Gold Rush (1925)
- Hawaii – Lilo and Stitch (2002)
- Washington – House of Games (1987)
- Connecticut – Beetlejuice (1988)
- Rhode Island – Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
- Massachusetts – The Crucible (1996)
- New Hampshire – What About Bob? (1991)
- Maine – The Iron Giant (1999)
- Vermont – Nothing Sacred (1937)
- Ohio – The Kings of Summer (2013)
- Michigan – Grosse Pointe Blank (1997)
- Indiana – Hoosiers (1986)
- Illinois – The Untouchables (1987)
- Wisconsin – Wayne’s World (1992)
- Minnesota – A Serious Man (2009)
- Iowa – Field of Dreams (1989)
- Nebraska – About Schmidt (2002)
- South Dakota – North by Northwest (1959)
- North Dakota – Fargo (1996)
- Colorado – The Prestige (2006)
- Utah – Fletch (1985)
- Wyoming – Unforgiven (1992)
- Montana – Little Big Man (1970)
- Idaho – Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
- Oregon – Meek’s Cutoff (2010)
- California – Die Hard (1988)
District of Columbia bonus – The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
So did we pick the right film for your state? Where did we go wrong?
(The states are listed in the order of our travels with the exception of D.C. which fell between Virginia and Maryland)
Published in Entertainment
Terms of Endearment was also filmed in Texas. (Nebraska, too, but mostly Texas.)
Seawriter
Made Me wish I could ride bulls. Which I did for a short time some years later.
@seawriter To be fair, The General, wasn’t filmed in Georgia either. It was filmed in Oregon. To be honest, I had a DVD of The General but not Gone with the Wind. And I really love Buster Keaton.
The Trouble with Harry is a mediocre Hitchcock film. Part of it was filmed in my Dad’s hometown of Craftsbury Common, Vt. The leaves fell early due to storms and they filmed the rest of it in California. The funny twist is no one cared much for Harry when he was alive, but everyone thinks they killed him.
Tons of movies/TV in Georgia and in our particular section of it. No commentary on the caliber, but some are Fast & Furious, Vampire Diaries, Madea movies, Selma, some Reba McIntyre show, Dukes of Hazzard, Smokey & the Bandit, In the Heat of the Night, Sweet Home Alabama, some Netflix show about haunted places or something, and many others I’ve forgotten.
But the one I really like to point out is the Denzel Washington flick, “Flight.” The airplane crash scene was filmed in a pasture on the road just outside my neighborhood. This was while they were still building the set.
Smokey & The Bandit whoops Gone With The Wind. It’s official.
Good call.
Tender Mercies for Texas, Rudy for Indiana, for Illinois….I got nothin’ that hasn’t already been mentioned…wait! The Fugitive.
And Jerry is arrested at a motel outside Bismarck (which was actually shot in Forest Lake, just north of Minneapolis. But it is the best movie set and shot mostly in Minnesota. What about Dakota? A western starring John Wayne? I hadn’t heard of it either, but I still want to claim Fargo as the best for Minnesota.
Rudy and Hoosiers for Indiana – are there any others? A Christmas Story? All three entries are great.
I left off the Fugitive for IL only because the local flavor was thin and mostly negative.
Paris, Texas was not, annoyingly, filmed in Paris, Texas. It has a nice Ry Cooder score, though.
How about the Deer Hunter for Pennsylvania? The parts back home before and after the combat sure do feel real and identifiable.
Which just goes to show – tear it down and they won’t come.
Breaking Away.
The City, but not the Movie. It’s the Coen Brothers, don’t ask.
They even do a Laverne and Shirley bit, if memory serves.
My nominee for Wisconsin would be Rodney Dangerfield’s Back To School, filmed at UW Madison.
Agree. I’ve always heard McKeesport, but some was filmed in similar steel belt locations in Ohio.
It would seem that “the best film set in State X” (your question) and “the film that best captures State X” might yield quite different results.
The state of my birth, Connecticut, has been the setting for such films as “The Stepford Wives” (I saw the production take over our local strip mall when I was a kid), “The Ice Storm” (I remember the actual storm vividly), and “Gentleman’s Agreement” (set in my hometown of Darien). A trio of good but grim movies. (As I often say, I don’t recall having encountered sexy robots, wife swapping, or institutionalized anti-Semitism.)
For me, the movie that best captures Connecticut is “Mystic Pizza.” It has typically picturesque southeastern CT scenery and dramatizes the tension between socio-economic classes in the wealthiest state. Plus, it’s not grim – it’s delightful.
Another Minnesota film, though it doesn’t displace Fargo as best, Jingle All the Way, set and mostly shot in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The 1984 Jeff Bridges movie “Starman” was supposed to be set around Ashland, Wisconsin and the Chequamegon National Forest. So please ignore those mountains. (And the mispronunciation of “Chequamegon.”)
The 1986 Rodney Dangerfield movie “Back to School” was partly filmed at UW Madison.
But I think for Wisconsin, we’ll have to give the award to “The Giant Spider Invasion” with filming locations in Merrill, Stevens Point, and Rhinelander.
Or possibly “Blood Hook,” filmed in Hayward.
Maybe someone will just have to write a screenplay specifically for the occasion of this post. Perhaps it can start with a retired/unfairly disgraced Chicago policeman who takes his savings and starts a new life by opening a supper club/bar in Wisconsin. He starts out clashing with the locals until he eventually falls in love with the outspoken great granddaughter of Vince Lombardi. They’re about to go into happily ever after when it’s discovered that he’s descended from George Halas. Can the romance survive this bombshell?
There’s always Two Guys From Milwaukee
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039053/?ref_=nv_sr_2
Ack! How could I forget! One of my favorite movies is set in Wisconsin: Lars and the Real Girl.
And I knew there was another one I was forgetting. An internet search reminded me: this oddball pairing of Disney and David Lynch: The Straight Story.
Lars and the Real Girl is on my list to see. Is Wisconsin just an unrelated backdrop? r do you get some local flavor?
Living in CA this seems impossible to answer. You found a way with Die Hard. Though that movie could have been set in any city.
It’s set in a small (I think unnamed) town in Wisconsin, which as far as “local flavor” goes, could just be a stand-in for any midwestern small town. I don’t recall it had a specifically Wisconsin feel to it (aside from the winter setting), except that I felt like I knew people like those people in the movie.
Given its odd premise (lonely man buys a sex doll on the internet and treats her as if she’s real) you sort of expect it to be “Not Suitable for All Viewers” but in fact it’s gentle and sweet and could almost be G-rated.
Oh, that story’s so common as to be cliché. ; )
@drewinwisconsin Lars and the Real Girl is another film I need to write about for Movie Churches.
Surely “Purple Rain” deserves a mention for Minnesota.
Absolutely.
As is (was?) A Simple Plan.