Movies that made you love cities (for the first time, or even more)

[Innsertnamehere]

Ferris Beuller is a great one.

I agree that too many movies choose the same damn cities over and over again. The odd one “branches out” to a smaller US city.

Like 90% of movies take place in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris. It’s frustrating.

You get major Cities like Toronto, Sydney, etc. That have basically 0 filmography set in them. Toronto’s biggest movie actually set here is probably Scott Pilgrim, a 10 year old indie cult flick with a very limited audience.

I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.

But Toronto? Sydney? Auckland? What kind of entertainment do those add to a film that can’t be achieved in, say, Chicago, or Minneapolis, or something? It’s just easier to set things there instead since American audiences are more familiar with it. Even if you still actually film in Toronto.

And it’s a damn shame. Canadian cities dominate American filmography yet are almost never used as an actual setting for the film, even when the setting can simply be “generic city” and not impact the plot whatsoever. Producers still feel the need to set it somewhere else.


If any of those cities to make the cut to even be referenced or used for a specific scene, it usually comes with some dumb stereotypical joke of how Canada or Australia is “different”. Get arrested by Mounties in Toronto or something, or some played up Aussie slang from an Australian in Sydney. It’s very low brow stuff and completely dominates US references to the countries.

I swear there is no original US jokes about Canadians. You get the same “Mounties eh? And poutine and French people and lumberjacks!” Stereotypes constantly in almost every Canadian reference. Nothing explaining actual day to day culture in the countries. Just caricatures of them.

Sorry. Rant over.

[MolsonExport]

Yeah, Lost in Translation really turned me on to Tokyo (I was already quite smitten by the place from a distance). A few years later, I visited Tokyo and I was blown away. Ten years later, I went back for another dose of Tokyo. Wonderful city, with great food, and just about everything else.

[Crawford]

I hate films that use locations that assume the viewer is an idiot. I was watching the first It movie (the 1980's version) and the last few minutes are clearly in downtown Vancouver. Yeah, nothing says a small village in Maine like downtown Vancouver.

And many movies supposedly set in small town Midwest America have Southern CA giveaways like snow-capped mountains, semiarid landscapes or palm trees in the background. In the original Halloween, there are clearly palm trees and other Mediterranean-type foliage.

Or what about all the supposed NYC movies that show alleys? WTF? We don't have alleys.

[mrnyc]

^ yeah there was a local uproar about that about halloween in ky, so parts of halloween 2 were filmed in bg, ky. the director was from there or something. there is a scene where micheal myers walks by a house with a lit fish tank in the window, which was still there where i went to grad school and gave me the creeps walking by late at night lol.

[Yuri]

Great thread! Nice to remember all those good movies and cities they showcase.

As no one mentioned, Pittsburgh, one of my favourite North American city. Flashdance, Stigmata and a Bruce Willis movie from the early 90’s whose name I forgot, a bad one, but with very nice shots of Pittsburgh. TV series are also generous with the city, but that’s for another thread.

Flashdance was very avant garde when it comes to new urban trends, featuring the main character living in an abandoned warehouse.

[suburbanite]

Love Pittsburgh and seeing it in movies. Although the city isn't the focal point, recent ones like Jack Reacher and Warrior come to mind.

Boston has been graced by film. Good Will Hunting, The Departed, The Town.

[MolsonExport]

Marseille, and New York (in "The French Connection", Hackman). Many, many years after seeing the movie, I would spend a month each year living in this utterly fascinating place.
http://www.themoviedistrict.com/
Great resource for film locations, including the aforementioned. source of all photos below.






Lots of gritty early 70s NYC in that film too.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Ferris Beuller is a great one.

I agree that too many movies choose the same damn cities over and over again. The odd one “branches out” to a smaller US city.

Like 90% of movies take place in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris. It’s frustrating.

You get major Cities like Toronto, Sydney, etc. That have basically 0 filmography set in them. Toronto’s biggest movie actually set here is probably Scott Pilgrim, a 10 year old indie cult flick with a very limited audience.

I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.

But Toronto? Sydney? Auckland? What kind of entertainment do those add to a film that can’t be achieved in, say, Chicago, or Minneapolis, or something? It’s just easier to set things there instead since American audiences are more familiar with it. Even if you still actually film in Toronto.

On the other hand, I get turned off a lot when shows are set in a city but few or none of the outdoor scenes are taken from said city. A few examples:

You - Tried to pass of L.A. for NYC.

Suits - A pretty boring show to begin with, but it might be more interesting if it were actually shot in NYC instead of using Toronto as a stand-in.

Good Girls - It has a good storyline that distracts from the fact that they try to pass off all of these scenes filmed in L.A. as Detroit. Although they lean a lot on Detroit references, there's really no reason why this story couldn't have been set in Los Angeles. It would've felt a lot more authentic.

[softee]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

You get major Cities like Toronto, Sydney, etc. That have basically 0 filmography set in them. Toronto’s biggest movie actually set here is probably Scott Pilgrim, a 10 year old indie cult flick with a very limited audience.

There have been lots of movies set in Toronto, it's just that the vast majority of them are Canadian productions with limited audiences outside of Canada.

David Cronenberg is probably Toronto's best known filmmaker outside of Canada (who didn't leave for Hollywood like Ivan Reitman and others) and he set many of his movies in Toronto. Videodrome was already mentioned, but his biggest box office success was The Fly, (it was backed by a Hollywood studio) and it was indeed set in Toronto.

[MonkeyRonin]

Akira - Neo Tokyo:

[dc_denizen]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Ferris Beuller is a great one.

I agree that too many movies choose the same damn cities over and over again. The odd one “branches out” to a smaller US city.

Like 90% of movies take place in New York, Los Angeles, London, or Paris. It’s frustrating.

You get major Cities like Toronto, Sydney, etc. That have basically 0 filmography set in them. Toronto’s biggest movie actually set here is probably Scott Pilgrim, a 10 year old indie cult flick with a very limited audience.

I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.

But Toronto? Sydney? Auckland? What kind of entertainment do those add to a film that can’t be achieved in, say, Chicago, or Minneapolis, or something? It’s just easier to set things there instead since American audiences are more familiar with it. Even if you still actually film in Toronto.

And it’s a damn shame. Canadian cities dominate American filmography yet are almost never used as an actual setting for the film, even when the setting can simply be “generic city” and not impact the plot whatsoever. Producers still feel the need to set it somewhere else.


If any of those cities to make the cut to even be referenced or used for a specific scene, it usually comes with some dumb stereotypical joke of how Canada or Australia is “different”. Get arrested by Mounties in Toronto or something, or some played up Aussie slang from an Australian in Sydney. It’s very low brow stuff and completely dominates US references to the countries.

I swear there is no original US jokes about Canadians. You get the same “Mounties eh? And poutine and French people and lumberjacks!” Stereotypes constantly in almost every Canadian reference. Nothing explaining actual day to day culture in the countries. Just caricatures of them.

Sorry. Rant over.

Welcome to globalized film culture, where every movie has to cater to ignorant chinese and nigerian audiences and censorship.

Boston and New york stereotypes are at least as bad

Boston: matt damon, 100x more irish than you would ever see in the city, chowdahh, blue collar urban white guys who don't exist anymore and haven't for 30 years

New York: (Scorcese, gangs, pacino, de niro, wise guys, like 100x more Italians that you would actually ever in see in NYC, etc)

I think a lot of this is because of American studio’s reluctance to “alienate” American viewers with unfamiliar cities. They only branch out of the US for settings if it adds a certain exotic allure to them. Like setting the Bourne flicks in Europe. Nobody would believe those antics could happen on US soil, so send them to Europe.. adds to the “spy” aspect of it all as well.

this is not true at all, or hasn't been for 20 years. the audience for hollywood movies in in China, Africa, India and hollywood caters to their tastes.

American cities and the urban experience and culture are hideously poorly represented in modern movies, the more so because too many films are shot in anodyne locations like Calgary and Vancouver to make the appeal more 'global'

[dc_denizen]

and if Canadian cities dominate american filmography, this is a shame and hopefully will be corrected by government action some day penalizing studios that outsource production to a protectionist foreign nation.

Canada restricts US cultural output via content rules, but expects full access to the American cultural supply chain. Pretty hypocritical if you ask me.

[suburbanite]

Oh God not that again.

[Brittney D. Rolon]

Ohhh, such a good topic!! I have an enormous list of such movies. Don't know why, but I adore 'friends with benefits' NY looks amazing there. Also, "Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List" NY again, but so sophisticated. 'the fault in our stars' Amsterdam makes me happy when I watch this movie and cry at the same time.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

and if Canadian cities dominate american filmography, this is a shame and hopefully will be corrected by government action some day penalizing studios that outsource production to a protectionist foreign nation.

Canada restricts US cultural output via content rules, but expects full access to the American cultural supply chain. Pretty hypocritical if you ask me.

The market share of English-language Canadian films at the domestic box office consistently hovers in the 1-per-cent to 1.5-per-cent range of total ticket sales. The take of Hollywood films in English Canada is approximately 95% of total box office receipts.

Pretty hypocritical if you ask me.

[suburbanite]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

The market share of English-language Canadian films at the domestic box office consistently hovers in the 1-per-cent to 1.5-per-cent range of total ticket sales. The take of Hollywood films in English Canada is approximately 95% of total box office receipts.

Pretty hypocritical if you ask me.

No no, Canadian content radio laws (you know, the economic juggernaut that is local radio these days) are putting american recording studios out of business.

Always loved his hilarious fixation on this argument, because if content was completely unregulated, like say, Spotify, where Canadians are choosing to listen to more than 20% local content, I guess that's fine? As long as no one's telling them to.

[Innsertnamehere]

Canada / the US is effectively a single media market based out of LA though.
Tons of big stars in LA are Canadians.

The problem is that Canadians move there and get financial backing from there and suddenly it’s not Can-con.

I mean do Americans think it’s a problem when they turn on the radio and Justin Beiber, Drake, and The Weeknd are playing? Or when they go to the movies and watch Avatar, directed by a Canadian? No. The markets are mixed with a lot of Canadian players in the American market. It’s not like all movies and media are produced solely by Americans and then completely dominate Canadian markets. And frankly, I don’t have a problem with it. The two countries are culturally similar enough that the two media products they produce are more or less indistinguishable from each other anyway.

I just get frustrated with the system as there is tons of Canadian content in US media but nothing is really explicit, especially in film. Movies are never really set in Canada, despite there being huge amounts of Canadians in films and working for them.

[dc_denizen]

You know what ? Tons of Hollywood stars are also new jerseyans

There is a notable dearth of Springsteen references in mass entertainment

As soon as they move to LA the accents change and the leather jackets and bandanas come off

Intolerable

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

I mean do Americans think it’s a problem when they turn on the radio and Justin Beiber, Drake, and The Weeknd are playing?

Yes.

[Atlas]

Blade Runner - neo-noir cyberpunk LA
Die Hard with a Vengeance - NYC
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World - Toronto
TRON: Legacy - Vancouver
The Dark Knight - Chicago (Gotham) and Hong Kong
Speed and The Italian Job - LA
Star Wars (I-III) - Coruscant
Tomorrow Never Dies - Hamburg and Saigon