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

[Yuri]

I didn’t remember Rain Man was in Cincinnati. What about Cleveland and St. Louis? They seem to be overlooked given their size.

[plinko]

Originally Posted by suburbanite

A month ago I dont think I would have been able to name a movie I'd seen that took place in Cincinnati. Out of pure coincidence though, quarantine Netflix suggestions had me watching Dark Waters and The Killing of a Sacred Deer back-to-back. Unfortunately the city isn't really a focal point in either. Dark Waters felt like an Erin Brockovich re-hash (even though it's based on it's own true story) but the latter at least leaves more memorable impressions of it's setting in arid Southern California.

There’s a terrible roller blading movie called Airborne with Jack Black and Seth Green that is set in Cincinnati. Lots of good city scenes including a roller blade race through a bunch of the hilly neighborhoods.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Cleveland has Major League but that one was mysteriously filmed mostly in Milwaukee (probably to accommodate Bob Uecker).

Captain America: The Winter Soldier had battle scenes filmed in Cleveland but I think it was supposed to be set in New York or Washington DC?

As for St. Louis, I have no idea? There's an establishing shot of the city circa 1983 in National Lampoon's Vacation where the Family Truckster is crossing the Mississippi River into Missouri.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by plinko

There’s a terrible roller blading movie called Airborne with Jack Black and Seth Green that is set in Cincinnati. Lots of good city scenes including a roller blade race through a bunch of the hilly neighborhoods.

Of some amusement to locals is the fact that the final race was technically filmed in a bunch of different neighborhoods on both sides of the river because, even though they were racing down a singular hill, no such hill actually exists like that anywhere in Cincinnati.

I almost hate to admit having watched it once. It was indeed horrible.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I didn’t remember Rain Man was in Cincinnati. What about Cleveland and St. Louis? They seem to be overlooked given their size.

Meet Me in St. Louis and The Glass Ménagerie are classics for St. Louis.

I was going to mention Major League for Cleveland. I believe Howard the Duck and Fahrenheit 451 are also set in Cleveland.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by yuriandrade

I didn’t remember Rain Man was in Cincinnati. What about Cleveland and St. Louis? They seem to be overlooked given their size.

most of the urban midwest is overlooked when it comes to the silver screen.

when hollywood even bothers to shoot the urban midwest, it seems that chicago and detroit are the go-to's.

speaking of detroit and film, 8 Mile and Gran Torino are two of the best "city films" ever made.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

when hollywood even bothers to shoot the urban midwest, it seems that chicago and detroit are the go-to's.

I've seen Toronto act as a stand-in for a lot of Midwest cities as well.

[Hindentanic]

"The Russia House" (1990) was among the earliest U.S. movies allowed to be filmed on location inside the Soviet Union, and it has a wonderful scene where Sean Connery and Klaus Maria Brandauer stroll into Leningrad's Palace Square before the Winter Palace. I fell in love with the romanticism of tsarist St. Petersburg after this scene:

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"Black Rain" (1989) by Ridley Scott had great Blade-Runneresque visuals of Osaka. I did not even realize till now that the now-demolished Kirin Plaza Osaka by architect Shin Takamatsu was seen in that film, and that I had seen one of my favorite buildings by one of my favorite architects long before I knew who or what either of them even were.



(Images from Paramount Picture's "Black Rain" found on Choukousoubiru Jouhou)

Of course, Osaka and Tokyo had long earlier been seen in model form in countless Godzilla movies and Dynaman tokusatsu shows.


"Empire of the Sun" (1987) from Steven Spielberg was a fascinating recreation of 1941 art deco Shanghai, especially as it was the first U.S. production there since the 1940s and came just before the modern skyscraper boom of the 1990s forever changed the old treaty port skyline:

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Such was the impact of reintroducing the romanticism of pre-war Shanghai to U.S. audiences that I recall Cathay Pacific at the time also using the movie's theme song, Welsh lullaby "Suo Gân," in some of its television advertising for cross-Pacific flights to Asia.


"Amadeus" (1984) romantically inspired us with dreamy impressions of the charm and music of Baroque and Enlightenment Vienna under Joseph II, except it wasn't actually Vienna. Beautiful Prague with its larger collection of preserved Baroque buildings is the stand-in for the Austrian imperial capital.

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[Crawford]

Gran Torino shows a lot of Detroit, but I feel it isn't really a classic Detroit movie, because it's based on Minneapolis. It's mostly filmed in Highland Park, which is 99% black and doesn't have grumpy old white men or Hmong. There used to be a tiny Hmong community on Detroit's Eastside, but it's now in suburban Warren.

White Boy Rick, to me, is a good recent Detroit movie. But it's filmed in Cleveland.

It Follows, a recent horror movie, is almost entirely filmed in the northern suburbs of Detroit.

Detroit 9000, a 1970's action movie, has a ton of street scenes and now vanished landmarks.

[iheartthed]

Detroit was used a lot as an urban stand-in for movies that were filmed between roughly 2005 and 2015, thanks to the Jennifer Granholm film tax incentives. Rick Snyder, her successor as governor, made it a priority to roll back most of the incentives when he took office. Of the more well known: "Batman vs. Superman", The Michael Bay Transformers series, and "Dreamgirls" (which was also set in Detroit).

Ironically, "Detroit" the movie was mostly filmed in Boston.

[MolsonExport]

Roger & Me (1989), and Flint.
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and Amway
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[Nantais]

The French action/thriller movie Peur sur la ville (Fear over the city) offers great views of the changing Parisian landscape in the 1970's (emerging tower blocks among the traditional urban fabric, highways, etc.), as well as some truly amazing stunts all done by Belmondo himself.

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Another movie which specifically treats of the changing urban landscapes in the 1950's-1970's era is Playtime (1967) :

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[kool maudit]

Cleveland played a central role in American Splendor, given Harvey Pekar's lifelong residence there.

One visually stunning film that made great hay of its setting was In Bruges. Weirdly for me, 2018's Stockholm was actually a Canadian production.

[sopas ej]

A great time capsule of post-WWII Paris is "The Red Balloon." It's a French short film that was made in the 1950s, but it shows a neighborhood that apparently has been mostly torn down. The film notably won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and to date, is the only short film to do so.

I saw it in class, in elementary school in the late 1970s; talking to other Gen-Xers like myself, apparently a lot of kids my age saw this movie in elementary school. There's hardly any dialogue in the film, so any kid can watch it without having to read subtitles.

I had only seen it once in elementary school, and then I saw it again a few years ago, and the ending moved me almost to tears. Funny how because of life experiences and whatnot (I was going through post-grief when I saw it again), a movie can be interpreted a lot differently when you watch it as a middle-aged person as opposed to a 4th grader.

The scenes of the city are so gray and run-down, that the bright red balloon really stands out.

If you're quarantining at home and are with your kids, I think it'd be great to watch together as a family.

Here is the whole film:
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[Crawford]

As a lover of grit, I need to watch Paris 1960's-70's era films. Polanski's The Tenant is pretty good for mid-70's Paris.

[38 Geary]

XXX - Prague
The Fast and the Furious - LA

[JManc]

Heat - 1990's LA
Ronin - 1990's Paris
Léon - 1990's New York
Chinatown - 1970's LA
Blow Up - 1960's London

Originally Posted by Acajack

Rain Man was set in Cincinnati...

Boxer shorts. Kmart. 400 Oak Street. Cincinnati Ohio

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by JManc

Chinatown - 1970's LA

Wasn't that set in the 30s?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

Wasn't that set in the 30s?

Yes, you're right; it came out in the 70's but set in the 30's. It's been a long time since I've seen it.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Originally Posted by JManc

Boxer shorts. Kmart. 400 Oak Street. Cincinnati Ohio

That's actually the address for the now closed/vacant Vernon Manor hotel. The hotel scenes were filmed there and I believe it's where a good chunk of the cast and crew stayed while filming in Cincinnati.

Also, Kmart sucks.

Sadly, 97x ("Bam! The future of rock and roll!") is no longer around, either.