Movies set in San Francisco?

[MerryWanna]

Just realized the poster features the Transamerica building which can't be right. I mean, some of it occurs after, long after, the Zodiac killer being active but I doubt they're intending to show a skyline of the city from that time.

Watched Zodiac on Halloween Night.  Not bad - I was expecting much more exploitation, but this was a detective story. And as it turns out, the poster is accurate, since the case went on all the way through the 1970s.  There's even a nifty scene, made to look like time-sped camera work, of the Pointy Thing being built.  I loved that.

A good film in general but since it was "based on" the case it was hard to know what was and wasn't true.  Now I have to go find one of those serial killer sites, or trust that Wikipedia's page author didn't just crib from the movie, and see what really DID happen.

[Nergol]

Speaking of Bay Area landmarks being built on film, there's a first-season episode of Streets of San Francisco where they chase a crook through the then-unfinished 24th St. Mission BART station. I thought it was kind of interesting seeing it still under construction.

Did anyone mention the Dr. Who movie? It was allegedly set in the city, though only a few scenes were shot there. The rest was shot in Vancouver, which really, completely, notably doesn't look like San Francisco.

[MerryWanna]

A film based on what, I personally believe, is a pretty decent concept in community policing.

Yes.  The idea is particularly relevant in terms of San Francisco because like the micro-climates we have here, our different districts have different cultures.

I actually think it could be adapted for Detroit as well.

Incidentally, in the unlikely event I am ever in Detroit (perhaps whilst taking that pie-in-the-sky cross-country trip to see New York) where do you think the most likely place is that "my kind of people" - hippies, artists, soft-druggers, and the like - live and play there?

[MerryWanna]

Speaking of Bay Area landmarks being built on film, there's a first-season episode of Streets of San Francisco where they chase a crook through the then-unfinished 24th St. Mission BART station. I thought it was kind of interesting seeing it still under construction.

Coincidentally, I just downloaded the first season of Streets today.  I have good memories of watching this show with my mother while I had to stay in Sacramento; although my mother never liked the City as much as me, preferring greatly the hot weather where she used to eke out her final years, it was one of those things we both enjoyed.

I was always noticing the incorrect or impossible addresses and intersections heard on police radio - and secretly invented a drinking (or toking) game where you'd get together with your City friends (it wouldn't work with anyone who didn't live here, or once have done so) and every time you heard a reference to a place no map of the City would show, everyone'd have to drink or smoke. You could end up pretty wasted at the end of an hour!

Did anyone mention the Dr. Who movie? It was allegedly set in the city, though only a few scenes were shot there. The rest was shot in Vancouver, which really, completely, notably doesn't look like San Francisco.

Except for all the ex-San Franciscans running around. 

Over the past 15 years or so particularly during the Shrub years, we lost lots of our fun, non-alcoholic hippies to Vancouver when they started fearing all sorts of things would happen - things I admit I feared just as much, but just didn't have the resources or the will to go that far.  I rode it out, knowing if that sort of shit started getting serious, Canada wasn't going to be much of an escape.

Will put the Dr. Who movie on my list, though, because I like Dr. Who.  Not as much as San Francisco, but quite a bit.

[Tripe]

A film based on what, I personally believe, is a pretty decent concept in community policing.

Yes.  The idea is particularly relevant in terms of San Francisco because like the micro-climates we have here, our different districts have different cultures.

I actually think it could be adapted for Detroit as well.

Incidentally, in the unlikely event I am ever in Detroit (perhaps whilst taking that pie-in-the-sky cross-country trip to see New York) where do you think the most likely place is that "my kind of people" - hippies, artists, soft-druggers, and the like - live and play there?

If Prop M passes on Tuesday pretty much all of the city. Otherwise Ferndale, Royal Oak, Hamtramck and, if you want to venture out from the metro area a bit (or stop before reaching the metro area considering the direction you'll be coming from) Ann Arbor; especially during Hash Bash.

[MerryWanna]

Incidentally, in the unlikely event I am ever in Detroit (perhaps whilst taking that pie-in-the-sky cross-country trip to see New York) where do you think the most likely place is that "my kind of people" - hippies, artists, soft-druggers, and the like - live and play there?

If Prop M passes on Tuesday pretty much all of the city. Otherwise Ferndale, Royal Oak, Hamtramck and, if you want to venture out from the metro area a bit (or stop before reaching the metro area considering the direction you'll be coming from) Ann Arbor; especially during Hash Bash.

Holy Moley, and here I was thinking of Michigan as a blood-red state with Christian militia compounds filled with people who go out and shoot hippies and homosexuals (or anyone assumed to be such) for target practice.  It gives me an embarrassing chill to realise I have had such ignorant prejudices.  Thanks a LOT for clearing that up.

So your state's got a medpot proposition? I hope you'll read my lengthly drug screed and vote YES.  (It's on the latest Urban Legend LOC thread, as an answer to that "Drugs are Liked by That...forum member" post.  Which I thought was a hoot! But the screed in reply is really off topic, and so I may try to move it to its own thread, if I can figure out how to do that as a non-moderator.)

Another matter entirely - how does one pronounce "Hamtramck"? (And properly, not like an ig'nant Californian... )

[Tripe]

No we've had a medicinal for about 5 or 6 years. Prop M is a personal use proposition (1.5oz I think).  The main spokesperson for the pro campaign is a monumental arsehole in every interview I've heard with him so I don't know if that will hurt it or not.

Ham-tram-ik but with a really soft i, so maybe Ham-tram'k is closer.

[Nergol]

I was always noticing the incorrect or impossible addresses and intersections heard on police radio - and secretly invented a drinking (or toking) game where you'd get together with your City friends (it wouldn't work with anyone who didn't live here, or once have done so) and every time you heard a reference to a place no map of the City would show, everyone'd have to drink or smoke. You could end up pretty wasted at the end of an hour!

To me, the funniest part of Birdemic was the first date, where they meet for dinner in San Jose (and way east in SJ, down on Tully Road, at that), then walk past Coit Tower in SF, then dance at Toon's in downtown SJ, then walk down a street in what looks like the Richmond District in SF, before delivering Nathalie home. This, of course, would have made this about a seven-hour date (closer to nine for Rod, including his drive back to his place after dropping her off), including three or four hours of driving - and that's assuming Rod got on 280 in the best possible traffic and floored it in the hybrid 'Stang.

I know James Nguyen has an obsession with driving around, but four hours or so driving up and down highways seems a bit excessive on a first date.

And this, of course, leaves the question of how Nathalie got to Tully Road in the first place. If she drove, where's her car, and why did Rod have to drop her off at home at the end of the date? If she didn't, then she had to have sat on Caltrain for an hour and change, then gotten on the VTA 22 bus for another 45 minutes or so between Diridon and damn near Eastridge in that yellow minidress. VTA is probably the least skeevy of the Bay Area bus systems, but still, I don't know if I'd do that.

The second-funniest part was the part where Rod goes to work at his office - which is apparently located inside the Santa Clara Convention Center. I guess that's the only place James Nguyen could have his leading man park and nonchalantly walk inside a reasonably office-looking building without getting stopped by security, but still...

But I overthink this, I think.

[Nergol]

Also, did anyone mention Star Trek IV?

[Tripe]

Ok now I'm convinced you're ignoring Compound for some reason.

[MerryWanna]

Watched mildly entertaining fluff piece So I Married an Axe Murderer, made in 1993 (an embarrassing year for me) this morning...starring Michael Myers as Charlie, a Frisco dude who seems to have a job as a cop, though we never see him doing anything cop-like.  What we see him doing is going to beatnik poetry readings - yes, they still exist, and still existed in '93 - regaling audiences with his poems about chicks he dumped because he thought they were too scary but really because he had a Fear of Commitment.  (When we meet his Scottish folks, we sort of see why this is.)  There's a scene of their 30th Anniversary Party, the one where he proposes to Harriet, the Scariest Girl of All.

As I mentioned above, this movie was particularly interesting to me because the film crews were gathered right in front of what had been, at that time, my building, 938 Geary Street. During the movie, though, I got pissed off after the credits rolled, after I'd seen not one single shot of the 900 block of Geary.  Big disappointment.  I was confused.  What the hell WERE they filming?

Then I had a headwhack memory.  Duh.  What used to exist in the retail bottom floor of the apartment building NEXT to mine, on the west side, was a popular Scottish pub. They had poetry nights on Fridays, and a fairly large crowd for these, barely any of them actually Scottish.  So...bingo.  All the indoor scenes were filmed at that damn pub, so that's why the crew were around for what seemed like months.  For all I know, Harriet's "house" was actually one of the empty apartments above 940 Geary, or whatever the address was - I think the numbering was screwy on that block.

This is a pet peeve I have with all Frisco movies.  And it happens a lot.  Establishing shots of famous spots, in this case North Beach and Jack Kerouac Alley, or Street or whatever, which is a tiny cul-de-sac that barely exists...but there IS an actual beatnik pub there, and it was there 20 years ago, too. Surely they could have filmed the poetry scenes in the actual location? If not, why not "establish" using the actual location your scene is going to take place in, or at?

Do people who don't live here, or have never been here, have to be clobbered on the head with establishing shots like this to get the idea "he's doing beat poetry, because he's on JACK KEROUAC STREET!"

A similar peeve with Frisco establishing shots, especially in this movie: it was almost as bad as The Room, regarding how many times we had to see famous SF locations in EVERY outdoor scene.  Golden Gate Bridge, cable cars, Coit Tower, Palace of Fine Arts, the Pointy Thing...Now, this is stupid, and here's why.  It might be more necessary, say, if you're making a movie set in Minneapolis/St. Paul, to show that arch sculpture everyone associates with the Twin Cities, since once you leave it, the buildings pretty much look like buildings in any other city.  San Francisco is not like this.  You can tell you are there automatically, since the Victorian buildings and the HILLS give it right away. One of my huge loves of this place, which would keep me firmly rooted here despite any reason to leave that wasn't REALLY important (like an oncoming tsunami) is that I love this look. 

I've spent almost 25 years living here and another five years prior to that spending half my time here while living in Berkeley.  You can tell you're in Frisco from almost anywhere in Frisco, save for maybe the Lower Mission - unless the Giants just won the World Series, in which case you will think you're in a Mexican Iraq.

Which brings me to my Really Big SF Establishing Shot Peeve.

Is there a Frisco movie in existence that doesn't have at least one shot of that one block of California Street, with a park on the north side and a cresting hill, with officey building tops showing beneath it, and Victorian apartments on the south side, and a cable car running down said hill, usually stopping with someone getting off there? I tried to find a photo of it, but Flickr doesn't let me link to anything and my computer keeps crashing.  You've seen this in The Room, anyway. 

Here's why this is stupid. If the star of the film isn't either a millionaire or the "pet" of a millionaire, they aren't going to have a residence around Russian Hill or Telegraph Hill. (If you see "The Crookedy Thing" - Lombard Street - as the street your character is walking around on, looking homeward bound, ditto for same reason.) 

Anyone riding that California Street cable car is a tourist. Virtually no resident rides the fucking cable car to get around because it costs twice as much as a regular Muni bus, and has a very limited route, and long lines to get on it.  I like the niftiness of them, the bells they make, but Jesus F. Christ, can't the movie people get real? No one who lives over there's even using public transportation at all, they have a car and a garage to park it in.  That's a tony spot there, and probably EXACTLY for the reason that it's so famously recognizable.

Same thing goes for the "Pink Ladies", that row of houses around the Upper Fillmore area, but around Buchanan or Laguna (I don't want to look at the map, before I end up having my box crash again.) Those houses are beautiful. None of them, or any house in the area of that park, though, is going to be lived in by anyone without great credit and years of a seven-figure income. There are, however, scads and scads of pretty houses like this all over San Francisco, which don't demand such rich tenants (though I could never afford them, sadly) that look just as San Francisco-ey as the Pink Ladies.  They just are not on six million post cards.

Do filmmakers have any other annoying habits like this with other cities?

[MerryWanna]

How about The Rock, Bullit and/or the Dirty Harry films?

48 Hours? Edtv? Foul Play? Star Trek IV? Ooh. Big Trouble in Little China. That should work.

Got 'em all except Big Trouble in Little China...that's still on my list, though.  Have watched Foul Play, again, remembering watching it with Mom when I was 13, and it may have even been the first time I told her, "That's where I'm going to live when I grow up!" Even though I knew it far before then...

I'm pretty sure the building Goldie Hawn is walking around the ledges of is actually either a quite familiar apartment house on the corner of Geary and Polk, where I once went to often, for reasons I won't go into - or else what is now the Civic Center Hotel, on Market and 12th.  But I'm betting on the other, because the hotel doesn't have surrounding apartment houses...but it may have in 1978.  The buildings both have really similar red brick facades.

I'm going to watch bang-bang blam-blam face-punchy cop movies tonight, at least one or two of them, as I'm in a sort of crummy, angry headspace right now (for no serious reasons) and they'll fit my mood.

[MerryWanna]

Ok now I'm convinced you're ignoring Compound for some reason.

Not at all.  What makes you think that? His snotty remarks about my meth post on the LoC? That didn't bother me at all.  He's probably got a damn good reason to have felt the way he did - I even apologised to him for accidentally bringing it up, and he said it was no problem. 

His SF film suggestions were actually the first ones I started getting a hold of when this topic started.

[Tripe]

No I was talking to Nergol, twice in this topic he's suggested films Compound already suggested (in the same post as it happens).

[MerryWanna]

To me, the funniest part of Birdemic was the first date, where they meet for dinner in San Jose (and way east in SJ, down on Tully Road, at that), then walk past Coit Tower in SF, then dance at Toon's in downtown SJ, then walk down a street in what looks like the Richmond District in SF, before delivering Nathalie home. This, of course, would have made this about a seven-hour date (closer to nine for Rod, including his drive back to his place after dropping her off), including three or four hours of driving - and that's assuming Rod got on 280 in the best possible traffic and floored it in the hybrid 'Stang. [...]

And this, of course, leaves the question of how Nathalie got to Tully Road in the first place. If she drove, where's her car, and why did Rod have to drop her off at home at the end of the date? If she didn't, then she had to have sat on Caltrain for an hour and change, then gotten on the VTA 22 bus for another 45 minutes or so between Diridon and damn near Eastridge in that yellow minidress. VTA is probably the least skeevy of the Bay Area bus systems, but still, I don't know if I'd do that.

Oh Gods, that was even worse than "figuring out the route Johnny takes to get home after work" in The Room. I'm fairly sure you are right about their walk before taking her home was here, though it looked more Sunsetish than Richmondish, even though those districts start looking exactly the same the closer to the sea you get, Richmond has fewer apartment houses. But you see the pair walk home and stop at a building ON THAT STREET, and a fairly low-grade apartment building for a Victoria's Secret level model, jeepers - SHE should be living up on Russian Hill! - and they don't drive ANYWHERE between the street scene and the apartment scene.  She's not supposed to live here in the City, but apparently, she does, and sure wouldn't have much trouble paying her rent, either.

Even the cruddier buildings in the Sunset are too expensive for most people.  Nathalie (she really spells her name with a silent 'h'? Oy, James Nguyen, oy...) might have had trouble getting to rent one, though - the Sunset has a notorious racism problem, with Asians tending to move only other Asians into their buildings.  This is completely illegal, yet happens anyway - and after I got kicked to the curb by my ex, and was without a real place to live for almost half a year, in 2008 I encountered this problem myself: after getting a spot in a rooming house, paying my first/last check and having it clear, I went, with relief, to the house to pick up the key, only to meet the landlord. And when HE saw I was not Asian - the manager who'd okayed my taking the room, apparently, had been unaware of the 'policy' about this -  he told me there'd been a 'mistake' and after a curt apology which sounded 0% sincere, silently returned my money to me.  I actually saw the Chinese couple they picked to replace me moving their things into what was to be my room as I was doing this.  Suddenly, I realized there weren't any white, black or brown people in this house at all, and remembered someone had warned me not to bother trying to rent a place anywhere in that district.  I hadn't believed him.  I do now.

If I hadn't been so busy trying to get a place to live, I'd have tried to do something about it, but realized the owner could just make up some other reason he chose to change his mind, and after that happened, I didn't want to live in the place anyway.