Coming to a silver screen near you

There’s much movie making afoot in New York City just now, not that there isn’t always some sort of filming going on, episodes of Law and Order and what not, but the city seems to be especially popular with filmmakers at the moment. According to Gawker.com Simon Pegg (love him) and Kirsten Dunst (hmmm, not so keen) are filming the final scenes of "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People" today, the movie based on Toby Young’s book; Cameron Diaz is apparently lurking in Chelsea filming “What happens in Vegas” and a bearded Adam Sandler was recently spotted shooting scenes for some movie on the Upper East Side. You almost can’t walk 10blocks without coming across a convoy of Haddad’s location trailers and a gaggle of crew and extras huddled around the catering truck and scoffing bacon sarnies.

While the experience of actually seeing New York on the big screen always gives me the chills - pinch me! I can’t believe I live here - it can also be something of a distraction. For me watching a movie set in New York is a bit like watching a film where someone you know, say your aunt, is playing one of the peripheral characters. They’re playing a character that isn’t necessarily critical to the plot, but each time you see the person on screen it distracts you from the action. You can’t help but ignore what the main character is doing, because you’re thinking “hey, that’s my aunt over there in the background.” When I see New York on screen I can’t help but start scrutinizing the location to try and work out which neighbourhood the scene was filmed in. As a result I usually end up missing critical pieces of the plot.

The other thing I find distracting about movies filmed in New York is when the streets I know so well are rearranged for movie making purposes. For some reason I find this incredibly irritating, although why it should matter to me I don’t know since on the whole I'm really very good about suspending my disbelief when watching a film. Realism generally matters not a jot. Take the recent Bourne Ultimatum movie for example - no spoilers here – where I found it perfectly acceptable that Matt Damon (phwoargh) could walk unscathed from a car which had been squished flat by an articulated lorry after a particularly violent car chase. In fact I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if a T-Rex had suddenly appeared on screen and chased him up First Avenue. Perfectly acceptable. However when Matt walked along 3rd Avenue, passing 48th street and then turned a corner and ended up at Port Authority bus station, well I was ready to throw my shoes at the screen.

"Pht! That’s sooooo unrealistic" I scoffed –"there’s no wayyyyyy you can get to Port Authority from there. You've got to go south 5 or 6 blocks to 42nd Street and THEN go west for 7 avenue blocks before you’ll get to Port Authority Bus Station. It would take at least 20minutes, but they expect me to believe that he can walk one block north on 3rd avenue and arrive there? It’s completely ridiculous. These film people must think we’re idiots."

Ahem!!

....And don’t get me started on that scene in Spiderman 2 – a movie clearly set in New York, Peter Parker lives in Queens for God’s sake - where Spidey stops the runaway train which runs along elevated tracks which the uninitiated no doubt assumed was downtown Manhattan. Errr no!!! In fact there was a collective “WHAT THE …” during that specific scene from me and my fellow New York movie patrons, since although there is indeedio an elevated subway in New York, there is NOT an elevated train that runs between the downtown skyscrapers. THAT particular train my friends would be in Chicago. I may be taking my locations a little too seriously, but folks; I kid you not, that geographical snafu almost ruined the entire movie for me.

Maybe I should see if I can get a job as a New York location scout and sort these movie people out once and for all. Hmmm, now there’s an idea :-)

Photo Credit: Jenny Vee @ Flickr