Being an avid reader and lover of books, I love watching movies that are set in libraries. The list is long and includes favorites such as The Breakfast Club, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Shawshank Redemption, All The President's Men, Harry Potter, Se7en, Ghostbusters and one of TV's newest series The Librarians. With so many wonderful scenes filmed and/or set in a library setting, it's our pleasure to share with you some of the most beautiful libraries available for filming. To kick off the library film location series, this week we're featuring The Central Library in Indianapolis, Indiana.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that 2014 has been a busy time for Mississippi’s film industry. With 14 feature films shot in the state this past year, Mississippi's film rebate program is clearly working to bring Hollywood to the southern state.
"It's a 25% rebate on what they spend in Mississippi, and on the payroll for non-resident cast and crew," director of the Mississippi Film Office Ward Emling explained the state's film incentive packages. "Then it's a 30% rebate on resident cast and crew in Mississippi."
With their latest film Catching Fire gracing theater screens everywhere in the world this week, Liam Hemsworth and Woody Harrelson just wrapped up shooting the Western film By Way of Helena (directed by Kieran Darcy-Smith) in Greenwood, Mississippi.
Known as the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining, the Stanley Hotel hosted both the novelist and his wife Tabitha for one night in October 1974. But one night in the mountain resort of Estes Park was all it took. Rumors are the Kings were the only guests at the Stanley Hotel that night - one of the last nights before the 155-room hotel shut down entirely for the winter. They stayed in Room 217. The next morning, the prolific, world-famous writer came up with ideas for one of his most famous books of all time.
Once in a while comes along a movie in which the setting is so captivating it becomes a character in its own right. For me, this list includes movies such as Howard’s End, The Holiday, You’ve Got Mail, Something’s Gotta Give, Baby Boom, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and ... here’s the odd one that stands out from the list … Only Lovers Left Alive, cleverly written and stylishly directed by Jim Jarmusch.
Among a company of beautiful movie houses and settings, the 135-year-old mansion in Only Lovers Left Alive reigns in a league of its own. Clearly once a great beauty, the house Jarmusch features in the movie is more like an abandoned ruin than the elegant Gilded Age property it used to be. The mansion stars as the cluttered abode of Adam, a centuries-old, moody rock-star vampire who's finding himself bored and annoyed by the human race (whom he calls "zombies"). Located in the crumbling yet distinctive Brush Park neighborhood of Detroit, Michigan, Adam’s house in real life is a 6,200-square-foot Queen Anne house with the address of 82 Alfred Street, formerly known as the Whitney Mansion.
Nestled midway between Boston and New York City and on the shores of both the Thames River and the Long Island Sound, the quaint, historic waterfront City of New London is no stranger to Hollywood. It has been the film location for many movies in the past, including Amistad, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Indian Jones, Mona Lisa Smiles, Sleepers, The Family Stone, The Horse Whisperer, The Hunt for Red October, Yours, Mine and Ours, and War of the Worlds.
To add to the impressive resume, one of the most recent independent productions to film in New London is A. D. Calvo’s The Missing Girl. Having directed four feature films (mostly of the horror genre) and numerous shorts, the Argentina-born director is treading new ground with The Missing Girl, a character-driven drama about a comic book shop owner in New London, who tries to connect with a young woman working in his shop. When she leaves town for a job interview, Mort (the shop owner) jumps to the conclusion that she’s in danger.
At Comic-Con 2014 earlier this year, Quentin Tarantino finally confirmed that he will indeed turn his famous script The Hateful Eight into a movie. Set in the early 1870's post-Civil War Wyoming, The Hateful Eight tells the story of a group of bounty hunters trying to find shelter during a blizzard.
Since his letting the cat out of the bag, the director has been actively searching for the perfect film location for his screenplay. After much due diligence on various proposed locations, Tarantino decided to film The Hateful Eight entirely in Telluride, Colorado.
Being a huge fan of Wes Anderson, I was one of the first in line to watch The Grand Budapest Hotel when it was released last October. For about a hundred minutes, I was lost in the charming, nostalgic, complicated world of M. Gustave H., the fastidious concierge at the Grand Budapest Hotel in a spa town of the Republic of Zubrowka. M. Gustave’s world not only mirrors the troubled history of 20th Century Eastern Europe, it also subtly echoes the luminous settings of La Belle Epoque.
Even though it’s not yet Halloween, suspense and horror movie lovers still get a treat at the theaters this week when As Above, So Below opened nationwide last Friday, August 29. The story centers around a team of explorers who ventures into the infamous Catacombs lying beneath the streets of Paris hoping to uncover the dark secret of the city of the dead.
Gulfport, Mississippi is in the spotlight this summer as Hollywood crews are in the area filming the upcoming disaster movie Impact Earth, directed by Rex Piano and starring Tom Berenger. Filming began last week at the convenience store Country Kwik Stop in South Mississippi. Other filming locations for Impact Earth include Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College's Jefferson Davis campus, Mississippi Gulf Coast Studios, Tradition Parkway, St. Patrick's High School, and Pass Christian.
Cradled between the Pacific Ocean and Oregon’s coastal mountain ranges is the City of Cannon Beach, one of Oregon’s best-kept secrets. Populated with artists, art galleries and restaurants, Cannon Beach is a quiet, beautiful town by-the-sea. It's famous for its rugged natural beauty - such as forested headlands, magnificent monoliths, miles of pristine beaches - and its film locations. Cannon Beach is where the uber-famous Twilight (2008) and two of my personal favorite films were shot, The Goonies (1985) and Point Break (1991).
The New Mexico Film Office announced yesterday that the new feature film Bare will begin shooting in Albuquerque and Moriarty, New Mexico at the end of this month through mid-August.
To be directed by Natalia Leite, the Bare production will employ at least thirty five (35) New Mexico crew members and fifteen (15) local actors.
Three years after playing the backdrop for Spielberg’s Lincoln, Virginia once again will be the main film location for another feature film and television series. This time, it’s for Ithaca, with Meg Ryan at the helm as director, and for Season Two of the AMC new drama series TURN.
Ithaca will begin production this month and filming will continue through the summer in Petersburg and Richmond, Virginia. Ryan has been visiting Old Towne Petersburg to scout locations and even dropped in for lunch at Wabi Sabi.
Oklahoma, “where the green mountains of the East dissolve into the golden prairies of the West,” is one the most favorite film locations for filmmakers over the years. As far back as the 1970’s, many feature films have been shot in Oklahoma, including The Outsiders (1983), Where The Red Fern Grows (1974), Twister (1996), Rain Man (1988), Phenomenon (1996), Far and Away (1992), Elizabethtown (2005), To The Wonder (2012), and August: Osage County (2013). Most recently, Oklahoma serves as the setting for Lone Man’s Land, a documentary film made by Ezra Gentle.
The location scout’s mission was to find a home with a driveway in a rural area of Maryland. It would even be better to have a few horses on the property if possible. The movie to film there was Philomena, starring the fabulous Dame Judi Dench. The location scout was Carol Flaisher. She patiently drove around Montgomery County until she spotted Bill and Diana Conway’s colonial farmhouse off River Road in Potomac.
From Gilmore Girls to Parenthood, Lauren Graham has won our hearts each time she graces the screen, big or small. Recently Ms. Graham has signed on to star in MGM’s family adventure film Max, to be directed by Boaz Yakin. Pre-production has already started earlier this month in Charlotte, North Carolina with plans for filming to continue through June 20.
Max, written by Boaz Yakin (Remember The Titans) and Sheldon Lettich, is based on a true story about a military Belgian Shepherd trying to adapt to his new family after losing his handler in Afghanistan. Max finds himself bonds with the 14-year-old brother of his handler, portrayed by Josh Wiggins. Graham plays Wiggins’ young mom.
In addition to shooting in Charlotte, Max will also be filming in Asheville, North Carolina.
Millions of Breaking Bad fans have been in a long withdrawal period ever since the phenomenal series (one of the very best to ever air on television) ended in September of last year. Nothing since seems to be able to fill the void left by Walter White and company. But perhaps we can all take a breather soon because the much-anticipated Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul is getting ready to start filming in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the new series is set.
Last summer, the Michigan Film Office announced that the state approved a $35 million film incentive for DC Entertainment’s next Super Hero movie from Warner Bros. Pictures. Fast forward to today, there's finally news that principal photography for the Man of Steel’s sequel may begin this week on locations in Detroit, Michigan, and at Michigan Motion Picture Studios. Other filming locations include Illinois, Africa, and the South Pacific.
It has been 14 years since Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, one of the most beautifully-filmed movies in cinema’s history, mesmerized us all. The film made over $247 million worldwide and took home four Academy Awards including Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. Crouching Tiger fans then should be very happy to hear that the sequel, or more correctly prequel, to this epic love story is finally in the works.
Principal photography for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon II — the Green Destiny is set to begin in July 2014. Most of the movie will be filmed in New Zealand and at the Auckland Film Studios with the rest of the movie to be shot in China.
Following the success of the TNT movie trilogy The Librarian, the network now gets ready to launch a new drama series The Librarians as a follow-up to its popular trilogy. The new series will be produced by Electric Entertainment, the same folks that previously made The Librarian trilogy. TNT will film the new series on location in Oregon, where other television shows such as Grimm, Portlandia and Leverage have been filming during the past few years.
The Librarians will star Rebecca Romijn and will no doubt remind us of the beloved Indiana Jones films as it follows an ancient organization of librarians on their endless adventures to recover historical artifacts.
With the Oscars just a few weeks away, there’s much buzz in the film world about the 2014 nominees. Among the “best picture” contenders is partially-made-in-Virginia Captain Phillips, nominated for six Academy Awards. To share the exciting news of having Captain Phillips filmed in the state, the Virginia Film Office issued a press release on the movie last fall.
Directed by Paul Greengrass, the movie stars two-time Academy Award-winner Tom Hanks in the titled role and Barkhad Abdi (a first-time actor from Minneapolis) in the role of Muse, the leader of the Somali pirates. For his powerful portrayal of Muse, Abdi recently won the British Academy Award.
