March 2011 – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

March 17, 2011April 4, 2020

The Barclay Hotel from “As Good As It Gets”

This past weekend, the Grim Cheaper and I re-watched the movie As Good As It Gets, which I had not seen since it first came out in theatres almost 15 years ago. I am ashamed to admit that I had somehow forgotten what a great flick it is! While watching, I, of course, became a bit obsessed with tracking down some of the Southern California locations featured in it and just about had a heart attack when I read on IMDB’s As Good As It Gets filming locations page that the interior of the Barclay Hotel in downtown Los Angeles stood in for the movie’s fictional Café 24 Heures, where Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) worked and where Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) dined each morning. So I dragged the GC right on out to stalk the place this past Sunday afternoon. As it turns out, this location proved to be one VERY LUCKY find as it has been used in countless productions over the years.

First built in 1897 and commissioned by L.A. businessman Isaac Newton Van Nuys, the Barclay Hotel was originally known as the Van Nuys Hotel The Beaux-Arts-style building was designed by the architecture firm Morgan + Walls and, with its sprawling lobby, detailed stained glass windows, and phone service in each room, was considered one of the finest hotels of its day. In 1929, the property’s name was changed to the Barclay Hotel and there is supposedly a sign still visible on one of the building’s exterior walls which reads “Van Nuys Hotel, Rooms $1 and Up.” It would have been so incredibly cool to see, but, sadly, I could not find it anywhere. The Barclay has the distinction of being known as downtown L.A.’s oldest continuously operating hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument. It currently serves as a residential hotel which offers affordable housing to its residents, many of whom have lived there for years.

The GC and I were lucky enough to speak with the Barclay’s manager as well as one of the hotel’s longtime residents while we were stalking the place, both of whom could NOT have been nicer! They filled us in on all of the filming that has taken place on the premises over the years and allowed me to take all of the photographs of the interior that I wanted. Yay! The resident that we spoke with was literally like a walking encyclopedia of the hotel’s vast filming history and in some instances was able to tell me not only when filming of certain productions had taken place, but how long the crew was onsite, AND he also knew the names of particular episodes of shows that had filmed on the premises and the exact dates on which those episodes had aired! Speaking with him was like . . . well, it was like speaking with myself, actually. Winking smile

The Barclay Hotel’s actual, working lobby was transformed into the supposed Manhattan-area Café 24 Heures for the filming of As Good As It Gets.

According to the hotel manager, producers not only brought in several booths for the filming;

but they also built a fake waitress station;

and swapped out the lobby’s front windows with French doors, which were then swapped back after filming had wrapped.

The hotel’s real life check-in desk, which is now caged, was used as the Café’s bar in the movie.

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The entire opening scene of the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon takes place in front of the Barclay Hotel and the neighboring Farmers & Merchants National Bank, which were both made to look like they were located in New York City.

In 2002’s Catch Me If You Can, the Barclay was the apartment building/residential hotel from which a young Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) was evicted after having written a series of bad checks to the landlord.

Leo returned to the Barclay for the filming of last year’s Inception, in which the hotel was featured twice. It first showed up towards the very beginning of the movie in the scene in which Cobb (DiCaprio) is dunked into a bathtub. According to the manager, that scene was filmed in one of the Barclay’s second floor hotel rooms.

The Barclay’s lobby was later used as the African casino where Cobb meets up with Eames (Tom Hardy). The hotel’s check-in desk is where Eames cashed in his casino chips in the scene.

The Barclay also stood in for the Columbian hotel where John Smith (Brad Pitt) and Jane Smith (Angelina Jolie) met at the very beginning of 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

A fake bar was set up in the Barclay’s lobby for the filming of that scene.

In 2009’s (500) Days of Summer, the Barclay’s lobby was transformed into the coffee shop where Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) regularly hung out with his friends McKenzie (Geoffrey Arend) and Paul (Matthew Gray Gubler).

The Barclay’s former coffee shop, which is located on the southeast corner of West 4th and South Main Streets, is not currently a working restaurant, but was kept intact in order to be used for filming, which I think is so incredibly cool! Unfortunately, that area is closed to the public so I could only take photographs of it through its front windows.

The cafe was featured in the Season 5 episode of The Closer titled “Tapped Out”, in the scene in which Lieutenants Flynn (Anthony John Denison) and Provenza (G.W. Bailey) are shown eating breakfast and discussing Provenza’s new girlfriend all the while ignoring a crime taking place directly outside.

There is another vacant room located on the eastern side of the hotel that is also often used for filming.

That room was recently dressed to look like a New York bakery in the Season 7 episode of CSI: New York titled “To What End”.

The exterior of the Barclay also appeared a few times throughout the episode.

Most amazing of all, though – to me, at least – is the fact that the Barclay appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Starsky & Hutch way back in 1975, looking almost exactly the same as it does today! As I mentioned above, the check-in desk has since been caged in, but other than that minor detail, the Barclay has remained unchanged in the more than 36 years since filming took place. Love it, love it, love it!

Ironically enough, the Starsky and Hutch movie, which premiered in 2004, was also filmed at the Barclay. The flick’s opening scene took place on the hotel’s roof.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Barclay Hotel, aka Café 24 Heures from As Good As It Gets, is located at 103 West 4th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

March 16, 2011March 15, 2011

Maggie Peyton’s House from “Herbie Fully Loaded”

After fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, so expertly tracked down the Georgia Rule house for me last week, I asked for his assistance in locating the residence where the Peyton family – Ray Peyton Sr. (aka Michael Keaton) and his children Ray Peyton Jr. (aka Breckin Meyer) and Maggie Peyton (aka Lindsay Lohan) – lived in the 2005 movie Herbie Fully Loaded. Now before I get y’all thinking that I am a massive Lindsay Lohan fan or something, I would like to assure you that I most definitely am not. Nor was I a huge fan of Herbie Fully Loaded, truth be told. What I was a fan of, though, was the Peyton family’s adorable and – what I thought was – little Craftsman-style bungalow which appeared countless times throughout the movie. And while I had a hunch that the property was located somewhere in the Pasadena area, I just could not seem to find it. So last week I called upon Chas and, working together this past Monday afternoon, the two of us were finally able to track it down. Yay!

I decided to take a page out of fellow stalker Owen’s book for this particular hunt and began my search by looking through various Herbie Fully Loaded message boards to see if any fans had mentioned the home or its location. And, sure enough, several had! I first came across this filming locations thread on the LoveBugFans website on which a real life photograph of the house was posted and, amazingly enough, an address number of 1120 was visible on the curb out in front of it. After seeing that photograph, I became convinced that the home was located somewhere in Altadena. So I immediately passed that information along to Chas and he subsequently started using Google Street View to search all of the 1100 blocks in the Altadena area, even though his gut was actually telling him that the house was located in South Pasadena.

Imagine my surprise when I came across yet another thread, this time on the LoveBugCentral website, on which someone had stated that the Peyton home was located just a few doors down from Patrick Gates’ house from the National Treasure movies. And where is Patrick Gates’ house located, you ask? I am ashamed to admit that it can be found on Buena Vista Street in . . . yep, you guessed it, South Pasadena. So, after apogizing profusely to Chas for steering him in the wrong direction, I immediately opened up Google Street View and started perusing Buena Vista Street and, sure enough, found the house in just a few short minutes.

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The Herbie Fully Loaded house actually looks much different in person than it did onscreen as, for whatever reason, only a side view of the property was ever shown in the movie.

The view of the house from the street is pictured above and, as you can see, it is absolutely MASSIVE in real life – much, MUCH larger than it appeared onscreen.

In actuality the Peyton home, which was built in 1870, boasts 6 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and a whopping 3,974 square feet of living space. It is incredible to me how deceiving the home’s appearance was onscreen, as while watching the movie I had been fully convinced that Maggie’s house was a teeny, tiny, little California bungalow, ala Dylan McKay’s home from Beverly Hills, 90210.

As you can see in the above aerial view, in real life the home also sits on a GINORMOUS parcel of land.

The home’s real life backyard also appeared quite a few times in the movie.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for helping me find this location! Be sure to check out his detailed Herbie Fully Loaded filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Maggie Peyton’s house from Herbie Fully Loaded is located at 1120 Buena Vista Street in South Pasadena. Patrick Gates house from National Treasure and National Treasure: Book of Secrets is located just a few houses west of Maggie’s at 1030 Buena Vista Street. Lady Heather’s house from the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is located at 929 Buena Vista Street. And the Liar Liar house is located just around the corner at 1004 Highland Street.

March 15, 2011March 11, 2018

Rocking My Wedding Reception – Michael Jackson Style

Ever since I first watched fave movie 13 Going On 30 for the first time back in 2004 and saw Jenna Rink (aka Jennifer Garner) so charmingly reenact the Zombie Dance sequence from “Michael Jackson’s Thriller” while at a party, I became absolutely obsessed with doing the very same thing at my wedding reception. At the time the Grim Cheaper had yet to propose, nor had the two of us ever even really talked about marriage, but I knew that we would most likely be tying the knot at some point and that when we did, my friends and I were going to do that “Thriller” dance!! Unfortunately, when I actually tried to learn the dance not long after the GC finally did propose, I realized it was far too complicated for this stalker, especially considering that not only do I have two left feet, but I am by far the least coordinated person I know. So, after scouring countless MJ videos and concert clips on YouTube, I decided that the infamous “Jackson 5 Medley” – which is a compilation performance of the songs “I Want You Back” and “The Love You Save” that MJ used to perform during his many concerts and which you can watch by clicking above – would be a far easier dance to learn. The only trouble was that I did not much like the ending of the Medley featured in the clip posted above, as it seemed to be a bit anti-climactic.

I much preferred the ending of the Medley that the Jackson 5 performed during the Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever television special (which can be viewed at the 1:59 mark in the above video) in 1983. So I ended up putting together a bit of a mash-up of the two dances for my friends to perform at my reception.

The GC had informed me very early on – and in no uncertain terms – that he would definitely NOT be participating in my Michael Jackson dance extravaganza, so I instead enlisted the services of my best friend Robin and my good friend Stew. Because Stew is a complete and total ham, I asked him if he would play the part of MJ in our little production and he could not have been more excited to do so. He even hired a choreographer to teach him the dance in its entirety up in San Francisco where he lives and I purchased him a sequined jacket, glove, and bedazzled microphone to complete the look. Once I had the dance picked out and my team of dancers in place, I had to figure out a way for us to learn the darn thing. Enter my good friend, Chelsea, who has been a dancer her entire life. Chelsea readily agreed to not only perform the dance with us at my reception, but to also break it down into easy-to-learn steps and then teach it to me and Robin. She first taught the steps to us upon Robin’s arrival in Los Angeles from his native Switzerland two weeks prior to the wedding. And while Chelsea looked fabulous doing the routine, I am sorry to say that Robin and I were quite painful to watch. 😉

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But the two of us practiced every single night and I have to say that after two weeks I was incredibly impressed with our skills!!! We had that dance down and looked pretty darn good performing it, if I do say so myself. 🙂

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Stew came down to Pasadena a few days before the wedding so that we could all practice the routine together as a group. To say that this little endeavor was a labor of love is a gross understatement! There were countless man hours put into learning the dance and rehearsing it, but I cannot tell you how much fun we all had with the whole thing! Learning the steps and practicing the dance are some of my fondest memories of the entire wedding. 🙂

And the dance turned out ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, if I do say so myself!! Sadly though, we do not have a video of it. 🙁 As Murphy’s Law would have it, while almost all of our wedding was video-taped, the camera malfunctioned during our big dance number. Such a bummer! Our photographer Rob Greer did get some fabulous photographs of it, though.

Especially of the grand finale, which was my favorite part. 🙂 I cannot tell you how much fun it was to dance the “Jackson 5 Medley” at our reception and how much our guests loved our performance. If you are thinking of rocking your own wedding reception, I cannot more highly recommend doing so! It is one of the most fabulous memories of one of the most joyous days of my life!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: There is no stalking location for this particular post.

March 14, 2011March 13, 2011

Rickie’s Alley from the “So-Called Angels” Episode of “My So-Called Life”

As I have mentioned quite a few times in recent months, I just finished re-watching fave television series My So-Called Life from the beginning. And I have to say that when I came to the final episode, it was a very bittersweet moment for me as it brought up all of the same sad emotions I experienced back in 1995 when the show was first cancelled. Sigh. The only bright spot in coming to the end of my re-watching of the series was the fact that I could then begin to watch the countless special features on the My So-Called Life: The Complete Series DVDs, including – count ‘em! – seven full-length commentaries of six different episodes. And those commentaries did NOT disappoint. There were two commentaries included on the Christmas-themed “So-Called Angels” episode – one with series creator Winnie Holzman and actor Wilson Cruz and a second with the episode’s director Scott Winant. Thankfully, both Wilson and Scott dished the dirt on a few of the episode’s locations – most notably the alley featured in the opening scene, which I ran right out to stalk early last week.

In the opening scene of “So-Called Angels”, Rickie Vasquez (aka Wilson Cruz) is shown beaten and bloody, struggling to stand near the end of a snow-covered brick alley.

The camera then pans over to Angel (aka special guest star, singer Juliana Hatfield) who is sitting on the sidewalk out in front of the alley. According to Scott Winant, a snow machine had to be brought in for the filming of the scene and, at the time, the weather outside was a whopping eighty degrees despite the fact that the episode was filmed in late October.

Later on in the episode, Patty Chase (aka Bess Armstrong) follows Angel down that exact same alley while looking for her daughter, Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes), who has gone missing.

Wilson Cruz mentioned in his commentary of the episode that the alley was located on Bagley Avenue in Culver City, just down the street from Sony Pictures Studios, so I immediately started searching aerial views of Bagley to see if I could find it. As it turns out, though, Bagley is a residential street made up almost entirely of private homes – until it reaches Venice Boulevard, that is, where it turns into Main Street, a short one-block-long road with commercial businesses located on either side of it. And, sure enough, right in the middle of Main Street was Rickie’s alley! And while the shops located on either side of it (a pizza restaurant named LaRocco’s Pizzeria and a storefront that is currently vacant) have changed slightly over the years, the alley is still very recognizable from the episode. Love it!

I just about died when I saw that the yellow fire hydrant which was visible in the background behind Juliana Hatfield in the opening scene was STILL there almost two full decades later! So incredibly cool!

Scott Winant also mentioned in his commentary that the grocery store where Jordan Catalano (aka Jared Leto) ran into Rickie and offered him a ride was located right through the alley. Sadly though, that grocery store is no longer.

A SUPER nice neighborhood business owner, who gave me all sorts of scoop on filming in the area, informed me that the former Balian Market was converted into a renal dialysis center a few years back.

Thankfully though, the shop-owner also informed me that very little had been done to alter the exterior of the grocery store building since the dialysis center purchased it. Yay! The area which appeared in the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life was the former market’s back entrance, the doors of which have since been changed.

But, as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, everything else matches up perfectly, including the cut-out decor elements of the cement wall located next to the door and the iron beams which hold up the awning.

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The buildings which appear in the background behind Jordan’s car in the scene also look very much the same today as they did when filming took place over seventeen years ago.

The super nice business owner also informed me that Rickie’s alley appeared in episodes of the television series Boomtown and Bones and in the yet-to-released music video for Kim Kardashian’s new single featuring Kayne West.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Rickie’s alley, from the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life, can be found directly north of LaRocco’s Pizzeria, which is located at 3819 Main Street in Culver City. The former Balian’s Market, the grocery store where Jordan ran into Rickie, can be found just through the alley at 9432 Venice Boulevard in Culver City. My So-Called Life was filmed in the market’s back entrance area, which is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view. Jordan’s car was parked in the spot that is marked with a pink “X”.

March 11, 2011March 10, 2011

The “Georgia Rule” House

One location that I have been absolutely DYING to stalk for what seems like AGES now is the supposed Hull, Idaho-area home belonging to Georgia Randall (aka Jane Fonda) in the 2005 dramedy Georgia Rule. And I have to say here that despite being largely panned by the critics (Moviefone even rated it the Number 2 Worst Movie of the Year in 2007!), I thoroughly enjoyed Georgia Rule . . . and its locations – none more so than the adorable white Craftsman-style residence where Georgia lived. Over the past few years I had managed to track down just about every single locale which appeared in the flick, except for, for whatever reason, that house! Because director Garry Marshall had thanked the City of Monrovia in the movie’s final credits, I had an inkling that the house was most likely located there. So, using Google Street View, I spent countless hours searching through various neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley suburb – all to no avail. Then last week, I decided to bring in the big guns, so to speak, and enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, who immediately added the flick to his Netflix queue. The movie arrived in his inbox on Wednesday night and within twenty minutes of watching it, he somehow managed to find Georgia’s house – in Monrovia no less – as well as another location that had eluded me! I am telling you, the guy just has the magic touch! So, while in Monrovia taking care of my dad yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the place.

In Georgia Rule, wild child Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan) is sent by her mother, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), to live for the summer with her grandmother, Georgia, in the small town of Hull, Idaho in the hopes that doing so will calm the troubled teen’s rebellious ways.

In real life Georgia’s home, which is known as the E.N. Hawes House, was built in 1906 and is a Monrovia Historical Landmark. And I am very happy to report that the property is just as charming in person at it appeared onscreen.

The real life interior of the residence was not used in the production, but was apparently very faithfully recreated on a soundstage at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, where the movie was lensed. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that house in person!!

For whatever reason, producers changed the address number of the house from 243 to 247 for the filming. As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, though, the address plaque was kept exactly the same and producers simply swapped out the real life “3” for a “7”.

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They even went so far as to change the number painted on the curb out in front of the house.

Oddly enough, though, they did not change the number of the house located next door, even though it was highly visible throughout much of the movie.

In an interesting side note – according to Garry Marshall’s commentary on the Georgia Rule DVD, he thought the house across the street from Georgia’s was too ugly to appear in the film, so he parked a large boat in front of it during the production, hiding it from view. As you can see in the photographs above, though, the house has since been remodeled and actually has a bit of “curb appeal” today.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location! Smile You can check out Chas’ highly detailed Georgia Rule filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Georgia Rule house is located at 243 North Encinitas Avenue in Monrovia.

March 10, 2011September 26, 2012

Jack Rabbit Slim’s Restaurant from “Pulp Fiction”

This past Tuesday night, I received a very exciting text from fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, letting me know that one of his readers had finally, finally tracked down the exterior of the fictional Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant where Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) took Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) for dinner in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. When I first saw Pulp Fiction just about seventeen years ago, I thought Jack Rabbit Slim’s, which Vincent describes as a “wax museum with a pulse”, was just about the coolest place ever! With its slot car race tracks, wait staff dressed up to resemble stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and James Dean, and booths fashioned out of classic cars, the restaurant could not have been more up my alley! In fact, the diner was one of the places I most wanted to stalk upon moving to Los Angeles a little over a decade ago. So imagine my surprise – and total devastation – when I found out that it was not a real place, but a set that had been created solely for the filming of the movie. Such an incredible bummer! I always thought the producers should have built a real Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant after the movie became so successful, but, alas, they never did. Why oh why do I always have to think of everything? Winking smile Anyway, I could NOT have been more excited about Chas’ news, so I ran right out to stalk the place yesterday afternoon.

The exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s only showed up very briefly in Pulp Fiction, in the scene in which Vincent takes Mia out for dinner at a place of her choosing at the behest of her husband, Marsellus Wallace (aka Ving Rhames).

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It is while out in front of Jack Rabbit Slim’s that Vincent begs Mia to take him to another restaurant so that he can get a steak, to which Mia replies, “You can get a steak here, Daddio. Don’t be a . . . “ and she then proceeds to draw a square on the screen with her fingers, which was one of my very favorite moments of the film.

At the time of the filming, the building which stood in for Jack Rabbit Slim’s was a recently-shuttered bowling alley named Grand Central Bowl, which you can see photographs of here. The property is currently owned by The Walt Disney Disney Company and is a part of their Grand Central Business Center. The 125-acre center is on the site of Los Angeles’ first major airport – the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal, which shut down due to a decline in business in 1959. The space was transformed into a large office park shortly thereafter, much of which was leased by the Walt Disney Company beginning in 1961. In 1997, Disney purchased the entire 125-acre property and it currently serves as the headquarters for Walt Disney Imagineering. Because Pulp Fiction was produced by Miramax, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that producers chose to film the Jack Rabbit Slim’s exterior where they did.

Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s building is currently surrounded by a large cement wall and is not very visible from the street.

According to Wikipedia, the interior of the Jack Rabbit Slim’s set was built in a warehouse in Culver City and, at a cost of $150,000, was the largest line item in the production’s entire budget!

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for letting me know about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant, from Pulp Fiction, is located at 1435 Flower Street, on the southwest corner of Sonora Avenue and Flower Street, in Glendale. The property is located inside of Disney’s Grand Central Business Center, which is private property, so please do not trespass.

March 9, 2011March 9, 2011

Brenda’s Horseback Riding Center from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like forever now is the supposed Minnesota-area equestrian center where a childhood Brenda Walsh (a young actress stood in for my girl Shannen Doherty in this episode, but I, unfortunately, cannot seem to find her name anywhere online) went horseback riding in the Season 2 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Meeting Mr. Pony”. For whatever reason, though, I just could not seem to track the place down. I told the Grim Cheaper of my plight a little over a year ago and he informed me that filming had most likely taken place at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, where the classic 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman had also been lensed. So the two of us promptly ran right out to stalk the place. Oddly enough, though, when we got there, the center did not look at all familiar from 90210. It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode that I realized the GC had, in fact, been correct! So I immediately added the place to my “To Re-Stalk” list and finally made it back out there this past weekend.

In the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda goes to speak with a psychologist to deal with the fallout she endured after being robbed at gunpoint at the Peach Pit. While there, the therapist asks Brenda to think back to a time in her life when she felt the most happy and the most secure. Brenda immediately envisions her childhood riding sessions with her father, Jim Walsh (aka James Eckhouse), and her “beloved” horse, whom she actually calls both Sylvester and Sebastian in the episode! LOL

The area which appeared in the episode is the Los Angeles Equestrian Center’s main jumper ring which is located just east of the center’s main entrance.

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In the scene, Jim Walsh stood along the wooden fence that borders the southern edge of the ring, just north of the center’s main parking lot. That portion of the ring looks slightly different today as the white fence which was located behind Jim has since been removed and the wooden beams located at the bottom of the fence have since been swapped out and replaced with round pieces of wood, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph.

The approximate spot where Jim stood is denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.

The very same jumper ring was also the site of the polo match that Edward Lewis (aka Richard Gere) and Vivian Ward (aka Julia Roberts) attended in Pretty Woman.

Until next time , Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Los Angeles Equestrian Center, aka Brenda’s horseback riding center from the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 480 West Riverside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the center’s official website here. Both 90210 and Pretty Woman were filmed in the jumper ring located just east of the center’s main entrance, in the area denoted with a pink circle in the above aerial view.

March 8, 2011March 7, 2011

The 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition at FIDM

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Buckland Auction House from Charmed, this past weekend I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition which is currently on display at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising Museum & Galleries in Downtown Los Angeles and which features costumes from twenty of last year’s most celebrated films, including Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, Robin Hood, The Wolfman, Burlesque, Hereafter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right, The King’s Speech, The Last Airbender, Nanny McPhee Returns, Shutter Island, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, The Tempest, True Grit, and The Young Victoria. I had been dying to stalk the exhibition ever since first reading about it on fave website Seeing Stars a couple of weeks ago and because admission was free, the GC did not pose any objections! Yay!

Upon arrival at the museum, we were given a 24-page booklet detailing the various costumes on display, which are on loan to FIDM for the 12-week exhibition from studio archives, wardrobe departments, and personal collectors. The booklet also featured fascinating interviews with the twenty costume designers who created the varied cinematic looks. Some of the tidbits shared in the pamphlet were the fact that for the movie Clash of the Titans, costume designer Lindy Hemming had to create special closed-toes shoes for the actors to wear during the fight scenes, so as to protect their feet from injury. The tops of the custom-made shoes were painted to look like bare feet so as to appear as if the actors were actually wearing gladiator sandals onscreen. So incredibly cool!

For The Last Airbender, which was filmed on location in Greenland, costume designer Judianna Makovsky created latex gloves resembling bare human hands for the actors to wear during the filming, which often took place in temperatures that dropped to well below zero degrees. She also created special shoes with insulated platform soles for the actors to wear so as to keep their feet as far away from the snow on the ground as possible.

Penny Rose, the costume designer of Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, used such varied tools as a cement mixer and a cheese grater to give her creations the weathered look that the production required.

The filming of Inception’s many zero-gravity scenes posed some challenges for costume designer Jeffrey Kurland. He says, “The clothes in those scenes could not be hanging down because, without gravity, they would be floating. We had to do things like wire shoelaces to make sure they were standing straight out and tack down the men’s ties so they didn’t flop around at random.” Reading the booklet about the exhibition and seeing the actual costumes in person made me realize how much thought, creativity, engineering, problem solving, and detail goes into designing costumes for the big screen – so much more than I ever before realized. It was all absolutely FASCINATING to read about.

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The first costumes on display that really caught my eye were those from the movie Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which were designed by Chattoune Bourrex and Fabien Esnard-Lascombe, aka Chattoune & Fab. The costumes were incredibly detailed, yet simple and classic, much like Coco Chanel herself.

I loved, loved, loved the white dress pictured above, which was worn by Anna Mouglalis in the flick.

There were several costumes on display from Alice in Wonderland, which was the winner of the 2011 Academy Award for Costume Design. Colleen Atwood, the movie’s designer, says she collaborated quite a bit with actor Johnny Depp when creating the wardrobe for the character of the Mad Hatter. She says, “Every time Johnny and I hooked up, he took it to another place. We kept pushing it. We talked about him having all the tools of his trade apparent, so they aren’t just on a shelf but part of his costume. So he’s got his thimbles and his pincushion ring, the bandoleer of silk thread spools, the fun ribbons. All these things help make the Hatter otherworldly and magical, but still real in a sense.” She also said it was Depp who came up with the idea of the Hatter’s clothing changing color depending on his mood, an effect which was created digitally in post-production. How incredibly cool is it that an actor of his caliber is so deeply involved in the creation of all aspects of his character, including the costumes? Love it!

And while I was quite impressed with the Mad Hatter’s costume, I was not at all impressed with the gown worn by the White Queen (aka Anne Hathaway) in the flick – which I unfortunately do not have a photograph of as pictures were not allowed in the exhibition hall, something the GC and I did not realize until we had already taken the first few photos which appear in this post.

As you can see above, while the White Queen’s gown is quite detailed and appeared magical and ethereal onscreen, in person it was actually a bit disappointing. For lack of a better word, the dress appeared cheap, much like a child’s Halloween costume one would find at a five-and-dime store, which only made me further realize how difficult and complex a costume designer’s job truly is. Costume designers have to be concerned with how their designs come across onscreen, which is apparently quite a bit different than how they come across in real life. I cannot even imagine how much work it must take to determine that and my hat is definitely off to them!

The costumes that I was most excited about seeing in person – and they did not AT ALL disappoint – were those from Burlesque, all of which were designed by Michael Kaplan. Those costumes included the dress worn by Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) during the movie’s “Show Me How You Burlesque” final dance number. For the costumes worn in that scene, Kaplan came up with the idea of using absolutely no fabric, but rather gold chains that had been linked together. After designing several dresses using real gold links, however, he realized that they did not have enough “give” and did not move on the dancers’ bodies the way he had envisioned. So he opted instead to swap out the gold with rubber washers that he had purchased at a local hardware store and then painted gold. And the effect is nothing short of amazing! Even up close, it is impossible to tell that the links are rubber! Kaplan also used over 250,000 individual Swarovski crystals in the creation of the “Show Me How You Burlesque” costumes, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me! Talk about some serious bling!

The pearl-chained costume that Christina wore during the “Guy What Takes His Time” dance number was also on display. To create the “illusion of nudity” in that and other scenes, Kaplan designed a body-suit that was dyed to match the exact skin color of each individual actor. Of the bodysuit he says, “It let us keep our rating and provided something to anchor the chain.”

Kaplan also designed a skirt made solely out of garter belts for the “E.X.P.R.E.S.S.” dance number. Of the design, he says, “It was a lot of fun to do that one – it was one of my favorites.”

For the dancers’ wardrobe in the “I Am A Good Girl” scene, Kaplan went to the Western Costume Company and found costumes that had been deconstructed and taken apart. “There was something that really attracted me to them, the history or the colors or the silhouettes,” he explains. “I talked to the people at Western Costume and told them that I wanted to take these broken-down costumes and revamp them. I took them apart and then put them all back together again as different costumes. We had all this beautiful, old lace and fishnet and feathers.”

Christina’s outfit for the “I Am A Good Girl” number was also on display at the museum and it was by far my favorite out of the entire collection. The outfit was nothing short of incredible and I must have gone back to look at it at least five different times. I literally could not get enough of it, especially the shoes! Oh, the shoes! They were cream-colored high heels that had been emblazoned with hundreds upon hundreds of different-sized Swarovski crystals. The detail that went into those shoes was ASTONISHING and they were breathtaking to look at! I was absolutely SHOCKED to discover after leaving the museum that Michael Kaplan had not been nominated for an Academy Award. All the creativity, innovation, and beauty that went into those costumes and the guy was not even nominated for an Oscar???? How is that possible?????? You can see some great photographs of the shoes, as well as some of the other Burlesque costumes on the Hollywood Movie Costumes & Props website here.

The other costumes that I was most impressed with were those of Nic (aka Annette Bening) and Jules (aka Julianne Moore) from The Kids Are All Right, which you can take a look at on the FIDM Museum blog here. While the costumes were not especially detailed or unusual, they were extremely realistic – clothing I believed an actual 2010-era couple would be wearing. What struck me the most, though, was the women’s jewelry. While each woman wore strikingly different jewelry, they both had matching red and gold beaded bracelets, which was a touch that I absolutely LOVED. Those bracelets were not mentioned in the movie, but upon seeing them I conjured up a whole back-story in my mind – I could see the women purchasing them while on vacation together in some exotic locale and then wearing them daily as a reminder of that vacation. All that thought and detail put into an accessory that I am sure was not even widely noticed onscreen. It just goes to show how much costume can add to the backstory and history of a character.

I honestly cannot more highly recommend stalking the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibit at FIDM! It was a fabulous experience for me (although the GC did not enjoy it all that much Winking smile ) and I cannot wait to do it again next year!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition is open through April 30th, excluding the week of April 22nd through 25th, at FIDM’s Museum & Galleries, which is located at 919 South Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles. The exhibit is open each Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and admission is free! For more information, you can visit the FIDM Museum & Galleries official website here.

March 7, 2011March 7, 2011

Buckland Auction House from “Charmed”

I am taking a break from my wedding blogging once again today in order to write about a locale that I stalked this past Thursday evening while on my way to dinner in Downtown Los Angeles – the fictional Buckland Auction House where Prue Halliwell (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) worked during the first two seasons of the television series Charmed. Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, tracked this location down – along with pretty much every other locale that ever appeared on the series – a good two years ago and how he did so is a complete and total mystery to me!

In reality, the exterior of the Buckland Auction House is the back side of a Downtown Los Angeles apartment building known as the Renaissance Tower. The portion of the building which appeared on Charmed is not at all visible from the street nor via Google Street View and can only be reached from the inside of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park, so how Chas managed to find the place while sitting in front of his computer screen all the way across the country in Warsaw, Indiana is absolutely BEYOND me! All I can say is that my hat is definitely off to him on this one! Especially being that I had actually stalked Grand Hope Park once before – and had even blogged about it – yet did not recognize the Renaissance Tower as the Buckland Auction House!

Renaissance Tower Apartments first showed up in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in the scene in which Prue interviews for a job as an exhibition curator at the supposed San-Francisco-area Buckland Auction House. Prue lands the job and continues to work at Buckland through all of Season 1 and most of Season 2, until the episode titled “Awakening”, in which she quits her job in order to go back to school to study photography.

As I mentioned above, Renaissance Tower is situated along the south end of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park. Because the park also borders FIDM, aka the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising where Lauren Conrad and Stephanie Pratt attended fashion school on The Hills, the area popped up on regularly on the reality series during its six-season run. In the Season 3 episode titled “A Date with the Past”, the two girls are shown discussing Lauren’s recent house-warming party while sitting on a planter box located on the southern end of the park, just outside of FIDM’s entrance.

In the Season 4 episode titled “Don’t Act Innocent . . .”, Lauren confronts Stephanie about going out with Doug Reinhardt behind her back while the two are sitting on a planter box located on the park’s northern end.

This past Saturday afternoon, I dragged the GC back out to FIDM to stalk the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design currently on exhibit at FIDM’s Museum & Galleries (which I will be blogging about soon) and while there, I, of course, just had to pose like Lauren in the “Don’t Act Innocent . . .” episode. Smile

Grand Hope Park also appeared in the opening scene of the 2009 movie All About Steve, in which Mary Horowitz (aka Sandra Bullock) walks to the supposed Sacramento-area newspaper office where she works as a crossword puzzle editor.

In that scene, Mary walks through the water fountain located in the southeast portion of the park.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Buckland Auction House, from Charmed, is actually the back side of the Renaissance Tower Apartments building, which is located at 501 West Olympic Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles. The area which appeared on Charmed (which is denoted with the pink circle in the above aerial view) can best be reached from Grand Hope Park, which is located at the southeast corner of South Hope Street and West 9th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The planter box where Lauren and Stephanie sat in the “Don’t Act Innocent” episode of The Hills is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view and the planter box where they sat in the “A Date With the Past” episode is denoted with a pink arrow. The fountain Sandra Bullock walked across in All About Steve is denoted with a purple circle.

March 3, 2011March 3, 2011

My Wedding Hair and Make-Up Stylists

There are still quite a few stalking-related wedding posts that I have yet to blog about and I figured I might as well get started on them today since it has already been six months since the Grim Cheaper and I tied the knot. So here goes. For me, the decision of whether or not to hire professional hair and make-up artists for my big day was a complete and total no-brainer, much to the GC’s chagrin. Winking smile I have never been very adept at doing either my hair or my make-up, so I knew that for my wedding I had to bring in the big guns, so to be speak. Martina Maina, owner of the T-Birds Hair Salon in Burbank, has been my hair stylist for over a decade now, pretty much ever since I first moved to L.A. in February of 2000, and I absolutely love the woman to death. More than just simply my hairdresser, Martina is also my friend and I knew that there was no one else I would even fathom trusting my wedding ‘do with. Martina is an absolute hair master (she has even been dubbed the “Hair Whisperer” by her many devotees), is extremely quick and creative, does not need to work off of photographs, and is sassy beyond belief! Simply put, the woman ROCKS.

I told Martina that for my wedding, I wanted her to put my hair in a chignon – something very simple, classic, and Audrey Hepburn-esque – and without so much as even showing her a photograph of what I had in mind, she created it perfectly – and it only took her about ten minutes to do so. Not kidding! The finished product is pictured above. I have to mention here, too, that my hair stayed in perfect shape throughout the entire evening and I never even needed so much as a tiny touch-up. It was simple, easy, and beautiful – in short, EXACTLY what I had envisioned. And it looked great both with and without my veil.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this post does have a celebrity twist. Because this is Hollywood, Martina has worked with countless stars and on quite a few television shows and movies over the many years she has been styling hair. Just a few of the celebs Martina has worked on recently include Jake Busey, Quincy Jones, General Hospital’s Megan Ward, Eric Roberts, Jennifer Tilly, Sugar Ray Leonard, Crispin Glover, The World Is Not Enough’s Serena Scott Thomas, CSI: New York’s Hill Harper, Cedric the Entertainer, and Scary Movie’s Regina Hall. She was also the head hair and make-up artist for the Cathy Hughes television talk show TV One on One.

For my wedding day make-up, I knew there was only one woman for the job – Rita Montanez, whom I first met through my favorite head-shot photographer Robert Kazandjian. Robert had hired Rita to do my make-up for a set of head-shots he was taking of me back in 2007 and I fell in love with her pretty much on site! Aside from being incredibly sweet, Rita was also insanely fun to talk to and did my make-up in a VERY natural way, which I loved. So, when the GC finally proposed two years ago, one of the first calls I made was to Rita to ask her if she would be willing to do the make-up for my nuptials. Because Rita works regularly now as the head make-up artist for the television series The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, she sadly no longer does wedding make-up. But she THANKFULLY made an exception in my case once she heard that I had remembered her from so many years beforehand. Smile Like Martina, Rita has been working in Hollywood for quite a long time and has done make-up for numerous big time celebrities including Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Andy Garcia, Donald Sutherland, Lisa Kudrow, Bonnie Rait, Ray Charles, BB King, Oliver Stone, Liam Neeson, Carrie Fisher, Kelsey Grammer, Dionne Warwick, Steven Spielberg, Faye Dunaway, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, and Hugh Grant. She has also worked on the television soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. I cannot tell you how much fun it was listening to Rita’s many Hollywood stories. Sigh!

As you can see in the above photograph, I was not a traditional bride in the fact that there was only one woman in my wedding party – my best friend Kylee. For whatever reason, my closest friends have always been male and when it came time to choosing my bridal party, I did not let a little thing like gender interfere. I believe that your wedding party should be who your wedding party should be – regardless of gender, age, or anything else, really. So, my wedding parting consisted of the following: my best girlfriend, Kylee; one of my closest friends from high school, Stew; my best friend, Robin, whom I have known since I was six years old; and Mike, from MovieShotsLA.

Not surprisingly, aside from Kylee (pictured above), no one else in my wedding party wanted their hair or make-up done Winking smile .

But I did have Martina and Rita do the hair and make-up for my mom.

And her best friend, Doina, who is also my best friend Robin’s mom and who is also pretty much my surrogate mother.

And Robin’s girlfriend, Steffi, who is also one of my closest friends.

Martina even ended up giving my dad a hair-cut that morning! Smile

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The finished results were SPECTACULAR! Honestly so much more than I ever could have hoped they would be! I was absolutely amazed at how Martina and Rita managed to bring out the individual beauty in each of us rather than just creating a cookie-cutter look for the whole group. Pictured above is Kylee;

my mom;

Doina;

Steffi;

and me!

I really do not want this to come off the wrong way, but I looked absolutely amazing on my wedding day – all thanks to Martina and Rita. Trust me, I don’t normally look like that! You should see my appearance when I roll out of bed and head to Starbucks each morning. It is a far, FAR cry from the above photograph, which just proves that it is an absolute wonder – I’ll even go so far as to say it is miraculous, in fact – what a professional hair and make-up team can do. No wonder celebrities always look so fabulous! I would be in heaven if I could hire Martina and Rita to come to my house each morning to make me beautiful! If you are at all on the fence about whether or not to hire professional hair and make-up artists for your wedding day, I honestly cannot more highly recommend doing so! It is money that you will not regret spending. Not only that, but getting ready together, as my mom, Kylee, Steffi, Doina, and I did on the morning of my wedding, is one of my fondest memories of the entire day.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Hair stylist Martina Maina can be reached via her salon, T-Birds, which is located at 1808 West Olive Avenue in Burbank. You can visit the official T-Birds website here. Make-up artist Rita Montanez can be reached via her website, Makeup by Rita, here.