entertaiment – Page 2 – IAMNOTASTALKER

December 18, 2009December 18, 2009

Nakatomi Plaza from “Die Hard”

Because we are currently knee deep in the middle of the Christmas Season – which just so happens to be my favorite season 🙂 – I decided to focus my next few blog posts on locations featured in holiday movies. And what better way to start off those Christmas posts than to blog about Nakatomi Plaza, the main building featured in the 1988 movie Die Hard. OK OK, so yes, it can be argued that Die Hard is not your traditional holiday flick, but because the entire movie takes place on the night of Christmas Eve and because Christmas music is played throughout, I deemed the production to be holiday-blog-worthy. 🙂 As surprising as it may sound, I had actually never seen Die Hard until just this past October, when my friend Robin came to visit and pretty much forced me to sit through the movie in its entirety. And, let me tell you, after it was over, I was just itching to stalk the Fox Plaza building in Century City, which stood in for Nakatomi Plaza in the flick. Fox Plaza, which measures 492 feet tall and houses a whopping 900,000 square feet of office space!!!, is the current headquarters for the 20th Century Fox film corporation. The Plaza was designed in 1987 by architects William L. Pereira, Scott Johnson, and Bill Fain. Pereira was also responsible for designing such landmarks as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco, the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim (LOVE IT!), and the Geisel Library – named after Theodore Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss – on the campus of UC San Diego, which just so happens to be my alma mater! 🙂 Geisel Library has actually been featured in several productions, including the movie Killer Tomatoes Strike Back, but I’ll save that information for a future post 🙂

Die Hard takes place, pretty much in its entirety, on location at Fox Plaza. For the movie, both the interiors and the exteriors of the building were used. I am fairly certain, though, that the interiors of the actual Nakatomi offices, where the holiday party scenes took place, were sets that were built on a studio soundstage on the 20th Century Fox lot.

Unfortunately, most areas of the building that were featured in Die Hard are not accessible to the public. In the second aerial image of Fox Plaza pictured above, the pink arrow depicts the entrance to the building that can be viewed from the street and from where I took the photographs featured in this post, while the purple arrow denotes where most of the filming of Die Hard took place. As you can see, they are on opposite sides of the property.

The areas of Fox Plaza used in Die Hard include the building’s porte-cochere,

the revolving front doors of the main entrance;

the front desk;

the elevator bay;

and the main lobby, which we were able to snap a few photographs of through the building’s front windows. While taking said photographs, my fiancé and I were confronted by a VERY angry security guard who was obviously wearing his underpants too tight that day, because he literally came running after us to inform us, not so politely I might add, that if we did not vacate the premises immediately, we would be escorted off the property and our camera confiscated!!! I’ll never understand why people like that get so bent out of shape at us stalkers! If you’re going to put your building in a movie – in what is arguably the most famous action flick of all time, no less! – then you’ve gotta expect that people are going to want to stalk the place! It’s only natural. Geez! 😉

And, while the roof of Nakatomi Plaza was completely blown off at the end of Die Hard, that, of course, did not take place in real life. A scale model was used during the filming of the explosion scene and I am happy to report that the real Fox Plaza roof is one hundred percent intact. 😉

According to Wikipedia, the lobby of the Fox Plaza building was also used in the beginning elevator scene from the movie Speed, but that information is actually incorrect. After recently re-watching Speed, it is clear that both the interior and exterior of the Gas Company Building in Downtown Los Angeles were used for that scene. If you compare the above pictured screen captures to these photographs of the Gas Company Building, you can see that they are a perfect match. I must say that I was more than just slightly peeved to discover this erroneous information on Wikipedia, being that the encyclopedia website has apparently banned my blog from being cited as a source, deeming me “unreliable”! LOL So let me get this straight – I’m considered unreliable, but the douche bag who put up the Speed information is completely credible! Nice job, Wikipedia! Way to sift through your sources! 😉 Also according to Wikipedia (so who knows if this information is correct), Fox Plaza was featured in the 1994 movie Airheads and a cartoon rendering of it was shown in the Season 7 episode of Family Guy entitled “Fox-y Lady”. The building was also used as the law firm where Anthony LaPaglia worked in the television series Murder One. And, in real life, Ronald Reagan set up his main offices in the 34th floor penthouse of Fox Plaza following his presidency.

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Fox Plaza, aka Nakatomi Plaza, is located at 2121 Avenue of the Stars in Century City. Please remember that Fox Plaza is private property, so if you decide to stalk this location, DO NOT trespass, or you will be escorted off the premises and your camera confiscated. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya! 🙂 The Gas Company Tower from the beginning of Speed is located at 555 West 5th Street in Downtown Los Angeles.

December 14, 2009November 8, 2010

Clown Dog Restaurant from “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”

UPDATE – I just drove by this location last week and was shocked to discover that the entire thing had been completely torn down. The only part of it left standing is the All American Burger sign pictured below. 🙁 A Chipotle restaurant is currently being built in its place. So incredibly sad! I will leave this post up, though, for those stalkers who are interested in seeing photographs of how it used to look.

A few weeks ago, I dragged my boyfriend out to Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood to stalk a restaurant named All American Burger – a location which has been on my list of places to stalk ever since fellow stalker Owen informed me that it stood in for the Clown Dog diner where Bryan (aka Josh Charles) worked in fave movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. In a random twist of fate, Owen happened upon this information during his search for the main house used in Don’t Tell Mom back in September. While trying to track down that location, Owen came across an interview with actor Keith Coogan, who played Christina Applegate’s younger brother Kenny in the flick, who had this to say, “The film was shot entirely in Southern California. Mostly in the San Fernando Valley and Santa Clarita/Antelope Valley areas. The house is really close to Six Flags Magic Mountain. Some locations were in the heart of Hollywood, like the roof of the Holiday Inn, and the Clown Dog is actually an ‘All American Burger’ located on Sunset Blvd. Some scenes were shot in Santa Monica and Malibu, as well as some interiors which were filmed in Simi Valley/Sherman Oaks.” (Unfortunately, for the life of me, I cannot find the source of that interview online, otherwise I would post a link to it here.) An actor who not only remembers where scenes from his movies were filmed, but actually references them in an interview??? SO LOVE IT!!!!! Thank you, Keith!!! So, once I heard where Clown Dog was located, I immediately added the address to my long “to stalk” list and finally made it out there to see the place in person just a few weeks back. YAY!

And, let me tell you, this was one stalk that was DEFINITELY worth the wait. As fate would have it, the owner of the restaurant, an INCREDIBLY nice man named Lang, was working behind the counter when we arrived. Of course, the first words out of my mouth were, “Was Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead filmed here?” Lang laughed and told me that yes, indeed, the movie had been filmed on the premises. I then asked him if everyone who came in inquired about the very same thing, to which he replied “You’re only the second person in the twenty-plus years I’ve worked here who has ever asked me that!” LOL It’s nice to know I’m unique! Lang seemed truly amused at my excitement over stalking his restaurant and really could NOT have been nicer about it. Not only did he tell me that I was welcome to take all of the pictures of the place that I wanted . . .

. . . BUT HE ALSO LET ME DON ONE ONE OF THE ALL AMERICAN BURGER UNIFORMS AND STEP BEHIND THE COUNTER TO POSE FOR A PIC! LOVE IT! LOVE IT! LOVE IT!

I also so love it that the real All American Burger hat is almost exactly the same as the Clown Dog hat that Christina Applegate wore in the movie! 🙂

Because my fiancé and I were both starving at the time, we just had to grab a bite to eat during our stalk. And, let me tell you, we were not disappointed! While All American Burger is by no means fancy, their food is simply A-MA-ZING! The menu features your typical all-American fare, such as burgers, hot dogs, and French fries, all of which happen to be right up my alley. 🙂 My fiancé and I ended up splitting a cheeseburger and fries – both of which were excellent! And the Grim Cheaper was very excited about the fact that the entire meal cost us $4! Even more exciting to him, though, had to be the restaurant’s working pinball machine, which he played quite a few games on. So cool! (Please pardon the above picture, I was in a goofy mood that day. 🙂 )

All American Burger pops up twice in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. It first shows up in the beginning of the movie, in the scene in which Sue Ellen (aka Swell), gets a job working behind the counter of the fast food restaurant.

Fed up with Mr. Egg, her perennially happy boss, Swell quits her new job after only one day of work, but not before making a romantic connection with fellow Clown Dog employee Bryan.

The restaurant next shows up towards the end of the movie, in the scene in which Swell, upset over her recent fight with Bryan, drives by Clown Dog and sadly watches him working through the window.

I am very happy to report that although over 18 years have passed since Don’t Tell Mom was filmed, All American Burger still looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. Missing in real life, of course, is the circus themed decor that was used to dress the restaurant during the filming. Besides Don’t Tell Mom, All American Burger has also been featured in a recent episode of Southland and in an album cover for one of musician Howie Day’s CD’s. And because the restaurant is something of a Hollywood institution, celebs have been known to stop in there from time to time, including The O.C.’s Adam Brody, who is a regular. 🙂

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Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: All American Burger, aka Clown Dog from Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, was located at 7660 West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood.

December 7, 2009December 11, 2011

Claire and Phil’s House from “Modern Family”

A few weeks back I received an email from a fellow stalker in the Nebraska area who had just recently started his very own filming locations blog entitled Movie Locations and More. This stalker’s name was Robert Patterson and I have to admit that when I first saw his email a red flag went up, as I thought he was some weirdo pretending to be the lead actor from the Twilight movies. LOL At the time I didn’t realize that the Twilight actor was actually named Robert PattINson, not PattERson. LOL LOL LOL Man, I can be such a blonde sometimes!!! Anyway, as it turns out, my new friend really is named Robert Patterson and he is not a weirdo at all. 🙂 He is actually quite an amazing stalker and recently tracked down two of the main homes featured on Modern Family, which just so happens to be one of my favorite new shows of the fall season. So, literally, as soon as he gave me the addresses to the houses, I ran right out to stalk them! Thank you, Robert!

The first Modern Family house that Robert managed to track down was the residence belonging to Phil (aka Ty Burrell) and Claire (aka Julie Bowen) Dunphy and their three children on the show. Because Robert knew that Modern Family was filmed at Fox Studios in Century City, he decided to begin his search for the houses featured on the series in the neighborhood surrounding the studio – which is always a smart move. And, sure enough, he found Claire and Phil’s house pretty much immediately. YAY! 🙂 Besides being featured weekly in the series’ opening credits . . .

and in set-up shots during the course of each episode . . .

. . . several scenes have also been filmed on location at the Dunphy home, such as was the case with the episode entitled “Fizbo” in which Claire and Phil host a massive birthday party for their son Luke in the house’s front yard.

As you can see in the above screen captures, though, an entirely different house was used in the filming of the pilot episode. The house featured in the pilot has an address number of 1057, while the house used in the rest of the series has an address number of 10336. The front door of the pilot house, which is flanked by window panes on either side, also does not match the front door of the house used in the rest of the series.

When I first pulled up to stalk the Dunphy house a couple of weeks ago, some neighbors just happened to be outside chatting, so I, of course, just had to strike up a conversation with them. 🙂 The neighbors were SUPER nice and did not think it was at all weird that I was stalking a home in their vicinity. They said they absolutely LOVE having Modern Family film on their street and that everyone involved with the show is extremely nice. LOVE IT! They also said that since I was such a big fan of the show, I should try to come back when an episode was being filmed so that I could watch. How nice is that? 🙂 So LOVE IT! And I am happy to report that Claire and Phil’s house looks EXACTLY the same in person as it does onscreen. 🙂

On a side note – At the very end of the episode entitled “The Bicycle Thief”, Phil and his son, Luke, are shown riding their bikes past a street sign for Dunleer Drive, which is the actual street where Claire and Phil’s house is located in real life. LOVE IT!

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Big THANK YOU to Robert for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Claire and Phil’s house from Modern Family is located at 10336 Dunleer Drive in the Cheviot Hills area of Los Angeles.

November 10, 2009November 10, 2009

Commerce Restaurant

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while in New York this past month was a little restaurant named Commerce which appeared in the very last episode of fave show Sex and the City. Well, truth be told, at the time SATC was filmed, the restaurant was known as Grange Hall, but that space closed its doors back in 2004, shortly after filming took place. A few years later, a nouveau American cuisine restaurant named Commerce opened in the same spot and it is that eatery that I set out to stalk last month. I found this location thanks to favorite stalking book New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, which featured a brief blurb about the fact that Grange Hall was used in SATC’s series finale. Unfortunately, though, it failed to point out what specific scene took place there. So, being the anal stalker that I am, before leaving on my New York vacation, I made it my mission to figure out which part of the episode, which was entitled “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, was filmed at the restaurant. And, let me tell you, I really had my work cut out for me on this one! Because several different eateries were actually featured in the finale, I found it virtually impossible to discern which one was Grange Hall. After watching the entire sixty minute finale all the way through, I came up completely empty-handed. But then an idea struck me! I thought that listening to executive producer Michael Patrick King’s DVD commentary about the finale might provide some insight. And, sure enough, it did!

As it turns out, Grange Hall was not actually portrayed as a New York restaurant in Sex and the City ,which explains why I had such a hard time locating it in the episode. In “An American Girl in Paris, Part Deux”, Grange Hall stood in for the Paris eatery where Carrie’s French fans threw her a party towards the end of the episode. It is after Carrie shows up late to this party, only to find that her new friends have already left, that she realizes that Paris isn’t turning out quite how she had expected.

I was shocked to discover that both the interior and the exterior of Grange Hall were used in the filming of “An American Girl in Paris”. I had incorrectly assumed that the exterior shown in the episode was actually that of a real French restaurant. In reality, though, producers dressed up the entire street in front of Grange Hall to make it look Parisian, even going so far as to add French street signs and French street lamps (as you can see in the above screen captures). Why they didn’t just film this particular scene at an actual restaurant in Paris is beyond me, especially being that the majority of the finale was actually shot on location there. But that’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

I am VERY happy to report that even though the Grange Hall space has gone through a succession of ownership changes since the SATC series finale was filmed, both the interior and the exterior of the restaurant still look EXACTLY the same as they did onscreen. 🙂 The decor, the booths and tables, and even the wood and glass partition that separates the entryway from the rest of the restaurant are all still very recognizable from the episode. YAY! I can’t tell you how happy I am that Commerce restaurant kept the Grange Hall interior intact for all of us Sex and the City fans to appreciate! 🙂

Commerce restaurant’s name was derived from the fact that it is located on Commerce Street in Greenwich Village. The building that houses the restaurant is actually quite famous in and of itself, aside from the fact that Sex and the City once filmed there. The property has been in existence since the early 1930’s, at which time it housed a speakeasy. In the 1940’s, the Blue Mill Tavern took over the space and quickly became something of a New York landmark. Blue Mill enjoyed a successful run for over half a century, serving such famed customers as Eugene O’Neill and Ethel and Julius Roseberg. In 1992, Blue Mill Tavern closed its doors and Grange Hall opened in its place. Grange Hall quickly became a celebrity hotspot, with regular patrons such as Brad Pitt, Jennifer Esposito, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler (who hosted her 16th birthday party at the restaurant), and Bill Clinton. Grange Hall also appeared quite a few times on the silver screen. According to New York: A Movie Lover’s Guide, besides the SATC finale, the restaurant was also featured in the movies The Brothers McMullen and Anything Else and a commercial for a French cell phone company starring Martin Scorsese. In 2004, due to an increase in rent, Grange Hall was forced to close its doors and, after a few unsuccessful turnovers, Commerce restaurant was opened. Commerce is an absolutely adorable little place and I so, so, so wanted to grab a bite there during this year’s New York vacation, but unfortunately ran out of time. 🙁 It is DEFINITELY on my list of places to dine during next year’s trip, though. 🙂

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Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Commerce restaurant is located at 50 Commerce Street in New York’s Greenwich Village. You can visit their website here. You can read a great article about the former Grange Hall here.

November 5, 2009November 4, 2009

The Hotel St. James

The one location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, told me I could absolutely NOT come home from New York without stalking was the seedy hotel where Josh Baskin (aka Tom Hanks) stayed after first becoming “big” in the 1988 movie of the same name. Mike had found the location of the Hotel St. James thanks to fave website The 80s Movies Rewind shortly before I left on my Big Apple vacation. So, since Owen, my fiancé, and I had already stalked several other Big filming locations during our NYC stalking day, we decided to keep the theme going by also making a stop at the Hotel St. James. The twelve story St. James, which first opened up in 1972 and is no longer the mangy place it was when Big was filmed, is considered to be one of the city’s most affordable hotels. Located just a block away from Times Square, a room at the St. James will run you anywhere from $159 to $269 per night depending on the time of year. Let me tell you, rates that low in Manhattan are almost unheard of! And thankfully, in real life, the hotel looks NOTHING like it did in the movie – otherwise I might never have ventured inside! LOL

The Hotel St. James first shows up in the very beginning of Big, as the seedy little place that Josh and Billy stumble upon while wandering the streets of Manhattan looking for an affordable hotel. Thanks to the shady characters hanging around out front, Josh refuses to even walk inside the place, prompting Billy to say “St. James, Josh! It’s religious!” LOL LOL LOL Josh and Billy end up booking a room at the hotel, which costs them $17.50 a night, plus a ten dollar deposit for the sheets. LOL LOL LOL Apparently, at the time Big was filmed during the late 80s, the St. James really was a decrepit little spot in a very shady part of town. But thanks to Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to clean up Times Square, Disney’s restoration of the New Amsterdam Theatre, and a renovation of the actual St. James itself, the hotel is really quite beautiful – and quite safe – now. 🙂

Several areas of the St. James were featured in Big, including the exterior (On a side note, the sign in the entrance door pictured in the screen capture above reads, “Firearms Kept On Premises”. LOL LOL LOL Really shows what a classy joint the hotel used to be!) ;

the lobby entrance;

and the check-in desk, which as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures is still positioned in the exact same place as it was in Big. The plastic partition and the toothless concierge are long since gone, though. 🙂

According to the EXTREMELY friendly concierge that I talked to, while the filming of Big did take place in the lobby area of the St. James, the hallway and hotel room scenes were actually all filmed on a studio soundstage. However, I’m not entirely convinced that information is correct. After recently re-watching the movie, it seems to me that a real St. James’ hotel room and the real St. James hallways were used in the filming. Thankfully, though, as you can see in these photographs, both the rooms and the hallways have undergone significant remodeling since that time! LOL

It is in Josh’s St. James hotel room that the very famous Big silly string scene took place. 🙂

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I highly recommend stalking the Hotel St. James! Even though it has undergone some drastic changes in the years since the filming of Big took place, the hotel is still set up very similarly to how it was portrayed in the movie and is therefore still very recognizable. 🙂 The Hotel St. James also looks like a very nice, very affordable place to spend a few nights when visiting the Big Apple! And while the newly renovated St. James is not luxurious or upscale by any means, it prides itself on having roomy, comfortable, clean accommodations. If the lobby is any indication of what the rooms look like, they must be be pretty darn nice!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Hotel St. James is located at 109 West 45th Street in Midtown Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

October 26, 2009October 26, 2009

The New York Palace Hotel

Yet another Gossip Girl location that I set out to stalk during this year’s Manhattan vacation was the New York Palace Hotel, a locale which has appeared in pretty much every single episode of the series since it began back in 2007. Truth be told, though, I actually first stalked this location quite a few years back during my very first trip to the Big Apple, long before Gossip Girl was even on the air. And, let me tell you, I absolutely fell in love with the place! Each year since then I’ve made sure to stop into the Palace at least once during our annual New York vacation to either grab a cocktail at GILT or to simply relax for a few minutes in the hotel’s opulent lobby. So, as you can probably imagine, I was completely floored this past summer when I first watched the pilot episode of Gossip Girl and realized that a huge portion of it was filmed on location on the hotel grounds. So, while in New York two weeks ago, I just had to drag my fiancé back to the Palace, this time to do some stalking of my new favorite show! 🙂

The New York Palace Hotel is absolutely beautiful inside and out and is one of my very favorite places to visit in all of New York. By now, I really must sound like a broken record due to the fact that I pretty much say that about every single place I stalk in the Big Apple. LOL But it’s just that there are so many spectacular and incredibly unique places on the island of Manhattan that I find it very difficult to narrow down my favorites! Anyway, the New York Palace Hotel was originally built as a private home for New York Evening Post editor and Union Pacific Railroad founder Henry Villard in 1882. Villard hired the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White to design and build six four-story townhouses surrounding a central courtyard in an empty lot across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The buildings were constructed in a Neo-Italian Renaissance style and were modeled after Rome’s Palazzo della Cancellaria. In 1883, Villard moved into his new home, which was still under construction, for a period of just a few months. Sadly, though, he ended up filing bankruptcy shortly thereafter and was forced to sell the entire property, which was then known as the Villard Houses, to several different owners before construction had even been completed. In 1974, the townhouses were purchased by the Helmsley (yes, that Helmsley) Hotel chain. The Helmsleys came up with the inspired idea to purchase the air space above the Villard Houses (and here all this time I never knew that type of thing was for sale! LOL) in order to add a 55-story tower to the property and turn it into a luxury hotel. Construction of that tower took six years to complete and in 1981 the Helmsley Palace Hotel finally opened its doors to the world. It didn’t take long for the Palace name to become synonymous with the utmost in luxury and elegance. In 1992, the hotel was sold to a private limited partnership, who changed its name to the New York Palace Hotel, as it is known today. The Palace Hotel is currently owned by the upscale Dorchester Group and boasts 360 square-foot guest rooms, 22,000 square feet of meeting space, two restaurants, including GILT, which has been awarded two Michelin stars , and a 7,000 square foot spa and gym, where complimentary tennis shoes and workout clothes are made available to guests. LOVE IT! Rooms average $297 per night, which is incredibly low for such upscale accommodations, especially considering that the hotel is located in Manhattan.

The Palace Hotel features prominently on Gossip Girl, not only because the hostelry is owned by Bart Bass, Chuck’s father, on the show, but also due to the fact that Serena van der Woodsen and family lived in one of the hotel’s Triplex Suites while their home was being remodeled during Season One. The hotel is such an integral part of the show, actually, that, according to this article, filming of GG takes places there at least twice a month! How cool is that?? The areas of the hotel that have been used in the filming over the past three years include the front exterior (pictured above),

the central courtyard,

the second floor mezzanine,

the lobby’s courtyard entrance,

the special events venue named the Madison Room,

the entrance to the famous GILT restaurant,

the interior of GILT,

and the GILT kitchen.

In fact, GILT’s menu now even features “The Gossip Girl – You Know You Love It” grilled cheese and truffle oil sandwich (YUM!), much like the one Chuck made for Serena in the pilot episode. 🙂 My good friend Steffi, who is also a HUGE GG fan, is holding GILT’s menu in the above picture.

Besides being a main filming location for Gossip Girl, the Palace is also a celebrity magnet. According to fave book, Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Full Story, back during his “Thriller” days, the Palace was the only New York Hotel where the King of Pop would rest his head. The hotel also plays host to a number of A-List events each year. A few of the stars who have been spotted there in the past include Prince, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Lady Gaga, Orlando Bloom, Harry Connick, Jr., Helena Christenson, Claire Danes, Hugh Dancy, Molly Sims, Kristin Davis, Bethenny Frankel, and Rose McGowan.

I honestly can’t recommend stalking the New York Palace Hotel enough! The staff is INCREDIBLY friendly – one of the concierges even went so far as to get me a GILT menu when I was there two weeks ago just so that I could take a picture of the Gossip Girl sandwich listing! 🙂 And the entire property – from the Central Courtyard to the ornate lobby – is just simply breathtaking. I honestly can’t say enough about it! Especially at Christmastime! If you find yourself in the area during the month of December, stopping by to see the Palace’s Christmas decorations, which are pictured above, is a MUST! Christmas trees, garland, and white twinkle lights can be found EVERYWHERE, especially in the hotel’s Central Courtyard which is absolutely transformed into a mass of sparkle. LOVE IT!

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For further information on the hotel you can read an amazingly in-depth review, written by someone who actually stayed there, here. Although, because the author listed the fact that Palace’s “popular restaurant/bar is closed intermittently for film crews” under the Con section of her Palace Hotel Pros and Cons List, you have to take everything she says with a grain of salt. LOL I mean, for me that little tidbit is SO totally a Pro! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The New York Palace Hotel is located at 455 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. You can visit their website here.

April 16, 2009December 6, 2013

Paradise Cove

One location I have been wanting to stalk ever since I first moved to L.A. nine years ago – has it really been nine years??? – is Malibu’s Paradise Cove. Countless movies have been filmed at the Cove, but I wanted to stalk it for one reason and one reason only. Back in April of 1999, it was the location where Britney Spears filmed the music video for her hit song “Sometimes”. And I absolutely LOVED that video. I can still remember the first time I watched it on TRL just about ten years ago. And ever since that day I have been dying to see the white pier featured in the video in person. So, this past Saturday, I finally did just that. When I happened to mention to my mom that morning that I was on my way to stalk the Cove and the reason why, she said “Oh Lindsay, when are you going to get over this Britney obsession?” LOL

Paradise Cove, as we know it today, came to be in the early 1950s when a man named Joe Morris purchased two adjacent parcels of land and combined them into 70 beachfront acres complete with a private cove and a beach cafe. In the beginning, the area was a fisherman’s hangout, a place for sea-weary workers to not only launch their boats, but to kick back and grab a drink after a long day on the open water. The Cove gradually turned into a beachfront community, a place for local families, tourists, and celebrities alike to hang out by the sea. In the 70s, Joe sold his land, his beachfront restaurant, and his private cove to the Kissel family, who turned the area into a waterfront mobile home park. Joe’s son Bob was heartbroken over the sale and in 1998, he returned to Paradise Cove and purchased his father’s former restaurant. He renamed it Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe and remains the owner to this day. The above photograph is of a picture on display at the Beach Cafe of my girl Marilyn Monroe posing on a cliff above the restaurant many moons ago.

Most of the action of Britney’s “Sometimes” video takes place right on the Paradise Cove pier. In the video, while hanging out at her beach house, Britney spies a cute boy playing nearby in the sand. She rushes down to the local pier, where her back-up dancers, dressed all in white, are waiting for her. The group then performs a very “Britney” dance routine (of course, I memorized it!) for the boy. I know, I know, the premise sounds incredibly lame, but – trust me – the video is adorable! You can watch the “Sometimes” video here.

In person, the pier looks exactly the same as how it appeared in Britney’s video. The only difference is that, in real life, there is no “Kenny’s Cove” sign located over the entrance. Apparently the video’s producer, Nigel Dick, thought an entrance sign similar to the one that adorns the Santa Monica pier was needed for decoration. He decided to name the cove after the video’s location scout, Kenny. 🙂 Love it!

Had to do it! 🙂

Paradise Cove has been featured in countless productions over the years. In American Pie 2, the Michigan lake house the boys spend their summer at was actually a facade the producers built on the beach at Paradise Cove just North of Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe. That’s the Paradise Cove Pier behind the boys in the above screen capture. Producers also built a fake lighthouse on the end of the pier for the production.

In Lethal Weapon 4, Mel Gibson and Rene Russo lived in a trailer/house also located just to the North of the Beach Cafe. Their house was also just a facade built for filming. You can see the Cafe’s exterior just to the right of Mel Gibson in the above screen capture.

The pier is featured twice in Indecent Proposal. It first shows up as the location where Woody Harrelson proposes to Demi Moore in the beginning of the movie. Then, at the very end of the movie, it is where the two reunite.

Other productions filmed at the Cove include Rockford Files (James Garner lived in a trailer on the beach), Gidget, Monster-in-Law (JLo and Michael Vartan explored the Cove’s tide pools in the beginning of the movie), Alias, Charlie’s Angels, X-Men (Spider-Man creator Stan Lee served hot dogs by the sea) and The House of Sand and Fog. The Beach Boys also shot the cover for their Surfin’ Safari album at the Cove (pictured above).

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I HIGHLY recommend stalking the Cove – but be forewarned, it’s not cheap! Parking there costs $25! Yes, you read that right! Which is the very reason it took me nine years to stalk the place. Stealing a term from my friend Mandy, I long ago dubbed my boyfriend the “Grim Cheaper” because the guy just hates spending money. Five years ago, when we went to stalk the Cove for the first time, he took one look at that $25 parking sign and turned the car right around. LOL What we didn’t realize at the time is if you grab a bite to eat at Bob Morris’ Paradise Cove Beach Cafe and spend more than $20, the parking fee drops to $3, which is not bad at all. So, after stalking the Cove this past Saturday we marched right into the cafe and parked ourselves on some bar stools. And while we had a good time and the food was definitely yummy, I think we actually missed the boat on that one. What we didn’t realize is that there is actually a back patio area where you can sip a cocktail while sitting outside under the sun, watching the surf. But the rules for the back patio are pretty confusing because while the cafe provides the outdoor seating, they do not actually own that particular area. So, you can buy a bottle of wine or beer inside the restaurant to take outside, but the bottles have to remain closed until you reach your sandy destination. If you open your beverages before you leave, you will have to finish them inside. Confused? So was I.

Basically, Bob Morris’ Beach Cafe acts as a liquor store and sells full bottles of wine and beer that you can purchase at the bar and then take outside to drink on the back patio area. I SO wish I had known that at the time, as the patio looks like a really fun place to grab a drink, put your toes in the sand, and watch the sun set. Oh well, it looks like I’ll just have to go back to stalk the place again. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paradise Cove is located at 28128 Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu. You can visit the Paradise Cove website here.

February 19, 2009February 21, 2009

Le Borghese Apartments

While Mike, from MovieShotsLA, was cyberstalking the ‘Til There Was You apartment building a few weeks ago, he came across a comment on a website which stated that the very same building from ‘Til There Was You was also used in the 2001 David Lynch thriller Mulholland Dr. Well, after doing a bit more research, Mike and I discovered that information is actually incorrect. While there was a Spanish style courtyard apartment building featured in Mulholland Dr., it was not the El Cabrillo apartments which I blogged about yesterday. The building used in Mulholland Dr. is actually named Le Borghese and while it does not look very similar to El Cabrillo, both buildings are extremely picturesque and serene and it is easy to see how they might have been confused for each other.

I have yet to see Mulholland Dr., but I really want to now after researching this post. Especially since the movie centers around an actress trying to make it in the bizarre world of Hollywood. I’m pretty sure I can relate. 🙂 I have heard from more than person, though, that Mulholland Dr. is by far the strangest movie they have ever seen. LOL In Mulholland Dr., Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) stays at the Le Borghese after moving to Hollywood to try her hand in show business. Ann Miller plays Betty’s apartment manager, CoCo, in her very last onscreen role.

Le Borghese was built back in 1929 by architect Charles Gault, who built a number of famous courtyard buildings in the L.A. area in the 1920s. Apparently a large olive tree existed on the lot where Le Borghese was to be built and instead of uprooting the tree, Charles ended up centering the building’s courtyard around it. That tree is still there today and is now over 100 years old. Luckily, Le Borghese’s front gates were wide open while I was stalking the place, so I got to venture inside for a little looksie. All I could think after stepping inside the building’s amazing central courtyard was “I want to live here!” 🙂 Le Borghese is quite an idyllic place. It is peaceful and serene, with koi fish and turtles swimming in the central fountain, numerous crawling wisteria vines, an outdoor fireplace, and light green benches tucked away in shaded alcoves. After seeing the building in person, it is no surprise that Le Borghese was chosen to be featured on the cover of the book Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles. The building was also featured in the 1996 movie The Truth About Cats and Dogs. I highly recommend stalking Le Borghese as it is one of the most beautiful apartments I have ever seen! You can see more photographs of the building here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Le Borghese apartments are located at 450 North Sycamore Avenue in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles.

November 19, 2008February 13, 2009

The Sony Pictures Studio Tour

Last month Mike, from MovieShotsLA, his fiance Jen, and I decided to go on another studio stalking adventure. This time we opted for the Sony Pictures Studio Tour in Culver City. The studio lot that is now owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment (parent company to both Columbia and TriStar Pictures) was originally built in 1915 by producer Thomas Ince for his company Triangle Pictures. During that time, Culver City was quite a powerhouse in the motion picture industry. The city even touted itself with the slogan: “Culver City – Where Hollywood Movies Are Made”. In 1918, Ince sold his studio to Samuel Goldwyn of Goldwyn Pictures Corporation. Six years later the lot became the legendary MGM Studios when Goldwyn joined forces with Louis B. Mayer and Metro Pictures forming the conglomerate Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The rest, as they say, is history.

During its heydey MGM liked to say it had “more stars than there are in the heavens”. And it was pretty much true. Such mega-stars as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Joan Crawford all called MGM home at one time or another. Hundreds of hit movies were created within the historic studio walls, including Singin’ in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me In St. Louis, Ben Hur, David Coppefield and Grand Hotel. When billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, former owner of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, purchased the legendary studio in 1969, he sold off more than 150 acres of MGM’s property. In one fell swoop, the studio downsized from 183 acres to 30. 🙁 Almost all of what was sold off was the studio back lot area, including the street Gene Kelly danced on in Singin’ in the Rain. How sad!! After several subsequent ownerships, in 1991 the former MGM Studios was purchased by Sony Pictures. The good news in all of this is that Sonyspent $100 million rennovating the legendary lot and also opened the place to the public for daily tours. It is that tour that Mike, Jen and I embarked upon last month. 🙂

The tour starts off in the lobby of the Sony Pictures Plaza building (pictured above). As we pulled up to the building, Mike pointed out that the exterior was used in the filming of the 1987 movie Adventures in Babysitting in the scene where young Sara climbs the exterior of a Chicago skyscraper while her parents unknowingly attend a cocktail party inside. Love that movie!

After checking in with out tour guide in the lobby of the Plaza building, we were given Sony Studio Tour VIP lanyards to wear around our neck which we actually got to keep! 🙂 I was way excited about that! 🙂 Then while waiting for the tour to begin, we were encouraged to walk around the Plaza lobby, which is a movie memorabilia museum of sorts. I absolutely LOVE looking at movie props and costumes, so I was extra excited about this part of the tour. One of the exhibits included Julia Robert’s wedding dress from Steel Magnolias and one of Cameran Diaz’s costumes from the first Charlie’s Angels movie (both are pictured above).

Other items on display in the museum include, the gameboard from Jumanji,

Annie’s letter to Sam and Jonah’s teddy bear and backpack from Sleepless in Seattle,

artifacts from The DaVinci Code, including the book Tom Hanks character authored,

Will Smith’s sunglasses and the notecards which contained his speech from Hancock,

and Julian’s toys from Big Daddy.

After milling around the museum for a few minutes, our tour was ready to begin with a short walk across the street to the entrance of the historic studio once known as MGM. Our first stop was probably my favorite part of the tour – the lightpost which Jennifer Garner posed with for the 13 Going On 30 promotional movie posters. The lightpost and background were all digitally changed after the photo was taken, but I could not have been more excited to pose there nonetheless! In fact, Mike, Jen and I almost got separated from the rest of our tour group because we spent so much time trying to get a photo of me in the exact same pose as Jennifer Garner. LOL 🙂

Our next stop was the Irving Thalberg Building, an administration building which was built in 1936 and named for the legendary MGM producer after his untimely death at the young age of 36. Besides now housing all of the Columbia Pictures Best Picture Oscar statuettes, the building was also recently used as the site of Peter Parker’s high school graduation in the first Spiderman movie.

Next we headed over to Main Street, where the studio commissary, cafe, and gift shop are located. Our tour guide told us that Main Street is often used as a filming location for productions being shot on the lot, but he didn’t know in particular which movies or television shows had filmed there.

While there, he also demonstrated how most of the doors on Main Street don’t really lead to anything but a stucco wall. LOL

Next we headed over to the only exterior/backlot type street located on the Sony lot – an East Coast looking Street, which can stand in for New York, Washington D.C., and even Boston. Both sides of that street are pictured above. The exteriors in the top photograph above were used as Jack Nicholson’s apartment building in the movie Something’s Gotta Give. During the filming of the movie, producers were trying to film a long shot of Jack walking away from his apartment building. Because there are no sidewalks located on this backlot street, Nicholson appeared very short when walking next to the cars parked along the side of the road. To fix the problem, producers simply removed the tires on all of the parked cars and voila, Jack appeared to be a normal height. LOL 🙂

After walking down the studio’s sole backlot street, we were taken through the main part of the studio, which includes many soundstages (27 is where they filmed The Wizard of Oz), the scene shop where humongous backdrops are painstakingly painted by numerous artists all working at the same time, the “scoring studio” (a favorite of Barbra Streisand’s) where scores from movies are recorded, and an interior set inside a soundstage that was used in the filming of the new Beyonce movie Obsessed. Unfortunately we couldn’t take pictures of any of these things. 🙁

All in all, the tour lasted about two hours. While the Sony Pictures Studio Tour was fun, and I was super excited that we got to keep our VIP necktags, I would say that I much prefered the Paramount Pictures Studio Tour and the Warner Brothers Tour. My favorite part of studio tours is seeing backlots where countless exteriors are filmed and unfortunately there just wasn’t enough of those to see on the Sony tour. 🙁 So while I did enjoy myself, if you are a tourist who only has time for one tour, I suggest one of the other studios.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Sony Pictures Studios is located at 10202 W. Washington Boulevard in Culver City. You can visit their website and purchase tickets here. The tour cost is $28 per person and only those 12 years of age and older are permitted.

August 27, 2008March 20, 2009

Charmed Challenge!

Got a challenge from Jenna a few weeks back to find a whole bunch of Charmed locations, one of which being the “San Francisco” city street featured in both the Season 7 episode “The Bare Witch Project” and the Season 8 episode “Still Charmed and Kicking”. In “The Bare With Project” (pictured above), the street is featured twice. In the opening scene of that episode, Phoebe and Piper are shown eating lunch at an outdoor corner cafe located on a public street. In the scene Piper is breastfeeding and is asked to leave by the restaurant manager. In the closing scene of that episode, Phoebe rides a horse naked – a la Lady Godiva – down the same street to protest against the restaurant for mistreating her sister.

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In the “Still Charmed and Kicking” episode (pictured above), that same street shows up yet again as the spot where Phoebe and Piper do some serious shoe shopping after faking their own deaths.

Well, Jenna, I have good news and I have bad news. If you’re like me, you prefer the bad news first, so here goes. The bad news is that the street the sisters walked along is not a real street – it is actually part of the Paramount Studios backlot in Hollywood. While doing some online Charmed research to try to figure out where this street was located, I found out that after the sixth season of the series, production moved from its small Canoga Park studio to Hollywood mega-lot Paramount Studios. After carefully watching both episodes, something about the “street” didn’t seem realistic to me. If you look closely at both episodes, everything seems just a bit smaller than it should be – much like Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives. The streets are a bit too narrow, the sidewalks a bit too skinny, the buildings a little too short – all causing me to realize that a back lot, not a real city street, must have been used for the filming. If you look in the background of the above screen capture, a house or small apartment building (circled) is visible behind Alyssa Milano on the left hand side. That was a dead giveaway for me that the street was really a set, as residential street sets are commonly located right next to city street sets on most movie studio backlots. After I learned that both of the episodes were filmed during the time that Charmed was being produced on the Paramount lot, I became convinced that the street was in actuality just a set. I believe that for both of the episodes mentioned one of Paramount’s New York street scenes was used.

Now for the good news – even though this street is located on a set, you can still see it in person. 🙂 Paramount Studios offers a behind the scenes tour and one of the stops is the New York area of the back lot. While I have never been on the Paramount Tour, it is definitely something I want to do in the near future. Seeing Stars does a great write-up on the Paramount Tour, with some great photos and while he didn’t seem to like the tour much, this stalker still really wants to check it out. When I do go on the tour, I will be sure to post some photographs of the New York City streets for comparison. Sadly, though, I don’t think the streets will be that recognizable from Charmed due to the fact that studio street scenes and building facades are constantly changed and redressed to make way for new productions. That being said, I would still recommend stalking the Paramount Tour, as I think it would still be really fun to see.

And don’t worry, Jenna, I am still stalking the other Charmed locations you challenged me to find. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Paramount Studios is located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. To book a tour, you can call (323)956-4848. Tours cost $39 per person.