Venice Beach filming locations

May 3, 2013May 3, 2013

The California Colonic Institution from “L.A. Story”

When I began my search for all of the missing L.A Story locations a few weeks back, I emailed about a million-and-a-half screen captures to fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, in the hopes that he would be so inclined to help me out with the hunt. Thankfully, he was. One locale that we found at the exact same time (we literally texted each other with the address at the same moment!) was the California Colonic Institution, where SanDeE* (my girl Sarah Jessica Parker) took Harris K. Telemacher (Steve Martin) for a high colonic, aka an enema, in the 1991 flick. While I had known that the site was located somewhere along Venice Beach and had tracked it down by looking up and down the coastline using Google Maps, Mike had actually recognized the place immediately thanks to the fact that, unbeknownst to me, it had also appeared in the 1993 thriller Point of No Return. How random is that? So, while in SoCal this past weekend, I ran right out to stalk it. (I am amazed that I was able to snap the above photograph sans any people, by the way! Anyone who has ever experienced the hustle and bustle of Venice Beach knows what a feat that was!)

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In real life, the California Colonic Institution from L.A. Story is known as the Blu House (or the Nike Blu House, as Nike, Inc. used the site as office space for many years) and, at over a century old, is one of the most historic residences still standing in Venice Beach. The two-story bungalow was originally built in 1901 and since that time it has served as everything from an event venue (one fete was even hosted by Jerry Springer, apparently!) to a clothing store to an art gallery to a medical marijuana facility. And while several websites have also stated that both Jim Morrison and Charlie Chaplin lived on the premises at different points in time, I believe that information is actually incorrect.

The beachfront house, which boasts three bedrooms, one bath, 2,656 square feet of living space, a 1,500-square-foot deck, and a tiny 0.10-acre plot of land, currently serves as the headquarters for Snapchat – at what is apparently a rate of $20,000 a month!

The California Colonic Institution only shows up once in L.A. Story and very briefly at that, in the scene in which SanDeE* takes Harris on a date . . . for an enema. Romantic, huh? It is there that SanDeE* says of the experience, “God, it really clears out your head!” To which Harris says, “Head? Head? You should go back in there and tell them they’re doing it wrong.” LOL

Only a very tiny portion of the property, namely the front porch area, was shown during the scene.

That front porch in its current state is pictured below. As you can see, while the front doors have changed from a single door to double doors, the site still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did in 1991 when L.A. Story was filmed.

Because so little of the residence was shown, I was only able to pinpoint its location due to the fact that it was apparent from the filming that the front door was situated at an angle diagonal to the boardwalk, as you can see below. Thankfully, only one property in Venice fit that description.

I also matched up the buildings that were visible in the background of the scene. Ironically enough, while doing research on the Blu House, I learned that the brick building located just north of it is known as Gingerbread Court and was apparently built by none other than Charlie Chaplin.

It was not until making screen captures for today’s post that I spotted an address number of 523 behind Steve Martin in the scene. D’oh! Would have made my search so much easier had I realized that earlier!

I am fairly certain that the same location was used for the brief montage scene in which SanDeE* attended a spokesmodel class in the movie. The palm trees visible through the windows and the framing of the interior French doors seem to match up to those of the Blu house. That is just a hunch, though.

In Point of No Return, the Blu House was where assassin Maggie Hayward (Bridget Fonda) rented an apartment upon arriving in Venice Beach.

As you can see below, the property still had a single front door at the time of the filming.

I am guessing that the interior of Maggie’s apartment was just a set and not the actual interior of the Blu House.

According to the Venice-Mar Vista Patch, the Blu House was also the setting of an MTV summer reality series, although I am unsure of which one.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for helping me to find this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Blu House, aka the California Colonic Institution from L.A Story, is located at 523 Ocean Front Walk in Venice Beach.

October 23, 2012September 29, 2017

The Correct “A Nightmare on Elm Street” Bridge

While stalking the Venice Canals (the history of which you can read about on yesterday’s post about Lana Clarkson’s former home) with Mike, from MovieShotsLA, last July, he mentioned that there was some misinformation floating around online about the Venice Canal bridge that appeared in the 1984 horror flick A Nightmare on Elm Street. Mike explained that every filming location website and book seemed to have a differing opinion as to which of the area’s nine bridges were used in the production and that he had long wanted to clear up the confusion once and for all. And that right there is why I love Mike – the guy is meticulous in his reporting. It seriously irks me when people post erroneous location information online or in books. I am of the opinion that if you are going to take the time to write a blog or publish a book, you should also take the time to make sure the information you are putting forth is valid. So Mike and I decided right then and there to finally set the record straight about the locale, even though I had never actually seen A Nightmare on Elm Street.

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In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Glen Lantz (Johnny Depp) and Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) discuss the “Balinese way of dreaming” while standing on a white-trellised bridge overlooking the Venice Canals. Thankfully, Mike was fairly certain that he knew which bridge had been featured in the movie prior to the start of our hunt. So, iPad in hand, we headed right on over to it.

We quickly scanned through A Nightmare on Elm Street (thank you iTunes!) to the bridge scene and tried to compare the homes visible in the background to the homes near the bridge where Mike thought filming had taken place. Sure enough, he almost immediately spotted a unique house with a corner balcony and rounded windows that matched up perfectly to what had appeared onscreen. Eureka!

While the trees surrounding the house (which is pictured below from the opposite direction that it was pictured in the movie) have grown considerably over the past 28 years (how in the heck has Johnny Depp not aged in all that time, by the way?!?!), it still looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did back in 1984 when A Nightmare on Elm Street was filmed, as you can see below. Unfortunately, there was too much foliage covering the side of the house that appeared in Nightmare, so I was not able to take a photograph of it from the same direction.

But you can see in the aerial view pictured below that the house’s two arched windows and corner balcony match up perfectly to what appeared onscreen.

On an Elm Street side note – A fascinating article about Heather Langenkamp, the actress who portrayed “Nancy Thompson” in three of the horror series’ installments, was published in the July 29, 2011 issue of Entertainment Weekly magazine. You can check it out here.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding the CORRECT A Nightmare on Elm Street bridge! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The correct A Nightmare on Elm Street bridge connects Linnie Avenue to Court C, crossing over the Eastern Canal, at the Venice Canals in Venice. It is denoted with an orange arrow in the above aerial view. The camera was facing southeast, toward Washington Boulevard, in the movie.

July 24, 2012July 23, 2012

Angela Bennett’s House from “The Net”

Two weekends ago, while Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I were driving around looking for a parking place in Venice Beach (NEVER an easy task!), we passed by the dwelling pictured above and he announced, “That’s the house where Sandra Bullock lived in The Net.” Well, as you can imagine, I was absolutely bowled over to learn this bit of information and asked him to pull the car over immediately so that we could properly stalk the place. And while I had not seen The Net in years, stalking the home had me absolutely itching to watch it again, so I popped in my DVD of it just as soon as I got home later that night. I was a bit worried that the flick might be outdated, being that technology has advanced so far from where it was back in 1995 when The Net was filmed, but I am very happy to report that it was still pertinent to today’s world and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time!

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In The Net, reclusive software engineer Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) lives in a tiny beach bungalow located at the fictional address of “407 Finley Avenue” in Venice, until her identity is stolen by ruthless computer hackers who want her dead.

Sadly, as you can see below, Angela’s house looks quite a bit different today than it did when The Net was filmed 17 years ago. There is now a large fence surrounding the property and completely blocking it from view, which is ironic being that Angela had her lattice fence removed at the end of the flick in an effort to become less reclusive.

The fence also has a sign printed on it which reads, “Please don’t step in or on planters”. I am not sure if that is a message directed toward those stalkers who attempt to sneak a better peek at the property or to random passersby in general, but I am guessing the former. Either way, I got a kick out of it. Smile

In real life, the house, which was originally built in 1941, measures 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, and 1,076 square feet. According to fave website Zillow, the tiny property is currently worth an estimated $833,200! Welcome to California, folks!

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the home was also used in the filming.

In the flick, after Angela Bennett (Sandra Bullock) realizes that her identity – and house! – has been stolen, she escapes out of her former home’s bathroom window and runs through a side fence and out onto the street toward the Venice Canals.

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And you can take a look at my latest post about one of my favorite to-go meals on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for telling me about this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Angela Bennett’s house from The Net is located at 407 28th Avenue in Venice. After Angela realizes that her home has been stolen from her, she runs out of the property’s side gate on Dell Avenue and heads north towards the Venice Canals.

September 16, 2009September 16, 2009

The 13 Going On 30 Bar

Those of you who read my blog regularly know that the restaurant where Jennifer Garner hit on the 13-year-old boy in fave movie 13 Going On 30 has long been a thorn in my side. For whatever reason, it seems that no matter how hard I tried or how badly I wanted to stalk it, I just couldn’t seem to track the place down! I came fairly close last year, when Mike, from MovieShotsLA, managed to find what was used as the exterior of the restaurant on a cobblestone street in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. But, as fate would have it, the SoHo location turned out to be a clothing store that was used solely for exterior filming, while the interior scenes were shot at another location altogether. But where???? Finally, last week, I decided to enlist the help of fellow stalker Owen, who promised to track down a few of the 13 Going On 30 crew members and hopefully get an answer for me. Ironically enough, I had told Owen that time was of the essence in this particular stalking endeavor as I wanted to stalk the restaurant during my upcoming trip to New York. Well, come to find out, much like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, it turns out that the location I was searching for was right in my own backyard the whole time! 🙂 It wasn’t an hour later that I got a text back from Owen which read “Interested in hitting on 13-year-old boys? Head to Hal’s Bar at 1349 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice”. Well, let me tell you I almost fell over right then and there! I could NOT believe that the this WHOLE TIME the restaurant had been in L.A., literally right under my nose! LOL So, of course, I immediately dragged my boyfriend right out to FINALLY stalk it. 🙂

For those who have never seen 13 Going On 30, the scene that takes place at Hal’s restaurant involves Jennifer Garner (as a 13-year-old stuck in a 30-year- old’s body) drinking some cocktails at a bar in New York with BFF Judy Greer. At one point, Judy leans over and whispers to Jennifer “Mr. Hottie behind you is totally scamming on you right now!” So, of course, Jennifer gets up to go talk to him, but instead of walking up to the older gentleman standing at the bar, she heads over to a 13-year-old boy sitting in a booth and tells him she thinks he is cute. Judy freaks out, grabs Jennifer, and says “What do you want to go to jail? I meant that guy!” to which Jennifer replies, “The man? Oh, gross!” LOL LOL LOL You can watch the entire scene here.

Amazingly enough, while the decor of the 13 Going On 30 restaurant is pretty much exactly the same in person as it was in the movie, I had a really hard time recognizing the place once there. In fact, even though I have been actively searching for this location for years, had I randomly eaten at Hal’s, I probably never would have recognized it as the 13 Going On 30 restaurant. LOL As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, while most of the background paintings were changed for the filming, for the most part the restaurant looks very much the same in real life as it did onscreen. One of the things that threw me, though, was the fact that, in real life, Hal’s is a fairly large restaurant, but, because 13 Going On 30 only showed one small section of it, it appeared to be tiny in the movie. When I first walked in, I was shocked at how big the place actually was.

But the biggest shock for me was actually the lighting. In real life, Hal’s is extremely bright and open, with one wall made up almost entirely of windows. In the movie, though, the place seemed very dark and cozy, much like a real New York restaurant would be. As you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, producers actually had all of Hal’s front windows covered over for the shoot, which really made a difference in the look and feel of the restaurant. In fact, the entire time we were there, I kept saying to my boyfriend “This place is so bright, but it was dark in the movie!!!! I don’t get it!” LOL Ah, the magic of Hollywood!

In an ironic side note – While attempting to locate the restaurant, I had spent WEEKS trying to figure out what the sign behind Judy Greer in the above screen capture spelled out. Countless times, I had Googled the terms “New York” along with all sorts of different combinations of words ending with “–ECKAS” and the phrase “bar & grill” to try to figure it out – all to no avail. Which makes sense now, being that the sign was a fake put up for decoration at the New York location where exterior filming took place.

But what doesn’t make sense is that when I finally got to stalk the restaurant, I noticed that producers had used part of the Hal’s Bar & Grill logo for their fake sign in New York. You’ll notice in the above screen capture and photograph that the oddly-placed “S” in the Hal’s Bar & Grill logo is EXACTLY the same as the oddly-placed “S” in the fake restaurant sign that was at the New York location. I’m not sure why producers went to all the trouble of creating a fake name and a fake logo that incorporated a part of the real restaurant’s real logo. Why not just use the real thing??? LOL But that’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

And, as if getting to eat at the 13 Going On 30 restaurant was not excitement enough for one day, while walking to our car afterwards we happened upon Desperate Housewife Marcia Cross sitting on a bench outside of a nearby shop. Ironically enough, the only reason I noticed her at all was because, as I walked by, she looked up and gave me an absolutely ENORMOUS smile. I was a bit taken aback by that as people in L.A. don’t typically smile like that at strangers. And it was while smiling back at her that I all of a sudden realized she was Marcia Cross! I so wanted to ask her to take a picture with me, but, as it was an extremely busy afternoon on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, I didn’t want to attract a bunch of attention to her. But, after we walked across the street, I begged my fiancé to snap a quick paparazzi pic of her for my blog – for which she also smiled. 🙂 So cool!!!

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I cannot recommend stalking Hal’s Bar & Grill enough! The food is EXCELLENT – especially the burgers! – and I had an absolute blast being there.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Hal’s Bar and Grill, aka the 13 Going On 30 bar, is located at 1349 Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice. You can visit their website here.

September 15, 2009September 15, 2009

Jason Segel’s I Love You, Man House

One location I have been wanting to stalk for what seems like forever now is Jason Segel’s (aka Sydney Fife’s) Venice Beach area house and “Man Cave’” from fave movie I Love You, Man. Fellow stalker Owen actually tracked down this location for me MONTHS ago, but since I rarely get out to the Venice area, I had yet to stalk it. So, last weekend, my fiancé and I – armed with a notebook full of Venice area locations – finally made the pilgrimage out to L.A.’s West Side to stalk Sydney’s house.

In I Love You, Man, Sydney Fife lives in an adorable little beach bungalow just a few steps away from the Venice Beach Boardwalk and the Pacific Ocean. And I absolutely fell in love with the place as soon as I laid eyes on it in the movie. But I am sad to report that the house actually looks much different in person than it did in I Love You, Man. In fact, even though it’s hardly been a year since filming took place, had Owen not given me the address, I could have easily walked right by the home without even recognizing it. 🙁

As you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, changes to the house include the paint color (which I actually think was a lot cuter in the movie), the addition of two sets of hedges and a new lawn to the front yard, and the removal of the cement walkway leading up to the home’s front door. I am guessing though, that before the movie was filmed, the house looked pretty much the same as it does today and that producers made all of the above mentioned alterations solely for the filming and then returned the home to its original state after the movie was wrapped. It sure seems like a whole bunch of work to go through, though, and makes me wonder why producers just didn’t find a different house that more closely fit their needs to use in the movie. But that’s Hollywood for you. 🙂

While stalking the house, my fiancé and I, of course, had to go around back to check out the garage area which housed Jason Segal’s “Man Cave” in the movie. Sadly, though, the garage has also changed considerably since the filming of I Love You, Man. Besides the change in paint color, a new garage door and side fence have been added since the movie was filmed.

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But here’s the good news! Apparently, in real life, Jason Segel’s I Love You, Man house is not really a home at all, but a fitness center and gym named Optimum Fitness. So, this is one stalking location that looks like it is – for the most part – open to the public! 🙂 And, best of all, if you sign up here, your first class there is free!! 🙂

On an “Only in L.A.” side note – According to Zillow, Sidney Fife’s one bedroom, one bath house measures only 666 square feet (that’s smaller than my apartment!), yet it sold for a whopping $1,125,000 in April of 2008! You gotta love L.A.! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jason Segel’s house from I Love You, Man – aka Optimum Fitness gym – is located at 26 Rose Avenue in Venice. You can visit the Optimum Fitness website and sign up for a free class here.