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Movies that lie about your hometown or country

R

RubenX

Well-Known Member
As much as I love the movie "Contact" (1997) I always get so mad at the beginning. They are at the Arecibo's Radio Observatory and the a guy say "The village is 5 miles away. There's a general cantina there than can order anything you want from San Juan".

First of all, we don't have no darn "villages". The original Taino indians did, 600 years ago. We have towns and districts.

Second, the telescope is in Arecibo town. There are plenty of Walmart's, K-Marts, Walgreen's, SEARs, JCPenney's, Toys R US, OfficeMax, Rooms to Go, etc, right there in Arecibo. No need to "order" anything from no "general cantina" to go get it back from San Juan which is like 60 miles away. In fact, there are more x-marts between San Juan and Arecibo than between Daytona and Orlando. :\
 
I can't say I know of any films that even take place in my hometown, let alone lie about it. Nor have I seen many films involving Nashville or Chattanooga...not that I can remember, anyway. I'd certainly be intrigued if one ever were made - curious to see if my opinions about the town would be echoed at all in the movie, ha.
 
There was a an episode of Buffy where Faith was in a women's prison in Stockton, My boyfriend said there used to be one but it closed. I am not sure if that closed before or after the episode. Also, when I was trying to look that up, I saw that there was one listed as being on Sons of Anarchy.
 
There aren't any films either about Montreal or shot in Montreal that lie about it that I'm aware of. It isn't the kind of place that would be enhanced or glamorized or demonized by lying about it in film: it would just seem absurd to do so.
 
Not my hometown (that would be pretty insane considering it's more like a village) but the movies Prancer and A Christmas Story were filmed in my general area.
 
Pella said:
There was a an episode of Buffy where Faith was in a women's prison in Stockton, My boyfriend said there used to be one but it closed. I am not sure if that closed before or after the episode. Also, when I was trying to look that up, I saw that there was one listed as being on Sons of Anarchy.
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I could believe there was. My family lived in Stockton before I was born and I know that my dad used to work at a women's correctional facility. Might be the same place. I don't know if it's still there though.

SallySlips said:
Not my hometown (that would be pretty insane considering it's more like a village) but the movies Prancer and A Christmas Story were filmed in my general area.
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They need to make a movie in Indiana now. I used to go out to California and have people ask me stupid questions like whether our roads were paved and if we had the internet. Apparently they're all still envisioning the Christmas Story setting.
 
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When I travel in certain parts of the USA, people ask whether or not we Canadians have paved roads, polar bears & beavers running loose everywhere & think it shows all year round & that many of us still live in igloos. The Americans living in border towns, of course, don't do this.
 
John Ford's The Searchers is partially set in West Texas but was actually filmed in Monument Valley in Utah, which looks nothing like West Texas. It's a great movie, and I accept the monument valley locations as being sort of a mythological version of Texas, but I still find that kind of funny whenever I watch it.
 
Napoleon Dynamite - Completely inaccurate portrayal of what Idaho life is like, at least in the metropolitan area where I grew up and currently live in.
 
IdahoRose said:
Napoleon Dynamite - ...at least in the metropolitan area where I grew up and currently live in.
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So Idaho is a large state with at least three Idahos - the Idaho with two colleges within a day's walk, the Idaho with Blue Turf, and the conservative Idaho?

Hmm, something to consider, indeed.

I will not speak about Singapore, where I currently live, as Tigris covered it. I will never talk about Malaysia or China, either, even though both are my home countries supposedly. But I can speak on Newcastle-upon-Tyne, my favorite British city. (My favorite American town is really badly exaggerated in 8 Mile, so.)

Most Newcastle films have the same setting: weird language (Geordie), creepy but historic buildings, football. Most films on Newcastle center around these themes. If I just watch one film set in North-East England, it's ok, but not all in one sequence. I find them bland, from Goal! to The One and The Only. Although all Geordies (me included, even though I'm of Chinese descent, but that doesn't matter right) love our football and historic buildings and our weird way of speaking that non-Geordies don't understand, but not all Geordies fit into this old coal-mining stereotype.

My favorite would be Billy Elliot, however. It brings out the best of Newcastle - coal. It also brings out something that challenges the Geordie mindset - males doing ballet. Now, that's what I call authenticity. :)
 
Has anyone seen the MTV realtiy show Buck Wild? They always seem to get the places mixed up. They claim to be eating at the Sissonville Wild Wings when really it's the South Charleston Wild Wings.

Senator Joe Manchin is always on the news saying that Buck Wild shows West Virginians in a negative light, but honestly they go out of their way to make it look nice. They must have cleared out all of Capitol Street when filming Downtown Charleston; normally you can't walk a block without being accosted by homeless people. And what about that girl Sawa, who recently got arrested for transporting large amounts of heroin across the state? They never even addressed that.
 
I can't think of any movie that lies about my hometown (Louisville, Kentucky) although the only one I can think of that was set there (Louisville), as well as Elizabethtown, KY, is the movie titled Elizabethtown. It's a pretty accurate although somewhat exaggerated and stereotyped representation.

Region wise... I'm watching a new show at this current moment on the Discovery Channel about the area in which both sides of my family are originally from. I also have quite a few relatives that live there. The show is titled Backyard Oil. One thing that always gets to me is, I feel that nearly any show or movie done about the region in general, in which I live, always depicts us as a bunch of stupid hillbillies. This show can already be included in that judgement somewhat. Though they do show an accurate representation of the light-heartedness and humor of the average person from those parts. It's nice to see a show about the region I'm most familiar with though. The accents and sense of humor are those which I know. People not from the American south may not know that there are big differences in the accents spoken by folks from the various states of the region. The accents of people from say.. Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Kentucky are all quite different in their intricacies, and even accents of various regions in each state can be different.
 
Where should I start? :D but then again, don't most of the movies - about any place - lie one way or another?
 
epath13 said:
Where should I start? :D but then again, don't most of the movies - about any place - lie one way or another?
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Apart from well made and researched historical movies and documentaries (although they always have to leave out alot because of time constraints and whatnot) I would certainly agree. It brings to mind the eponymous use of "to tell a story' meaning to tell a lie.
 
I want to say it was an episode of House where a clinic patient got some condition because of an earthquake in Fresno (or not, but an earthquake in Fresno was mentioned). Yes, California has earthquakes, but most of them are totally harmless because the magnitude isn't strong enough to even be felt most of the time unless you're on or really closeby the epicenter. I have only felt like two in my life. One was when I was in class in high school and I thought someone was shaking my desk, and the other was when my fiance was taking me back to my house from a date. We were at a stop at a controlled intersection near the college, and the car shook. It was freaky! lol
 
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