movie locations

When I was in Chicago earlier this year, I wish I'd come here, but I'm glad I didn't. But the record store John Cusack's character owned in High Fidelity, looks like it's boarded up and graffiti'd, circa whenever GoogleCorp drove their surveillance vehicles through that neighborhood.


View Larger Map

I mean, yeah it's sad, but it's Chicago. They'll do whatever the fuck they like. Movies are always temporary to cities like that. They'll never commemorate the fact that a good chunk of a great movie was filmed there.

There's no Filming Location Preservation Society (FLPS). People driving by most likely just look at that corner property and go, "Hrmph...there's that old 7-11 I used to go to as a kid. Now it's nothing."

That is, if they even actually care.

All I know is that whenever I drive past the place that used to be the cafe where Marissa Tomei worked in Untamed Heart, I shed an invisible, misty tear. It's a good thing I don't drive past it often.

View Larger Map

talking 'bout my, my va-ca-shun

Saturday, 7/12/08
Woke up at 6:30 to get the oil changed in C's car. Drive to the Edina Toyota, arrive at 7:30. Oil changed by 8:30, grab breakfast at Perkins, then leave for Chicago. Oh wait, gotta drop some paperwork off at C's work in Minneapolis. Not a problem, we'll just cruise on up 35w and...SHIT...it's closed. How about we hit up Cedar. Just a hop skip and a jump away....aw shit...there's a triathlon running all across Uptown and South Minneapolis. We finally get out of town around 10:30. Still not bad.

Saturday night we arrived in Chicago. We stayed at the Silversmith Hotel, which was way more luxe than I'm used to or really care for, but it was pretty nice. Walked around town. Hit up Milennium Park again, walked to Buckingham Fountain, and back to the hotel. and ended up at Navy Pier. At the pier, I saw the most fantastic fireworks display I think I'd ever seen. And some crazy trapeeze artists ringing bells and doing stunts. Crazy. End of the night.

Sunday 7/13/08.
At midnight, I got a little older, and that was ok. We woke up the next day and decided to go to the Art Inisitute of Chicago. We saw priceless works of art, and I got to see American Gothic:

 American Gothic by Grant Wood

And Nighthawks:

 

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper

Two of my favorite paintings. I also learned that the woman standing next to the man in American Gothic is NOT his wife, but his unwed daughter. You can tell she's unwed because she's UGLY.

More to come...