Category: Movie Locations

The Never Been Kissed Coffee Shop and Tiki Post

It appears to be “Chas week” here at iamnotastalker.com, because once again I find myself posting locations which were unearthed thanks to the incredible stalking talents of my friend Chas!  A few weeks ago, I enlisted his help in finding both the coffee shop and the Tiki Post locations featured in fave romantic comedy Never Been Kissed. Chas located both sites pretty much immediately and I am VERY happy to report that the coffee shop featured in NBK is an actual coffee shop in real life, too! Y’all know how much I love me some coffee! So, I immediately dragged my fiance out to Monrovia to do some Never Been Kissed stalking – and to grab an iced latte, too, of course! 🙂

The coffee shop, which was called Nana’s in Never Been Kissed, shows up towards the beginnning of the movie as the spot where Leelee Sobieski and Drew Barrymore grab a bite to eat after cool guy Guy hides Josie’s car.  In reality, that coffee shop is known as the Monrovia Coffee Company and from what information I could gather while stalking it, I believe it is the very same place that was there when NBK was filmed. The girl working the front counter was a new employee, so she couldn’t answer many of my questions, but she did say she was fairly certain that the Monrovia Coffee Company had occupied that same space for well over ten years. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t you think the fact that Never Been Kissed had been filmed on the premises would have been part of the information given out during the employee training program??? Sheesh!

I am very happy to report that the Monrovia Coffee Company looks almost exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Never Been Kissed. The decor has changed slighty and new tables and chairs have been added in the ten years since filming took place, but otherwise it is very easily recognizable!

Even the neon ice cream/coffee cup sign is STILL in place in the front window – albeit in a slightly different spot. SO LOVE IT!!!!!

And, of course, I just HAD to sit in the same exact place where Leelee and Drew hung out during the scene. 🙂 There is no table in that corner area now, but I was still floored to be sitting there, just the same.

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Chas was able to find this location by noticing an address number posted across the street from the coffee shop when Josie looked out the window during the scene.   He had an inkling the coffee shop was located in Monrovia and, sure enough, he was right!

The Monrovia Coffee Company is a super cute little place that serves up some great coffee, so I highly recommend stalking it!!

Just up the street from the NBK coffee shop was the storefront that was used as the Tiki Post where David Arquette worked in the movie. I say “was the storefront” because, unfortunately, that location no longer exists. Old Town Monrovia got a bit of a facelift a few years back and the block where the Tiki Post was located was changed considerably.

I am going to guess that at the time Never Been Kissed was filmed the Tiki Post space was vacant, which is why producers chose to use it. Shortly after the movie was completed, the entire property was razed and a Cold Stone Creamery built in its place.

“The Fox and the Hair” salon, which Drew and David are standing in front of in the above screen capture, was also completely torn down and is now a Krikorian Movie Theatre.   The Fox and the Hair moved just around the corner from this location to a storefront on Lime Avenue.

Chas was also able to pinpoint this location using an address number and a sign posted directly across the street from the Tiki Post which read “L & D Appliance Corp.” Thankfully, L & D is still located in the exact same spot it was during the filming of Never Been Kissed, which led Chas right to the former Tiki Post location. I told you he was good! 🙂

Big thank you – yet again! – to Chas for finding these locations.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Never Been Kissed coffee shop, aka the Monrovia Coffee Company, is located at 425 South Myrtle Avenue in Monrovia. The former Tiki Post location can be found at 408 South Myrtle Avenue, also in Monrovia.

July 24, 2009
The Girls Just Want To Have Fun Apartment Building!!

As I sit here writing this I am in shock – absolute shock. This morning at around 10 O’clock I got a phone call from fellow stalker Chas who had some news to share with me, some very big news! Are you all sitting down for this???? Chas was calling me up to tell me that HE HAD FOUND THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING!   No, that was not a major typo, you did just read that last sentence correctly!!!! Chas, who I am now probably going to name my first born after, actually FOUND THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING!!!! For those who are new to my blog, the large brick apartment building that Sarah Jessica Parker lived at in fave ’80s movie Girls Just Want To Have Fun is for me the absolute Holy Grail of filming locations, the one location I have spent YEARS looking for but could NOT for the life of me find, the one spot that I was sure I would go to my grave still wondering about.   And Chas FOUND IT! In record time, too!

I only set Chas on the mission of finding the GJWHF apartment this past Sunday night and being that I have spent YEARS searching for it, it is absolutely unbelievable to me that he located it in a record TWO days! And the guy doesn’t even live in the L.A. area!!!!  He has to have ESP or something! It’s a gift, I tell ya!   And, oh yeah, did I mention that he has NEVER EVEN SEEN THE MOVIE! LOL  After seeing the ONE screen capture of the building I had posted online, Chas got an inkling as to where it might be located. And sure enough, minutes later, he found it – right where he thought it would be! Totally mind-blowing! What’s even more amazing to me is that he recognized the building using aerial images, as the bird’s eye view of it (pictured above) does not look at all like how I pictured it to be. Because of the angle at which the apartment was always shown in the movie, I was under the impression that it was a U-shaped structure surrounding a grassy courtyard.

In reality, though, the GJWHF apartment building is made up of four separate matching buildings which surround a grassy courtyard.   The two rear buildings have a large space running in between them which was not visible in the movie.

Pretty much immediately after Chas told me the good news, I ran right out to FINALLY stalk the GJWHF apartment!   And I have to say that seeing it in person was heaven – absolute heaven – for me! I honestly never believed the day would come when I would actually be able to STALK THE GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN APARTMENT BUILDING!!!  My biggest fear was that the place had been torn down, so, to see it in person today was INCREDIBLE! I honestly could NOT have been more excited!!!!! And while the apartment does look slightly different today than how it appeared in GJWHF, what’s amazing to me is how little has actually changed in the twenty-four years since filming took place!!!  For the most part, the building looks EXACTLY the same as it did in 1985 when GJWHF was filmed.

The main changes occured in the building’s courtyard area, where the walkway and foliage now look quite different than how they appeared in the movie.  But other than that, the rest of the building looks virtually identical to how it appeared onscreen back in 1985! And it was so very cool to see it all in person!

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This morning, when Chas first told me he had found the much-coveted apartment building, I was in absolute and total shock. My first thought was ‘What in the heck am I going to do with all of my free time?’   LOL You see, for the past year and a half, anytime I’ve had a free moment or two, instead of picking up a magazine or turning on the TV, I’d hop on Google Maps and search for the ever-elusive GJWHF apartment building.   And anytime I’d drive through a new neighborhood, I’d crane my neck looking down each and every side street hoping against hope I’d randomly stumble upon it. So, to be honest, seeing that building in person today was a bit of a bittersweet moment for me.   As excited as I was, I couldn’t help but wonder (subtle SJP reference there) what in the heck I am going to do with myself now!! LOL LOL LOL I feel like a mountain climber who spends years training to climb Mount Everest, finally makes it to the top, and then wonders ‘Now what?’   The Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment was my definitely my Mount Everest.  🙂 I have no doubt, though, that it won’t be long before I come up against a new hard-to-find location that will keep me up for many a night! 🙂

Big Huge THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location!!!!!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Girls Just Want To Have Fun apartment building is located at ( WOW I never thought I’d be writing those words!) 511-517 South Mariposa Avenue in Los Angeles.

July 22, 2009
The Win A Date With Tad Hamilton House

I am forever indebted to fellow stalker Chas who has succeeded in finding a location that has eluded me for the past few years, a location that has been at the very top of my ultimate stalking list ever since the movie it was featured in first premiered in January of 2004. The location in question? Rosalee Futch, aka Kate Bosworth’s, charming little Craftsman home from fave movie Win A Date With Tad Hamilton. It was just a few months ago that I found out that Win A Date had been filmed in its entirety on location in Los Angeles and since that time I have been completely obsessed with finding the main house used in the movie. Unfortunately, though, I had absolutely no luck in locating it. I even went so far as to contact Win A Date’s location manager via Facebook, who sent me back a one line response saying “Long time ago – think house is in Melrose Heights”.   I had never heard of a place named “Melrose Heights” prior to that, so I immediately go to Googling and found out that an area with that name does actually exist in Los Angeles, but that it is a high-end shopping district. Not to be deterred, I considered the possibility that the house was located near Melrose Heights, and enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA . The two of us set about searching any and all residences near the small shopping district, but came up empty-handed.  Just last week, fellow stalker Owen joined in the search and also combed the Melrose Heights area, just in case Mike and I had missed something. They say two heads are better than one, but in this case even our three heads combined couldn’t find that house! Until Chas stepped in, that is!

Chas spent a full two days looking for the Win A Date house (how do I even begin to thank him for that???) and eventually found it in an area of Los Angeles known as Melrose Hill.   Um, hello . . . Melrose HILL??? What happened to Melrose Heights????   In all fairness, though, I guess the location manager almost got the name right. But, as we all know, “almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades”. LOL Mike, Owen, and I would now like those 80+ wasted hours of our lives back! 🙂

I cannot tell you how darn excited I was to finally be seeing the Win A Date house in person. In fact, I am surprised I didn’t run my car right off the road on my way to stalk it – I was THAT excited. 🙂 And I am happy to report that, aside from a change in paint color, Rosalee’s house looks pretty much exactly the same today as it did when the movie was filmed back in 2003.   It’s no surprise at all that this particular house was chosen as the residence of Rosalee Futch, the All-American girl with the All-American values. It’s exactly the type of place where you’d expect to find her living.   The Win A Date house is located on an adorable little tree-lined street that looks like it could very easily be found in a place called Frazier’s Bottom, Virginia, the town where the movie supposedly takes place.   The Melrose Hill Neighborhood is an absolutely charming place that was built between 1911 and 1926 and consists of only 45 homes.  One walk through the area’s tree lined streets and it’s not hard to see why Los Angeles Magazine named it one of L.A.’s “10 Great Neighborhoods” in 2003.

Rosalee’s Craftsman house shows up repeatedly throughout the movie, most notably the front porch area, which, as you can see in the above photograph, has since been covered over quite a bit with foliage.

And it appears that the real life interior of the home was also used for the filming of some scenes in the movie.

Ironically enough, I think I was more excited about seeing the street light out in front of Rosalee’s house than the actual house itself. While searching for the Win A Date home, Mike and I had studied that darn street light for hours, trying to figure out where in L.A. it might be located.  Neither one of us had ever encountered a lamppost that unusual in all of our stalking adventures and I was beginning to think it was a fake. So, I can’t tell you how excited I was when I saw those unique lights lining the streets of the Melrose Hill neighborhood.   It was validation for me that all of those hours we spent searching for the house weren’t for naught! Those lights really do exist! LOL   And now, if a location with those particular street lights ever comes up in a movie again, we will know exactly where to find it! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding this location for me!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Rosalee’s house from Win A Date With Tad Hamilton is located at 814 Melrose Hill Street in the Melrose Hill Neighborhood of Los Angeles.

July 21, 2009
The Never Been Kissed House

Last weekend, thanks to fellow stalker Chas, I was able to stalk a location I’ve been on the lookout for for quite some time – Drew Barrymore’s childhood home from fave romantic comedy Never Been Kissed. Chas is quite the master stalker, so last week I enlisted his help in finding this location and, lo and behold, he unearthed it pretty much immediately! Thank you, Chas!!! Never Been Kissed supposedly takes place in the Chicago area, but being that 99.9% of the movie was filmed right here in L.A., Chas had an inkling that “Josie Grosie’s” childhood home was most likely located here, as well. And sure enough, he was right. 🙂

I am very happy to report that Josie’s house looks EXACTLY the same today as it did back in 1999 when Never Been Kissed was filmed. And I really could not have been more excited to be seeing it in person!

Josie’s home is featured several times throughout the movie, most notably as the location of the heartbreaking scene when she gets egged on prom night by her high school crush, Billy. Ugh, such a sad scene!

It is also the spot where Guy picks up Josie for her second prom experience – one that turns out to be much better than her first. 🙂

Amazingly enough, Chas also managed to track down the home Josie lived in as an adult in the movie, which, ironically, can actually be found in Chicago. I find it incredibly strange that the producers would go all the way to the Windy City to film a few establishing shots of the home along with one very brief scene between Drew Barrymore and David Arquette that takes place in front of the home, when pretty much every other scene in the movie was filmed in Los Angeles. But, according to Chas, whenever filmmakers want to establish that a movie is taking place in Chicago, they film at a location near an ‘L’ Train. Which is exactly what they did in Never Been Kissed. 🙂 In the movie, Drew’s home is located directly beneath a set of ‘L’ Train tracks. Chas just recently visted the Windy City and was kind enough to stop by Josie’s house to take some pictures for me. SO COOL!

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Big THANK YOU to Chas for finding these locations and sharing his pictures of Josie’s Chicago home! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Never Been Kissed house is located at 368 North Ridgewood Place in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. The home Josie lives in as an adult is located at 930 West Newport Avenue in Chicago, Illinois.

July 20, 2009
The Erin Brockovich House

Many, many months ago my very good friend and fellow stalker Kerry challenged me to find Julia Roberts’ house from the Academy Award winning movie Erin Brockovich.  Kerry knew that the home was located somewhere in the Ventura area, but had no idea of its exact whereabouts. So, I, of course, enlisted the help of Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who wound up finding the home’s location pretty much immediately!   Flash forward to six weeks ago when my family and I took a little weekend vacay to Ventura. I managed to sneak in some stalking during our trip, as I always do when on vacation, but by that time had completely forgotten about the Erin Brockovich house.  That’s the blonde in me!! Well, as soon as I got home and posted my first Ventura blog entry, I got a very excited phone call from Kerry, who wanted to know when I would be writing about the house that she had challenged me to find so long ago. Well, let me tell you, I almost fell out of my chair. I felt absolutely TERRIBLE that I had forgotten all about it!!!!   And I felt even more terrible about an hour later when Mike called me up and asked me the very same thing! LOL LOL LOL So, this past weekend, when my parents announced that they would be spending a few nights in Ventura, I begged them to do a little Erin Brockovich stalking for me.  Semi-begrudgingly they agreed.   So, even though I don’t usually like to blog about locations I haven’t personally visited myself, I had to make an exception just this once, for Kerry’s – and Mike’s – sakes! 🙂

I am very happy to report that, although the paint color is now different, the Erin Brockovich house is still very recognizable from the movie. On a side note, my mom had actually offered to pose in front of Erin’s house for the above picture like I usually do in my stalking photographs, which I thought would have been absolutely HILARIOUS, but unfortunately she was having a bad hair day at the time, so she didn’t end up doing it. LOL

Located directly next door to Erin’s house is the residence that stood in for the home of her boyfriend George, who was played by Aaron Eckhart, in the film. And I am happy to report that it looks exactly the same today as it did when Erin Brockovich was filmed there back in 2000 – right down to its paint color! 🙂 I love it when that happens!!!

There has been one major change to the two houses since filming wrapped, though.  In Erin Brockovich, Erin and George’s homes shared a large front yard area, but today there is a tall hedge separating the two properties, which changes their appearance quite significantly.

Quite a few scenes take place in that shared front yard area, including the FABULOUS scene when Erin and George first meet and she makes that GREAT speech about her telephone number! Love it!

The scene when Ed Masry gifts Erin $5,000 and a new car also takes place out in front of the home.

Some filming also took place in the backyard area of the two houses, and, I believe, inside of the homes, as well.

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Just around the corner from Erin’s home is the Main Street Restaurant and Steakhouse, which makes a very brief appearance at the beginning of the movie as the restaurant where Erin takes her kids for a bite to eat after finding a cockroach in her kitchen.

A little bit of movie trivia for you – the waitress in that scene was played by none other than the real life Erin Brockovich. Her character’s name in the movie? Why Julia, of course! 😉 LOL

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Erin Brockovich house is located at 545 South Emma Avenue in Ventura. George’s house is located right next door at 555 South Emma Avenue. Main Street Restaurant and Steakhouse is located just a few blocks away at 3159 East Main Street, also in Ventura.

July 15, 2009
James’ Beach Restaurant

This past weekend, I dragged my fiance out to stalk a restaurant named James’ Beach that was featured in the 2009 romantic comedy I Love You, Man.    In the movie, Sydney Fife (aka Jason Segal) and Peter Klaven (aka Paul Rudd) have their very first man-date at the Venice Beach area restaurant, which Sydney alleges serves up the “best fish tacos in the world”. So, of course, I just had to try the place out for myself, especially since tacos are pretty much my favorite food!

James’ Beach has actually been at the top of my must-stalk locations list ever since the movie first premiered this past March, but because I rarely make it out to the Venice area, I had yet to visit the place. Until this past weekend, that is. And I have to say that the restaurant was well worth the wait!  Being that I am the pickiest eater known to man and also not a big fan of fish, I opted not to try the restaurant’s world famous fish tacos, but instead ordered up their tofu version. And I am happy to report that the James’ Beach tofu tacos were so good that I couldn’t stop eating them -even after I was far past full! Really, it was pathetic! LOL James’ Beach taco plates are served in a build-it-yourself style and come with black beans, AMAZING guacamole, homemade salsa, and flour tortillas.   And, even though the tofu tacos I ordered were fabulous, looking back now I really wish I had tried the fish tacos, as I think they would have been simply amazing. Oh well, it looks like I’ll just have to stalk the restaurant again! 🙂

The owner of James’ Beach truly could NOT have been nicer to us and answered all of my silly questions about movies that had been filmed at the restaurant and celebrities that had dined there. He told us that while numerous productions have actually been filmed on the premises (including three episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm), none had brought him as much attention as I Love You, Man. At the time of the filming, the owner had no idea that the name of his restaurant would be mentioned in the movie or that Jason Segal would proclaim that his place serves up the world’s best fish tacos. 🙂 So, it was a very pleasant surprise for him when moviegoers started stalking his establishment. 🙂 Pictured above is the restaurant’s plaque commemorating the filming of I Love You, Man.

The movie is also mentioned on the James’ Beach menu. Love it! 🙂

I Love You, Man was filmed on the restaurant’s outdoor patio area. Unfortunately, since the DVD of the movie is not being released until August 11th, I was not able to make any screen captures of the scene which was filmed at James’ Beach.   Ironically enough, though, I was able to get the above pic from a New York newspaper article about I Love You, Man and the author’s quest to find the “world’s best fish tacos” out on the East Coast.   LOL According to the owner, I Love You, Man took two full nights to film, during which time the restaurant had to be closed to the public. When I asked if Paul Rudd and Jason Segal were nice, the owner told me they were both “absolutely wonderful”. 🙂

Besides being a filming location, James’ Beach is also a big time celebrity hot spot. 🙂 Stars like Alfre Woodard, Peter Berg, Muhammad Ali, Meg Ryan, Tea Leoni, Catherine O’Hara, Forest Whitaker, tap dancing king Gregory Hines, and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas have all been spotted at the restaurant at one time or another.   So, of course, I just had to ask if my girl Jen had ever eaten there. And I was floored to find out that she had!   Not only was a scene from Jen Aniston’s 2006 movie Friends With Money filmed at James’ Beach (pictured above), but my girl also held a premiere party for her 2004 documentary Growing Up Grizzly 2 at the restaurant, with none other than George Clooney in attendance. Growing Up Grizzly 2 is an adorable documentary about the lives of two orphaned grizzly bears named Bart and Honey-Bump who were adopted by a human family. If you haven’t seen it, you definitely should – it’s adorable!

James’ Beach is a SUPER cute little restaurant and I really can’t recommend stalking it enough! The food was FABULOUS, the service was excellent, and the ambiance is just plain fun! It’s the perfect place to grab a bite to eat after spending a day on Venice Beach, which is located just a stone’s throw away from the restaurant.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: James’ Beach is located at 60 North Venice Blvd. in Venice. You can visit the James’ Beach website here.  Its sister restaurants, Canal Club Wood Grill & Sushi Bar (pictured above) – where Jen Aniston has also dined – and Danny’s Venice Beach Bistro & Bar, are also located in Venice, at 2025 Pacific Avenue and 23 Windward Avenue respectively.

July 14, 2009
The Blast from the Past Strip Mall

Since I was in the area this past week stalking a wedding venue, I decided to pay a little visit to the strip mall featured in fave romantic comedy Blast from the Past. In the flick, which opens up in the year 1962, a nuclear-war-fearing Christopher Walken builds a massive fallout shelter for his wife and unborn son directly underneath his suburban home. When a small plane fortuitously crashes onto his property, Walken fears a bomb has been dropped on America and immediately locks his family in the homemade shelter where they remain for the next 35 years.   While the family is living underground, a strip mall comprised of a dive bar, an adult bookstore, and a 50s diner,  is built on the spot where their home used to stand. That strip mall is what I set out to stalk last week.

And I am happy to report that it looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did in Blast from the Past. According to fave website Seeing Stars, which is how I originally found this location, all three storefronts used in the movie were vacant at the time of filming. And, after recently re-watching BFTP, I am fairly certain that filming not only took place outside of the empty shops, but inside of them, as well.  Pictured above is the storefront used as the dilapidated 50s diner originally named “Mom’s” in the movie. It is this shop that is located directly above the fallout shelter and into which the shelter’s elevator rises through the floor, causing the loopy storeowner to believe an angel has come to save him. In reality, “Mom’s” diner is actually a tattoo parlor.

Directly next door to “Mom’s”, is the storefront that was used as the dive bar “Shangri Lodge” in the movie. Today it is a beauty parlor named “Unlimited Touch Salon” – I don’t even want to know what goes on in there!!!   LOL LOL LOL

Next door to the salon is the storefront that was featured as the adult bookstore in the movie. Just before Brendan Fraser makes his first visit above ground, Christopher Walken warns him to stay away from the adult bookstore as there is “invisible, poisonous gas” inside of it. LOL LOL LOL   In reality, that shop is now an antique clock store.

The tiki bar that Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in front of at the end of the movie is in actuality a large bakery and pastry shop.

I find it kind of ironic that, in what is definitely a case of life imitating art, two of the empty storefronts eventually became seedy shops – a tattoo parlor and a salon with a highly suggestive name – much like was the case in the movie. And while I, of course, had fun stalking the strip mall, I can’t say I’d really recommend it to others. It’s kind of in a seedy area and unfortunately there isn’t all that much to see. For fans of the movie, like me, I’d instead recommend stalking Alicia Silverstone’s adorable little house from the film. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blast from the Past strip mall is located at 7218-7222 Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park. Mom’s diner, under which Brendan Fraser’s bomb shelter was located, can be found at 7222 Topanga Canyon Blvd. The Shangri Lodge Bar is really the Unlimited Touch Salon which is located at 7220 Topanga Canyon. And the “poison gas” adult bookstore is really Denny’s Clocks, which can be found at 7218 Topanga Canyon. Pastries by Edie, the bakery where Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser kiss in the movie, is located next to the strip mall, at 7226 Topanga Canyon Blvd.

July 13, 2009
The Blast from the Past House

UPDATE: Just a quick note to let all of you stalkers out there know that tonight at 11 p.m. PST I will be interviewed by radio host Peter Anthony Holder for his talk show Holder Tonight on Montreal’s number one English talk station, CJAD, and on their sister station CFRB, which is the number one talk station in Toronto! 🙂 Those of you who want to listen in to a live stream can do so at www.CJAD.com or www.CFRB.com. The live stream link for both stations is located on the upper left hand side of their homepage. Then tomorrow morning Kelly Green, from Tensessee’s The Farm 100.9, will be interviewing me at 7:20 a.m., but unfortunately it doesn’t look like that station has streaming audio. 🙁 http://www.thefarmradio.com/greenteam.htm Hopefully they will put the interview in the archive section of their website, though, and I’ll be able to post a link. Now on to the post! 🙂

A few weeks ago, I dragged Mike, from MovieShotsLA, out to a location I have been meaning to stalk for quite a while now – Alicia Silverstone’s cute little craftsman house from the 1999 movie Blast from the Past. I had actually been wanting to stalk the adorable house ever since I first saw the movie over ten years ago, but had no idea where it was located. So, when I found out that Mike knew the address and had actually stalked the home several times previously, I begged him to take me there. 🙂

I am very happy to report that the house looks exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Blast from the Past – right down to the little red car parked out front! I’m not kidding – that red car really was parked out there while we were stalking the place!!!! LOL LOL LOL I was shocked to discover, though, that the Blast from the Past house was located in Los Angeles, because, thanks to its Craftsman style architecture, it actually looks more like a Pasadena area home. Even stranger still is the fact that in the beginning of the movie, when Brendan Fraser leaves his family’s bomb shelter, his mom tells him to seek out “a girl from Pasadena”, because she’s “always found girls from Pasadena to be a little bit nicer”. 🙂 So, basically, the Blast from the Past location scouts went, not to Pasadena, but to Los Angeles to find a Pasadena style home to stand in for a Pasadena girl’s residence. That’s Hollywood for you! 🙂

The house, most notably the front door and front porch area, show up numerous times throughout the movie.

And it is on the street in front of the home that Brendan Fraser runs away from the County Family Services people . . .

. . . and crashes his rented meat truck into the County Family Service woman’s car. LOL LOL LOL

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I was shocked to discover, while doing research for this post, that the same home was also used in the 1974 movie Chinatown as the house where the mysterious Katherine (Belinda Palmer) hides out. It is amazing to me how similar the home still looks thirty-five years later!! According to IMDB, the same house was also featured in the 2000 made-for-TV movie If These Walls Could Talk 2, but I haven’t been able to verify that. I can say for certain, though, that it was not the main house used in the movie.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Blast from the Past house is located at 1972 Canyon Drive, just off of Franklin Avenue, in Los Angeles.

July 8, 2009
The Never Been Kissed High School

Yesterday, I dragged my mom out to a location I have been meaning to stalk for years now – the school that stood in for South Glen High School in the 1999 romantic comedy Never Been Kissed.   In actuality, though, the school where filming took place wasn’t a high school at all, but a huge middle school named John Burroughs located in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles. John Burroughs Middle School opened up way back in 1924 with a starting roster of only 400 students. Today, that student body has grown to include a whopping 2,300 Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth graders!   John Burroughs, or “JB” as it is more commonly known, is absolutely HUGE in person, much larger than it appeared in Never Been Kissed. So large, in fact, that I couldn’t step back far enough to fit its whole exterior in the lens of my camera!! I so need to invest in that fish eye lens!  LOL   John Burroughs is a very beautiful, traditional style brick school that looks like it could be found in any city in America. Because of its All-American feel, it’s not hard to see why it has been featured in countless movie and television productions.

While my mom and I were stalking the school, we ran into a couple of faculty members who really could not have been nicer to us.  They gave us a brief rundown of some of the filming that has taken place on the JB campus, but inronically it seemed that I knew more about the school’s filming history than they did. 🙂   LOL And, since school is not currently in session, they even let us walk around the campus to snap some pictures. 🙂 I am happy to report that John Burroughs Middle School looks pretty much exactly the same in person as it did onscreen in Never Been Kissed. Both the interior and the exterior of the middle school were used extensively in the filming. Specific areas of the school featured in the movie include the exterior, where Drew Barrymore parked her brother’s car each morning;

the school’s entryway, complete with metal detectors, which were put there specifically for the filming;

the main stairwell;

the hallways;

and the main office, where Drew Barrymore got smacked in the face by a door.

From what I understand, some of JB’s classrooms were also used in the filming of the movie, most notably Room 108, which according to the faculty member I spoke with is a room which has been featured in numerous productions.

Burroughs Middle School also popped us as Reese Witherspoon and Tobey Maguire’s 1950’s high school in Pleasantville . . .

and as Michael J. Fox’s high school in Teen Wolf.

The exterior of the middle school was also featured in Teaching Mrs. Tingle, Rex Buster, The Samurai of Strongsville, Ohio, Rebound, Beauty Shop, Agent Cody Banks, Casper: A Spirited Beginning, and the television series Family Matters. The interiors of the school were used in The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Like Father, Like Son, and Meteor Man and its auditorium was featured in the movie Deep Impact. There are also reports that the school was used in both Pretty in Pink and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but I’m not sure that information is correct. Filming for both of those moves took place extensively at John Marshall High School in Los Feliz. That’s not to say, though, that some minor filming might have taken place at Burroughs Middle School, but so far I have not been able to verify that.

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   Famous alumni of John Burroughs Middle School include Laila Ali (Muhammad Ali’s daughter), Tyra Banks, author James Ellroy, and American Idol’s Frenchie Davis.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: John Burroughs Middle School is located at 600 South McCadden Place in Los Angeles.

July 2, 2009
Will Ferrell’s Streaking Scene

A few weeks ago, while out stalking in Montrose, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and I decided to pinpoint the exact location where Will Ferrell went streaking in the 2003 movie Old School.   Although it’s fairly common location knowledge that the streaking scene took place on Honolulu Avenue in the City of Montrose, I actually first heard that information straight from the horse’s mouth last July when I saw Will Ferrell speak at my acting school. During the question and answer session of Will’s presentation, one of my fellow students raised their hand and asked Frank the Tank himself where the streaking scene had taken place. Love it!! 🙂 Amazingly enough, Will remembered the general location where that scene had been filmed and ever since then I have been meaning to stalk it.   So, a few weeks ago, Mike and I set out to do just that.

With our Blackberries in hand, the two of us walked up and down Honolulu Avenue watching Will’s streaking scene on YouTube while trying to find the exact location.  And sure enough, we did! 🙂   We were actually able to pinpoint Will’s streaking spot by matching up the Montrose Shopping Park Directory sign . . .

and some windows that were shown in the background of the scene. YAY!

While we were stalking Honolulu Avenue, one of the super-friendly local shop owners informed us that the Montrose Bakery and Cafe, which is located just down the road from Will’s streaking spot, was also featured in Old School. The Cafe’s exterior stood in for the exterior of the University Cafe where Luke Wilson and his friends have a pow wow about how to save their fraternity. Interestingly enough, though, the Cafe’s interior was not used in the filming.   The interior scenes were filmed at another location altogether.

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You can watch Will Ferrell’s absolutely hilarious – but NSFW – streaking scene here. “We’re going streaking! Yeah! We’re going streaking through the quad and into the gymnasium! Come on, everybody! Come on, Snoop, Snoop-a-Loop! Bring your green hat!” LOL LOL LOL

On a bittersweet side note, I dragged my mom out to Montrose earlier today to snap some more photos of the “streaking street” and we noticed the above tribute to Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett posted outside of a local shop named Pure Sunshine Beauty Supply. It seems everyone the world over is mourning Michael and Farrah’s untimely passings. 🙁

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Will Ferrell’s streaking scene took place on the block of Honolulu Avenue located between Market Street and Ocean View Boulevard in Montrose. Frank’s wife is driving East on Honolulu Avenue when she first spots Frank.   She stops the car right around 2246 Honolulu Avenue to let him hop inside. Montrose Bakery and Cafe, aka the University Cafe, is located at 2325 Honolulu Avenue, also in Montrose.

July 1, 2009