Canadian houses – IAMNOTASTALKER

June 24, 2010June 23, 2010

Juno’s House from “Juno”

While I realize that most of my fellow stalkers are currently clamoring for me to put my Pacific Northwest blogging on hold in order to write about locales in the Southern California area, there are two more locations from the Academy Award-winning movie Juno that I wanted to blog about before doing so. So, please bear with me for now, as I promise to get back to my L.A. roots first thing next week. 🙂 In the meantime, the second Juno location that I stalked while in Vancouver three weeks ago was the supposed Minnesota-area house where the flick’s eponymous lead character, the lovable, but quirky Juno MacGuff (aka Ellen Page), lived with her equally lovable, but quirky parents, Mac (aka J.K. Simmons) and Brenda (aka Allison Janney). I, of course, found this location yet again thanks to fellow stalker Owen who had, in turn, tracked it down thanks to this ever-informative Flikr page. Thank you, Owen! On a side note, I am quickly discovering the endless values of using Flikr as a stalking tool. The site is an enormous treasure trove of location information that one can easily sift through using key word searches and I highly recommend it to anyone who is currently trying to track down an elusive locale. But, as usual, I digress.

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According to this fabulous February 2008 Vancouver Sun article about Juno filming locations in the area, two different homes actually stood in for the MacGuff residence in the movie – one property was used for all interior filming, while a different one entirely was used for all of the exterior scenes. The article states that while scouting residences for his lead character in January of 2007, just one short month before filming began, director Ivan Reitman, along with Canadian location scout Neil Robertson, sought out an average-looking, middle-America-type home that had some “old-school” elements to it, like La-Z-Boy recliners and wood paneling. Reitman found his perfect home (pictured above) in the Dunbar area of West Vancouver. Unfortunately, though, upon closer inspection, the property’s interior proved to be too small for the filming, so, the scenes involving Juno’s kitchen, family room, and basement had to be shot at a different residence, which was also located in the Dunbar area, although I am not sure of exactly where. The shooting of the interior scenes took a week to complete, during which time the owner, Yvonne Kolstee – along with her cat – had to relocate to a hotel. And although one of Kolstee’s lamps did make an appearance in the flick, for the most part her property was completely revamped for the filming. According to the article, set-designers made her “multi-million dollar home in Dunbar look like a trailer”. Which begs the question, why not just build a set to film on? Ah, I’ll never understand the decision-making process behind choosing filming locations. Anyway, the article also states that Kolstee used the money she made off of the filming to take not one, but two vacations to Mexico, along with trips to India and Singapore, as well. Oh, when are location scouts going to come knocking on my door??? 😉

I am very happy to report that the home which was used for the exterior of Juno’s residence looks pretty much EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

The only notable difference is the fact that the tree from which Juno tried to hang herself using a few feet of Red Rope licorice in the beginning of the flick is not there in real life. In actuality, that tree was a fake that was brought in solely for the filming. The MacGuff residence is absolutely adorable in person and it’s not very hard to see why producers chose to use it.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Juno’s house from the hit movie Juno is located at 4053 32 Avenue West in the Dunbar suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Mark and Vanessa’s house, which we, unfortunately, didn’t have time to stalk, is located at 13926 23 Avenue in the city of Surrey, which is located about 30 miles southeast of Vancouver.

June 23, 2010June 22, 2010

Bleeker’s House from “Juno”

Another Vancouver location that fellow stalker Owen managed to track down was the supposed Minnesota-area house belonging to dorky high school track-star Paulie Bleeker (aka Michael Cera) in the 2007 breakout dramedy Juno. And even though I was not a big fan of the flick – it was funny and all, but not especially spectacular and, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, dealt with the issue of teenage pregnancy far too cavalierly for my taste – because it was such a huge hit and because I was in the area three weeks ago, I just had to stalk the house where Paulie lived. I should mention here that I did love Ellen Page’s performance in the movie – she was absolutely adorable, not to mention the fact that her acting was phenomenal. So, I guess there’s that. 🙂 But I digress. Owen managed to find the Bleeker family residence thanks to a Flikr page which posted a number of photos of locales featured in Juno, along with a rather vague description of where they could be found. From there, he did a bit of cyber-stalking and was fairly quickly able to pin down the exact location of Paulie’s house. Thank you, Owen!

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According to the blog written by Academy-Award-winning Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody during the filming of the flick, Bleeker’s house was the very first location that the cast and crew shot at. Sadly, though, the owners of the property gave the exterior of their home a slight facelift after filming wrapped, so the residence looks a bit different today than it did on February 14, 2007, when the filming of Juno began. Boo!

The most notable difference, for me at least, was the fact that the mailbox which Juno filled with Tic Tacs candies in order to surprise Bleeker was not actually there in real life.

Nor was it there in the movie’s final scene, though, which was a fairly big gaff on the filmmakers’ part.

Because Bleeker’s mailbox was M.I.A. in the movie’s closing scene, I am fairly certain that it was, in actuality, just a prop that was brought in for the filming. As you can see in the above photograph, the home’s real life mailbox is located just to the left of the front door.

And I, of course, just had to sit in the same spot where Bleeker and Juno sat while singing The Moldy Peaches’ “Anyone Else But You” in that final scene.

Amazingly enough, while we were stalking the house, the owner happened to walk outside – well, truth be told, she actually came outside to investigate why I was sitting on her front stoop 😉 – and she truly could NOT have been nicer. She answered all of my silly little questions about the filming and didn’t even mind at all that I was sitting on her property. She explained that her home has become a frequent stalking destination ever since Juno premiered back in 2007 and that visitors frequently stop by to pose for photographs on her front stoop. She said she doesn’t really mind the massive attention her home draws as the majority of the picture-takers are all very respectful. 🙂 She also told us that some filming of Juno did take place inside of the house, which was redecorated slightly for the movie, and that she and her family even had to relocate to a hotel for a brief period of time during the shoot. She also got to meet actors Ellen Page and Michael Cera, whom she said were both extremely nice. 🙂 Love it!

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Bleeker’s house from Juno is located at 3961 36 Avenue West in Vancouver.

June 18, 2010June 17, 2010

Nick’s (Almost) Apartment from “The Crush”

Just a mile and a half away from the Forrester mansion, which appeared in the 1993 thriller The Crush and which I blogged about yesterday, is the supposed Seattle-area apartment house where Nick Eliot (aka Cary Elwes) tried to rent a unit after discovering that his current landlords’ 14-year old daughter Adrian (aka Alicia Silverstone) had developed a highly-inappropriate and psychotically-obsessive crush on him. I found this location, yet again, thanks to master stalker Owen, who had managed to track down one of the movie’s crew members who happened to remember the general vicinity where the apartment house was located. From there, Owen once again employed Google Street View to pinpoint the property’s exact location. And even though the building only showed up in two very brief scenes in The Crush, because of my Alicia Silverstone connection, I just had to stalk the place.

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I am very happy to report that Nick’s apartment house looks much the same in person as it did onscreen in The Crush, except for one pretty glaring difference – the building is now located in a different place.

Yes, you read that right – according to this Flikr website, Nick’s apartment house was formerly located just a bit north of where it is now, adjacent to a vacant lot, and was numbered 2132 (as you can see in the above screen capture). When the neighboring Reeve house, a historic property, was moved for preservation purposes in 1999, the Crush apartment also had to be moved a few hundred feet to the south to accommodate it. The Crush building’s address number was subsequently changed to 2156 and, because it had to be built into the side of a hill, appears to be a bit lower to the ground now than it was previously. Isn’t that incredible? I mean, I’ve heard of filming locations being torn down entirely, but I’ve never heard of one being moved from one plot of land to another! I’m so, so glad that the property was preserved, though, for all of us stalkers to continue to appreciate. You can see some great interior photographs of the building’s super-cute little front unit on a former real estate listing from 2008 here. I absolutely LOVE the built-in bookshelves next to the fireplace!! So darn cute! I am a little upset, though, that the real estate agent failed to make mention of the property’s cinematic history on the listing. Hmph!

On an interesting side note – While doing research on The Crush for yesterday’s blog post, I came across some information on IMDB which stated that the flick’s screenwriter/director Alan Shapiro based his screenplay on actual events from his life that took place while he was living in a guesthouse on the property of a wealthy Beverly Hills family back in 1982. And while I don’t know how much of the movie was actually based on fact and how much was embellished for dramatic effect, apparently Shapiro touted his production as being inspired by “real-life events”. Quite a bit of the story must have been factual, though, because after the movie premiered in April of 1993, Shapiro was sued by his former landlords over the fact that he had named his lead character “Darian” – the actual name of his former landlords’ daughter. The lawsuit was eventually settled and producers agreed to dub the name “Adrian” in for “Darian” in all future airings and DVD/VHS copies of the flick.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The apartment Nick unsuccessfully tries to rent towards the end of The Crush is located at 2156 Cypress Street in Vancouver, British Columbia.

June 16, 2010June 15, 2010

The Cullen House from “The Twilight Saga: New Moon”

Another location that I stalked while in Vancouver two weeks ago was the residence where the Cullen family – including Edward (aka Robert Pattinson), Alice (aka Ashley Greene), Jasper (aka Jackson Rathbone), Carlisle (aka Peter Facinelli), Esme (aka Elizabeth Reaser), Emmett (aka Kellan Lutz), and Rosalie (aka Nikki Reed) – lived in the 2009 movie The Twilight Saga: New Moon. And even though I am not at all a fan of the Twilight series, nor have I yet to even see the New Moon installment, I was absolutely dying to stalk the home where filming took place ever since first seeing it in a real estate listing when it went on the market this past November. From what I saw in the listing, the modern-style abode was nothing short of spectacular, so when fellow stalker Kerry mentioned that she knew the property’s location, I practically salivated and begged her to take me there. And I have to say that, in person, the home definitely did NOT disappoint! The Cullen house is absolutely breathtaking and I would give anything to live in something even remotely as beautiful. And while I would have loved to have taken a peek at the interior of the property, unfortunately, due to the many inquiries about the home from various Twi-hards the world over, the real estate agent is currently only offering tours to serious buyers.

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Oddly enough, the exterior of the West Vancouver-area home never actually appeared in New Moon. For the lone exterior shot featured in the flick (pictured above), producers used footage of the Hoke house in Portland, Oregon – the very same residence which stood in for the Cullen abode in the original Twilight movie. When it was decided that the Twilight sequel would be shot entirely on location in Canada – where filming is much less expensive than in the U.S. – location scouts had to track down a home which had somewhat similar interiors to the residence that was used in the original flick.

They found that home in West Vancouver and fans of the movie followed – in droves. Apparently the residence has become quite the tourist attraction ever since New Moon was filmed there beginning on April 15th of last year. The house was the setting for two scenes in the movie – the scene involving Bella’s ill-fated 18th birthday party and the scene in which the Cullen family is put to a vote to decide Bella’s fate. Those relatively short segments took a whopping four days to film. The same home will also be standing in for the interior of the Cullen residence in the upcoming The Twilight Saga: Eclipse movie.

The 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 5,117 square-foot abode, which was completely remodeled in 2001 and is currently for sale for a whopping $2,998,000, features 20 foot ceilings, a media room, slate and concrete flooring, a pool, a spa, a koi pond, a chef’s kitchen with granite countertops and cherry wood cabinets, and a 1/2 acre of wooded, creekside land. Ironically enough, the home’s real estate listing touts its numerous picture windows which allow for “bright sunfilled exposure” throughout – something I don’t think the Cullen family would have appreciated very much. 😉 You can view the home’s real estate listing here.

Big THANK YOU to Kerry for not only finding this location, but for taking me to stalk it, as well! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Cullen house from The Twilight Saga: New Moon is located at 118 Stevens Drive in West Vancouver, British Columbia. You can check out the home’s real estate website here.