Tag: Celebrities

Rickie’s Alley from the “So-Called Angels” Episode of “My So-Called Life”

As I have mentioned quite a few times in recent months, I just finished re-watching fave television series My So-Called Life from the beginning. And I have to say that when I came to the final episode, it was a very bittersweet moment for me as it brought up all of the same sad emotions I experienced back in 1995 when the show was first cancelled. Sigh. The only bright spot in coming to the end of my re-watching of the series was the fact that I could then begin to watch the countless special features on the My So-Called Life: The Complete Series DVDs, including – count ‘em! – seven full-length commentaries of six different episodes. And those commentaries did NOT disappoint. There were two commentaries included on the Christmas-themed “So-Called Angels” episode – one with series creator Winnie Holzman and actor Wilson Cruz and a second with the episode’s director Scott Winant. Thankfully, both Wilson and Scott dished the dirt on a few of the episode’s locations – most notably the alley featured in the opening scene, which I ran right out to stalk early last week.

In the opening scene of “So-Called Angels”, Rickie Vasquez (aka Wilson Cruz) is shown beaten and bloody, struggling to stand near the end of a snow-covered brick alley.

The camera then pans over to Angel (aka special guest star, singer Juliana Hatfield) who is sitting on the sidewalk out in front of the alley. According to Scott Winant, a snow machine had to be brought in for the filming of the scene and, at the time, the weather outside was a whopping eighty degrees despite the fact that the episode was filmed in late October.

Later on in the episode, Patty Chase (aka Bess Armstrong) follows Angel down that exact same alley while looking for her daughter, Angela Chase (aka Claire Danes), who has gone missing.

Wilson Cruz mentioned in his commentary of the episode that the alley was located on Bagley Avenue in Culver City, just down the street from Sony Pictures Studios, so I immediately started searching aerial views of Bagley to see if I could find it. As it turns out, though, Bagley is a residential street made up almost entirely of private homes – until it reaches Venice Boulevard, that is, where it turns into Main Street, a short one-block-long road with commercial businesses located on either side of it. And, sure enough, right in the middle of Main Street was Rickie’s alley! And while the shops located on either side of it (a pizza restaurant named LaRocco’s Pizzeria and a storefront that is currently vacant) have changed slightly over the years, the alley is still very recognizable from the episode. Love it!

I just about died when I saw that the yellow fire hydrant which was visible in the background behind Juliana Hatfield in the opening scene was STILL there almost two full decades later! So incredibly cool!

Scott Winant also mentioned in his commentary that the grocery store where Jordan Catalano (aka Jared Leto) ran into Rickie and offered him a ride was located right through the alley. Sadly though, that grocery store is no longer.

A SUPER nice neighborhood business owner, who gave me all sorts of scoop on filming in the area, informed me that the former Balian Market was converted into a renal dialysis center a few years back.



Thankfully though, the shop-owner also informed me that very little had been done to alter the exterior of the grocery store building since the dialysis center purchased it. Yay! The area which appeared in the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life was the former market’s back entrance, the doors of which have since been changed.





But, as you can see in the above photographs and screen captures, everything else matches up perfectly, including the cut-out decor elements of the cement wall located next to the door and the iron beams which hold up the awning.

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The buildings which appear in the background behind Jordan’s car in the scene also look very much the same today as they did when filming took place over seventeen years ago.

The super nice business owner also informed me that Rickie’s alley appeared in episodes of the television series Boomtown and Bones and in the yet-to-released music video for Kim Kardashian’s new single featuring Kayne West.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Rickie’s alley, from the “So-Called Angels” episode of My So-Called Life, can be found directly north of LaRocco’s Pizzeria, which is located at 3819 Main Street in Culver City. The former Balian’s Market, the grocery store where Jordan ran into Rickie, can be found just through the alley at 9432 Venice Boulevard in Culver City. My So-Called Life was filmed in the market’s back entrance area, which is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view. Jordan’s car was parked in the spot that is marked with a pink “X”.

March 14, 2011
The “Georgia Rule” House

One location that I have been absolutely DYING to stalk for what seems like AGES now is the supposed Hull, Idaho-area home belonging to Georgia Randall (aka Jane Fonda) in the 2005 dramedy Georgia Rule. And I have to say here that despite being largely panned by the critics (Moviefone even rated it the Number 2 Worst Movie of the Year in 2007!), I thoroughly enjoyed Georgia Rule . . . and its locations – none more so than the adorable white Craftsman-style residence where Georgia lived. Over the past few years I had managed to track down just about every single locale which appeared in the flick, except for, for whatever reason, that house! Because director Garry Marshall had thanked the City of Monrovia in the movie’s final credits, I had an inkling that the house was most likely located there. So, using Google Street View, I spent countless hours searching through various neighborhoods in the San Gabriel Valley suburb – all to no avail. Then last week, I decided to bring in the big guns, so to speak, and enlisted the help of fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, who immediately added the flick to his Netflix queue. The movie arrived in his inbox on Wednesday night and within twenty minutes of watching it, he somehow managed to find Georgia’s house – in Monrovia no less – as well as another location that had eluded me! I am telling you, the guy just has the magic touch! So, while in Monrovia taking care of my dad yesterday, I ran right out to stalk the place.



In Georgia Rule, wild child Rachel Wilcox (aka Lindsay Lohan) is sent by her mother, Lily (aka Felicity Huffman), to live for the summer with her grandmother, Georgia, in the small town of Hull, Idaho in the hopes that doing so will calm the troubled teen’s rebellious ways.



In real life Georgia’s home, which is known as the E.N. Hawes House, was built in 1906 and is a Monrovia Historical Landmark. And I am very happy to report that the property is just as charming in person at it appeared onscreen.

The real life interior of the residence was not used in the production, but was apparently very faithfully recreated on a soundstage at the Sunset Gower Studios in Hollywood, where the movie was lensed. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to see the inside of that house in person!!

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For whatever reason, producers changed the address number of the house from 243 to 247 for the filming. As you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, though, the address plaque was kept exactly the same and producers simply swapped out the real life “3” for a “7”.

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They even went so far as to change the number painted on the curb out in front of the house.

Oddly enough, though, they did not change the number of the house located next door, even though it was highly visible throughout much of the movie.

In an interesting side note – according to Garry Marshall’s commentary on the Georgia Rule DVD, he thought the house across the street from Georgia’s was too ugly to appear in the film, so he parked a large boat in front of it during the production, hiding it from view. As you can see in the photographs above, though, the house has since been remodeled and actually has a bit of “curb appeal” today.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location!   You can check out Chas’ highly detailed Georgia Rule filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Georgia Rule house is located at 243 North Encinitas Avenue in Monrovia.

March 11, 2011
Jack Rabbit Slim’s Restaurant from “Pulp Fiction”

This past Tuesday night, I received a very exciting text from fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, letting me know that one of his readers had finally, finally tracked down the exterior of the fictional Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant where Mia Wallace (aka Uma Thurman) took Vincent Vega (aka John Travolta) for dinner in the 1994 movie Pulp Fiction. When I first saw Pulp Fiction just about seventeen years ago, I thought Jack Rabbit Slim’s, which Vincent describes as a “wax museum with a pulse”, was just about the coolest place ever! With its slot car race tracks, wait staff dressed up to resemble stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Mamie Van Doren, and James Dean, and booths fashioned out of classic cars, the restaurant could not have been more up my alley! In fact, the diner was one of the places I most wanted to stalk upon moving to Los Angeles a little over a decade ago. So imagine my surprise – and total devastation – when I found out that it was not a real place, but a set that had been created solely for the filming of the movie. Such an incredible bummer! I always thought the producers should have built a real Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant after the movie became so successful, but, alas, they never did. Why oh why do I always have to think of everything? Anyway, I could NOT have been more excited about Chas’ news, so I ran right out to stalk the place yesterday afternoon.

The exterior of Jack Rabbit Slim’s only showed up very briefly in Pulp Fiction, in the scene in which Vincent takes Mia out for dinner at a place of her choosing at the behest of her husband, Marsellus Wallace (aka Ving Rhames).

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It is while out in front of Jack Rabbit Slim’s that Vincent begs Mia to take him to another restaurant so that he can get a steak, to which Mia replies, “You can get a steak here, Daddio. Don’t be a . . . “ and she then proceeds to draw a square on the screen with her fingers, which was one of my very favorite moments of the film.

At the time of the filming, the building which stood in for Jack Rabbit Slim’s was a recently-shuttered bowling alley named Grand Central Bowl, which you can see photographs of here. The property is currently owned by The Walt Disney Disney Company and is a part of their Grand Central Business Center. The 125-acre center is on the site of Los Angeles’ first major airport – the now-defunct Grand Central Air Terminal, which shut down due to a decline in business in 1959. The space was transformed into a large office park shortly thereafter, much of which was leased by the Walt Disney Company beginning in 1961. In 1997, Disney purchased the entire 125-acre property and it currently serves as the headquarters for Walt Disney Imagineering. Because Pulp Fiction was produced by Miramax, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, it makes sense that producers chose to film the Jack Rabbit Slim’s exterior where they did.

Sadly, as you can see in the above photographs, the Jack Rabbit Slim’s building is currently surrounded by a large cement wall and is not very visible from the street.

According to Wikipedia, the interior of the Jack Rabbit Slim’s set was built in a warehouse in Culver City and, at a cost of $150,000, was the largest line item in the production’s entire budget!

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for letting me know about this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Jack Rabbit Slim’s restaurant, from Pulp Fiction, is located at 1435 Flower Street, on the southwest corner of Sonora Avenue and Flower Street, in Glendale. The property is located inside of Disney’s Grand Central Business Center, which is private property, so please do not trespass.

March 10, 2011
Brenda’s Horseback Riding Center from “Beverly Hills, 90210”

One location that I have wanted to stalk for what seems like forever now is the supposed Minnesota-area equestrian center where a childhood Brenda Walsh (a young actress stood in for my girl Shannen Doherty in this episode, but I, unfortunately, cannot seem to find her name anywhere online) went horseback riding in the Season 2 episode of fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “Meeting Mr. Pony”. For whatever reason, though, I just could not seem to track the place down. I told the Grim Cheaper of my plight a little over a year ago and he informed me that filming had most likely taken place at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank, where the classic 1990 romantic comedy Pretty Woman had also been lensed. So the two of us promptly ran right out to stalk the place. Oddly enough, though, when we got there, the center did not look at all familiar from 90210. It wasn’t until after I got home and re-watched the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode that I realized the GC had, in fact, been correct! So I immediately added the place to my “To Re-Stalk” list and finally made it back out there this past weekend.



In the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, Brenda goes to speak with a psychologist to deal with the fallout she endured after being robbed at gunpoint at the Peach Pit. While there, the therapist asks Brenda to think back to a time in her life when she felt the most happy and the most secure. Brenda immediately envisions her childhood riding sessions with her father, Jim Walsh (aka James Eckhouse), and her “beloved” horse, whom she actually calls both Sylvester and Sebastian in the episode! LOL



The area which appeared in the episode is the Los Angeles Equestrian Center’s main jumper ring which is located just east of the center’s main entrance.

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In the scene, Jim Walsh stood along the wooden fence that borders the southern edge of the ring, just north of the center’s main parking lot. That portion of the ring looks slightly different today as the white fence which was located behind Jim has since been removed and the wooden beams located at the bottom of the fence have since been swapped out and replaced with round pieces of wood, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph.

The approximate spot where Jim stood is denoted with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.

The very same jumper ring was also the site of the polo match that Edward Lewis (aka Richard Gere) and Vivian Ward (aka Julia Roberts) attended in Pretty Woman.

Until next time , Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Los Angeles Equestrian Center, aka Brenda’s horseback riding center from the “Meeting Mr. Pony” episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, is located at 480 West Riverside Drive in Burbank. You can visit the center’s official website here. Both 90210 and Pretty Woman were filmed in the jumper ring located just east of the center’s main entrance, in the area denoted with a pink circle in the above aerial view.

March 9, 2011
Buckland Auction House from “Charmed”

I am taking a break from my wedding blogging once again today in order to write about a locale that I stalked this past Thursday evening while on my way to dinner in Downtown Los Angeles – the fictional Buckland Auction House where Prue Halliwell (aka my girl Shannen Doherty) worked during the first two seasons of the television series Charmed. Fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, tracked this location down – along with pretty much every other locale that ever appeared on the series – a good two years ago and how he did so is a complete and total mystery to me!

In reality, the exterior of the Buckland Auction House is the back side of a Downtown Los Angeles apartment building known as the Renaissance Tower. The portion of the building which appeared on Charmed is not at all visible from the street nor via Google Street View and can only be reached from the inside of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park, so how Chas managed to find the place while sitting in front of his computer screen all the way across the country in Warsaw, Indiana is absolutely BEYOND me! All I can say is that my hat is definitely off to him on this one! Especially being that I had actually stalked Grand Hope Park once before – and had even blogged about it – yet did not recognize the Renaissance Tower as the Buckland Auction House!

Renaissance Tower Apartments first showed up in the Season 1 episode of Charmed titled “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in the scene in which Prue interviews for a job as an exhibition curator at the supposed San-Francisco-area Buckland Auction House. Prue lands the job and continues to work at Buckland through all of Season 1 and most of Season 2, until the episode titled “Awakening”, in which she quits her job in order to go back to school to study photography.

As I mentioned above, Renaissance Tower is situated along the south end of Downtown’s Grand Hope Park. Because the park also borders FIDM, aka the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising where Lauren Conrad and Stephanie Pratt attended fashion school on The Hills, the area popped up on regularly on the reality series during its six-season run. In the Season 3 episode titled “A Date with the Past”, the two girls are shown discussing Lauren’s recent house-warming party while sitting on a planter box located on the southern end of the park, just outside of FIDM’s entrance.

In the Season 4 episode titled “Don’t Act Innocent . . .”, Lauren confronts Stephanie about going out with Doug Reinhardt behind her back while the two are sitting on a planter box located on the park’s northern end.

This past Saturday afternoon, I dragged the GC back out to FIDM to stalk the 19th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design currently on exhibit at FIDM’s Museum & Galleries (which I will be blogging about soon) and while there, I, of course, just had to pose like Lauren in the “Don’t Act Innocent . . .” episode.

Grand Hope Park also appeared in the opening scene of the 2009 movie All About Steve, in which Mary Horowitz (aka Sandra Bullock) walks to the supposed Sacramento-area newspaper office where she works as a crossword puzzle editor.

In that scene, Mary walks through the water fountain located in the southeast portion of the park.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from It’sFilmedThere, for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Buckland Auction House, from Charmed, is actually the back side of the Renaissance Tower Apartments building, which is located at 501 West Olympic Boulevard in Downtown Los Angeles. The area which appeared on Charmed (which is denoted with the pink circle in the above aerial view) can best be reached from Grand Hope Park, which is located at the southeast corner of South Hope Street and West 9th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. The planter box where Lauren and Stephanie sat in the “Don’t Act Innocent” episode of The Hills is denoted with a blue arrow in the above aerial view and the planter box where they sat in the “A Date With the Past” episode is denoted with a pink arrow. The fountain Sandra Bullock walked across in All About Steve is denoted with a purple circle.

March 7, 2011
My Wedding Hair and Make-Up Stylists

There are still quite a few stalking-related wedding posts that I have yet to blog about and I figured I might as well get started on them today since it has already been six months since the Grim Cheaper and I tied the knot. So here goes. For me, the decision of whether or not to hire professional hair and make-up artists for my big day was a complete and total no-brainer, much to the GC’s chagrin. I have never been very adept at doing either my hair or my make-up, so I knew that for my wedding I had to bring in the big guns, so to be speak. Martina Maina, owner of the T-Birds Hair Salon in Burbank, has been my hair stylist for over a decade now, pretty much ever since I first moved to L.A. in February of 2000, and I absolutely love the woman to death. More than just simply my hairdresser, Martina is also my friend and I knew that there was no one else I would even fathom trusting my wedding ‘do with. Martina is an absolute hair master (she has even been dubbed the “Hair Whisperer” by her many devotees), is extremely quick and creative, does not need to work off of photographs, and is sassy beyond belief! Simply put, the woman ROCKS.

I told Martina that for my wedding, I wanted her to put my hair in a chignon – something very simple, classic, and Audrey Hepburn-esque – and without so much as even showing her a photograph of what I had in mind, she created it perfectly – and it only took her about ten minutes to do so. Not kidding! The finished product is pictured above. I have to mention here, too, that my hair stayed in perfect shape throughout the entire evening and I never even needed so much as a tiny touch-up. It was simple, easy, and beautiful – in short, EXACTLY what I had envisioned. And it looked great both with and without my veil.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this post does have a celebrity twist. Because this is Hollywood, Martina has worked with countless stars and on quite a few television shows and movies over the many years she has been styling hair. Just a few of the celebs Martina has worked on recently include Jake Busey, Quincy Jones, General Hospital’s Megan Ward, Eric Roberts, Jennifer Tilly, Sugar Ray Leonard, Crispin Glover, The World Is Not Enough’s Serena Scott Thomas, CSI: New York’s Hill Harper, Cedric the Entertainer, and Scary Movie’s Regina Hall. She was also the head hair and make-up artist for the Cathy Hughes television talk show TV One on One.

For my wedding day make-up, I knew there was only one woman for the job – Rita Montanez, whom I first met through my favorite head-shot photographer Robert Kazandjian. Robert had hired Rita to do my make-up for a set of head-shots he was taking of me back in 2007 and I fell in love with her pretty much on site! Aside from being incredibly sweet, Rita was also insanely fun to talk to and did my make-up in a VERY natural way, which I loved. So, when the GC finally proposed two years ago, one of the first calls I made was to Rita to ask her if she would be willing to do the make-up for my nuptials. Because Rita works regularly now as the head make-up artist for the television series The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan, she sadly no longer does wedding make-up. But she THANKFULLY made an exception in my case once she heard that I had remembered her from so many years beforehand. Like Martina, Rita has been working in Hollywood for quite a long time and has done make-up for numerous big time celebrities including Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman, Andy Garcia, Donald Sutherland, Lisa Kudrow, Bonnie Rait, Ray Charles, BB King, Oliver Stone, Liam Neeson, Carrie Fisher, Kelsey Grammer, Dionne Warwick, Steven Spielberg, Faye Dunaway, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, and Hugh Grant. She has also worked on the television soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful. I cannot tell you how much fun it was listening to Rita’s many Hollywood stories. Sigh!

As you can see in the above photograph, I was not a traditional bride in the fact that there was only one woman in my wedding party – my best friend Kylee. For whatever reason, my closest friends have always been male and when it came time to choosing my bridal party, I did not let a little thing like gender interfere. I believe that your wedding party should be who your wedding party should be – regardless of gender, age, or anything else, really. So, my wedding parting consisted of the following: my best girlfriend, Kylee; one of my closest friends from high school, Stew; my best friend, Robin, whom I have known since I was six years old; and Mike, from MovieShotsLA.

Not surprisingly, aside from Kylee (pictured above), no one else in my wedding party wanted their hair or make-up done .

But I did have Martina and Rita do the hair and make-up for my mom.

And her best friend, Doina, who is also my best friend Robin’s mom and who is also pretty much my surrogate mother.

And Robin’s girlfriend, Steffi, who is also one of my closest friends.

Martina even ended up giving my dad a hair-cut that morning!

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The finished results were SPECTACULAR! Honestly so much more than I ever could have hoped they would be! I was absolutely amazed at how Martina and Rita managed to bring out the individual beauty in each of us rather than just creating a cookie-cutter look for the whole group. Pictured above is Kylee;

my mom;

Doina;

Steffi;

and me!

I really do not want this to come off the wrong way, but I looked absolutely amazing on my wedding day – all thanks to Martina and Rita. Trust me, I don’t normally look like that! You should see my appearance when I roll out of bed and head to Starbucks each morning. It is a far, FAR cry from the above photograph, which just proves that it is an absolute wonder – I’ll even go so far as to say it is miraculous, in fact – what a professional hair and make-up team can do. No wonder celebrities always look so fabulous! I would be in heaven if I could hire Martina and Rita to come to my house each morning to make me beautiful! If you are at all on the fence about whether or not to hire professional hair and make-up artists for your wedding day, I honestly cannot more highly recommend doing so! It is money that you will not regret spending. Not only that, but getting ready together, as my mom, Kylee, Steffi, Doina, and I did on the morning of my wedding, is one of my fondest memories of the entire day.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Hair stylist Martina Maina can be reached via her salon, T-Birds, which is located at 1808 West Olive Avenue in Burbank. You can visit the official T-Birds website here. Make-up artist Rita Montanez can be reached via her website, Makeup by Rita, here.

March 3, 2011
Casa del Mar Hotel from “Just Go With It”

On February 11th – which just so happened to be my girl Jennifer Aniston’s 42nd birthday – I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see the actress’ latest movie, Just Go With It. Because there are very few JA movies that I have ever actually liked (even though I am a HUGE fan of hers, Office Space and He’s Just Not That Into You are the only two that I can honestly say that I LOVE), I did not have high hopes for the flick. But I am very happy to report that I ended up absolutely LOVING it! Even more amazing was the fact that the GC loved it, too. And even more amazing still was the fact that the GC also recognized a location from it – the Casa del Mar hotel in Santa Monica which was used in the scene in which Katherine (aka Jennifer Aniston) poses as Danny’s (aka Adam Sandler’s) soon-to-be ex-wife and meets his new girlfriend, Palmer (aka Brooklyn Decker), for the first time. So, while we were in Santa Monica this past weekend stalking the blue carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards, I dragged the GC right on over to the Casa del Mar to do a bit of Just Go With It stalking.

Casa del Mar hotel was first opened in 1926 as the luxurious and ultra-exclusive Club Casa del Mar beach club, which catered to Southern California’s elite and featured an indoor, Olympic-sized swimming pool, a private stretch of white, sandy beach, weekly dinner dances, upscale accommodations, and a grand ballroom. Even though it was founded during the heart of America’s Prohibition era, booze apparently flowed freely at the hotel and gambling was a frequent guest pastime. According to local lore, Santa Monica policemen would turn a blind eye to the illegal goings-on at the property and would tip off the club staff members each time there was going to be a raid. During World War II, the US Army took over the building and used it to house American soldiers. Fallen into disrepair, the hotel shuttered its doors shortly after the war ended. Charles E. Dederich purchased the Renaissance Revival-style property shortly thereafter and turned it into a drug rehabilitation facility known as Synanon. In the late 1970’s, the building was purchased by nutrition guru Nathan Pritikin and transformed into the Pritikin Longevity Center, where actor Chris Farley was a one-time guest. The Edward Thomas Hospitality Corporation took over the property in 1998, restored the building to is original 1920’s grandeur, and in 1999 reopened it as the Casa del Mar hotel. It has been going strong ever since.

The hotel currently boasts a Zoltar fortune machine, a la the machine that made Tom Hanks “big” in the movie of the same name, in its lobby area, which I found so incredibly cool!

The Casa del Mar hotel popped up in what was, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, the funniest scene in Just Go With It, in which JA pretends to be a rich, snobby Beverly Hills socialite with a bit of a drinking – and pill – problem. Jen is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS in the scene and even had the GC LOL-ing at several points, even though he typically does not find her to be at all amusing.

The Just Go With It scene was filmed in the southern portion of the Casa del Mar lobby, just south of the rear side of the hotel’s main fireplace. The lobby’s furnishings were changed quite a bit for the filming, though.

And I, of course, just had to recreate the scene in which Jen first arrives at the hotel and tells her limo driver that she “shant be long”.

The scene that supposedly takes place just outside of the hotel was shot at a different location, though, and I have not been able to determine exactly where that location is yet.

Just Go With It Trailer – Casa Del Mar Hotel

You can watch the Just Go With It trailer, in which Casa del Mar is featured, by clicking above.

The hotel also popped up in the Season 2 episode of The Mentalist titled “18-5-4” as the supposed San Francisco-area Tidewater Resort where Oliver Simon McDaniel (aka Evan Peters) hid out.

For whatever reason, producers had a fake check-in desk built in front of the hotel’s fireplace for the filming of the episode.

The scene in which Patrick Jane (aka Simon Baker) tells Teresa Lisbon (aka Robin Tunney) that she should have the CBI Headquarters moved to the beach was filmed in the hotel’s Veranda Bar area . . .

. . . which I, unfortunately, could not get a great photograph of due to the brightness of the sun.

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The SUPER nice concierge that we spoke with while we were stalking the hotel also let us know that the Casa del Mar’s Colonnade Ballroom was used in another Jennifer Aniston flick – the 2006 movie Friends With Money, in the scene in which Olivia (aka JA) and her friends attend a benefit for ALS. He also informed us that the ballroom was used in episodes of both Hung and Curb Your Enthusiasm, as well.

As fate would have it, the ballroom just happened to be unlocked while we were stalking the hotel, so I was able to walk in and snap a few pictures of it.

The exterior of the hotel is visible in the scene in 2005’s Be Cool in which wanna-be gansta Raji (aka an absolutely HILARIOUS Vince Vaughn) and Elliot Wilhelm (aka Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) get into a fight and Raji announces, “I smell you man! I feel your pain!” LOL

Besides being a filming location, the hotel is also something of a celebrity hotspot. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted there in recent years include Lindsay Lohan, Christian Bale, Ryan Phillipe, AnnaLynne McCord, Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox, Gisele Bundchen, Tom Brady, Maria Shriver, Pamela Anderson, Christian Slater, Emma Watson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Bradley Cooper, Molly Ringwald, Oprah Winfrey, Kevin Bacon, Jessica Alba, Cash Warren, Will Smith, Josh Duhamel, and Renee Zellweger. Sophia Bush and Chad Michael Murray were married at the hotel in 2005 and Miss Britney Spears and then-husband Kevin Federline even lived there for a time while their Malibu mansion was being renovated. I was lucky enough to spot Jen Aniston at the Casa del Mar once – along with Vince Vaughn, Joey Lauren Adams, and Jon Favreau – back in 2006. She was doing press for The Break-Up at the time and the GC and I had randomly stopped by the hotel to grab a cocktail. I was wearing my “Team Aniston” sweatshirt and when Jen saw it she pointed, smiled, and said, “Oh, thank you!” Ever since that day, the GC has referred to Casa del Mar as the “Jen Aniston hotel”. Love it! (The GC took the above photograph of Jen that day on his blackberry, which is why it turned out so poorly. After seeing the picture, I solemnly swore I would NEVER again be caught out and about without my camera and I now carry it with me at all times.)

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Casa del Mar hotel, from Just Go With It, is located at 1910 Ocean Way in Santa Monica. You can visit the hotel’s official website here.

March 2, 2011
Stalking the 2011 Academy Awards

As I have mentioned countless times before on this blog, Oscar Weekend is, hands down, my favorite weekend of the entire year. Hollywood just seems to come alive during Oscar Weekend and I honestly cannot get enough of it. And this year was no different. My Oscar stalking began early this past Saturday morning and continued on through late Sunday night and I think it is safe to say that the poor Grim Cheaper is absolutely beat. Thankfully though, some good friends and fellow stalkers – Beth, Mary, Debbie, and Carol – were in town from Louisville, Kentucky and they let me tag along with them all weekend, so the GC did get somewhat of a reprieve. And while this year was, sadly, not as great as previous years due to the fact that hotels have seriously beefed up their security and many would only let actual guests through their front doors, we still managed to have an absolute BLAST! We started out our 2011 Oscar stalking adventure Saturday morning when we hit up the blue carpet at the Independent Spirit Awards – and yes, the event does actually feature a blue carpet. The Spirit Awards are held in a tent directly next to the beach in Santa Monica and, let me tell you, this year the weather was absolutely FREEZING – and I mean that literally! It actually SNOWED in many parts of Los Angeles this past weekend (not kidding!) and the GC and I witnessed it firsthand at one point, which I am fairly certain he was more excited about than any of the celebs that we encountered.

When we arrived at the Spirit Awards, there was already a HUGE group camped out along the blue carpet, but we still managed to snag a pretty good spot in which to stand. While there, I ran into celebrity stalker extraordinaire Pinky Lovejoy (pictured above), from the Pinky Lovejoy Blog, whom I had met at Alec Baldwin’s Star Ceremony a few weeks back.

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We had an absolute blast stalking the red carpet and just a few of the stars who were on hand include Jason Isaacs – aka “Lucius Malfoy” from the Harry Potter movies;

Warren Beatty;

Annette Bening;

Jennifer Lawrence;

Amanda Peet, who is absolutely ADORABLE in person;

Anthony Mackie;

Terrance Howard;

director Danny Boyle;

Diego Luna;

John Hawkes;

Sarah Steele from Spanglish;

Greta Gerwig from Greenberg;

Samuel L. Jackson;

Liev Schreiber;

Aaron Eckhart, who is GORGEOUS in person;

one of fellow stalker Owen’s favorite actors, Paul Rudd;

Malin Ackerman;

Amber Tamblyn;

David Cross;

Erika Christensen;

Jane Lynch (YAY!);

(I absolutely LOVE that the GC managed to snap a picture of Jane making one of her famous Sue Sylvester faces!);

Eva Mendes;

Jesse Eisenberg (he did not turn towards the crowd when he arrived, so we only got a picture of the back of his head);

Jeremy Renner;

Rainn Wilson (aka Mr. Dwight Schrute!);

Jamie Foxx;

Ben Stiller;

Rosario Dawson;

Joel McHale (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE him!);

and Nicole Kidman (who is STUNNING in person) and Keith Urban.

I LOVE the picture of Nicole above, which my friend Carol snapped. So cute!

Natalie Portman tried to sneak in behind Nicole and Keith, but thankfully the GC still managed to get some pics of her.

After the Spirit Awards arrivals wrapped up, the GC and I headed on over to the Kodak Theatre to do some stalking of the Academy Awards’ red carpet. Sadly though, everything was blocked off this year and we were not allowed to walk on the red carpet or to get very close to any of the set-up, which was incredibly disappointing.

We did spot the above-pictured Oscar statue being hauled from the Renaissance Hotel to the Kodak Theatre, though, which I thought was absolutely hilarious.

We then headed over to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (where the first Academy Awards ceremony was held) to see if anything was going on there. As fate would have it, the E! channel was running rehearsals for their Oscar coverage show in the lobby of the hotel and we were lucky enough to be able to watch. As you can see in the above photographs, Kris Jenner was on site rehearsing for the show.

As was Ross Mathews, from Chelsea Lately.

As luck would have it, Kris wound up leaving the hotel at the exact same time we did and she was nice enough to pose for a photo with me on her way out, which I could NOT have been more excited about. I have actually never been a fan of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, but I will always have a special place in my heart for the series due to the fact that anytime someone encounters my family for the first time, they invariably say, “You guys need your own reality show! You are funnier than the Kardashians!” My good friend Nat keeps threatening to secretly videotape us and send the result to the E! channel. LOL I guess I can see where people are coming from, though. Case in point – this past Friday afternoon the GC downloaded and then proceeded to spend a good ten minutes showing me an app in which one, while in a store, can scan the barcode of an item along with its price using the camera on their iPhone and the phone will then subsequently spit back a list of places where you can purchase said item for less money. Not kidding! I totally thought he was joking with me, but sadly he wasn’t. Not only is that app real, but the GC fully expects me to USE it! Oh, the things I have to put up with!

On Sunday evening, while doing some more hotel stalking, I spotted Doris Roberts, from Everybody Loves Raymond and Christmas Vacation fame. My grandma absolutely LOVES Doris, so I just had to ask her to pose for a photograph with me and thankfully she obliged, which I could NOT have been more excited about. Other celebs that we spotted out and about this weekend, but didn’t get photographs of were Mark Wahlberg, Lou Diamond Phillips, Bai Ling, Frances Fisher, Gary Busey, Ed Asner, Pat Boone, Meat Loaf, Charo, Caroline Herrera (on her way to the Oscars in an absolutely STRIKING dress), Tara Reid, Brenda Strong (aka Mary Alice from Desperate Housewives), Gloria Allred, Noah Wyle, Taylor Armstrong from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Jessica Stroup (aka Silver from 90210), Glee’s Chris Colfer and Matthew Morrison, Jennifer Lopez (who is absolutely STUNNING in person!), Renee Zellweger, Russell Brand, Kirk Kerkorian, Megan Mullally, Nick Offerman, Harvey Weinstein, Chace Crawford, Cate Blanchett, Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen (who are sooooo tiny in person it was almost unbelievable), Ron Jeremy, Jeffrey Ross, Fred Willard, Sofia Milos, Pierce Morgan, Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey, Jude Law, George Hamilton, Reese Witherspoon, Timothy Olyphant, Elton John, Craig Robinson (aka Darryl from The Office), Joanne Worley, and Antonio Sabato Jr.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Oscars are held each year at the Kodak Theatre, which is located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood. The Grim Cheaper and I usually drive up and down Sunset Boulevard during Oscar weekend, stopping into various hotels along the way to spot celebs. A few of the hotels we usually stalk include The Mondrian, which is located at 8440 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, which is located at 1755 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood, and the Chateau Marmont, which is located at 8221 West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

March 1, 2011
Yamashiro Restaurant

Last Monday night, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to fave restaurant Yamashiro in Hollywood to grab some drinks to celebrate the six month anniversary of our wedding. I can hardly believe that it has already been six months, by the way. While in some ways it feels as if my wedding took place a lifetime ago, in many ways it seems as if it all occurred just yesterday. Anyway, while I have blogged about Yamashiro once before, back in February of 2008, my post was not very thorough and at the time I was unsure of how to make screen captures. So, I decided that the restaurant was definitely worthy of a re-post. Here goes!

Yamashiro was built in 1914 on a seven acre parcel of land situated 250 feet above the famed Hollywood Boulevard. The structure, which took three years to construct and was modeled after a palace located in the Yamashiro Mountains in Kyoto, Japan, was originally the private home of two German brothers who were dealers and collectors of Asian antiques. In 1922, one of the brothers passed away and the property was sold and transformed into the private clubhouse of the exclusive Hollywood 400 Club, where the Hollywood elite would socialize. During World War II, the building fell into serious disrepair and in 1948 it was purchased by a developer named Thomas O. Glover who intended to demolish the property to make way for a hotel. While readying the property for tear-down, Thomas discovered antique silk wallpaper hidden behind layers of thick black paint and realized he had a treasure on his hands. He immediately set about restoring the property to its former glory, whereupon he opened it as an upscale Cal-Asian restaurant named Yamashiro. Over six decades later, the place is still going strong and is a favorite of both celebrities and location scouts alike. Just a few of the stars who have been spotted at Yamashiro over the years include Matthew Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz, Melissa Joan Hart, Nicole Eggert, LeAnn Rimes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp, Luke Perry, Danny Glover, Rene Russo, Chris Rock, George Clooney, Claire Danes, Neve Campbell, Chris O’Donnell, and Halle Berry.

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And it is not very hard to see what attracts them. Besides serving up EXCELLENT food (the Butter Lettuce Wraps and Crispy Chicken dishes are my favorites!), the ambiance is to die for. Walking through Yamashiro’s front doors is like stepping back in time to ancient Japan.

The restaurant’s Inner Courtyard, with its retractable roof, sparkling waterfalls, and central koi pond, literally looks like a set taken straight out of a movie.

And the sprawling exterior gardens, which boast koi ponds, Japanese flowers, and a 600-year-old pagoda that is said to be the oldest structure currently standing in California, are absolutely breathtaking to walk through.

The restaurant’s most incredible feature, though, has to be its striking 360-degree views of Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles, Century City, and the Pacific Ocean –

views which only get more spectacular at night!

And in an intriguing bit of trivia, each night the light on the spire located at the top of the Capital Records building (pictured above) intermittently spells out “H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D” in old Morse Code. So incredibly cool!

Yamashiro has a long and varied filming history. Way back in 1957, the restaurant appeared in the movie Sayonara as the American Officer’s Club where Major Lloyd ‘Ace’ Gruver (aka Marlon Brando), Eileen Webster (aka Patricia Owens), Mrs. Webster (aka Martha Scott), and Lieutenant General Mark Webster (aka Kent Smith) spent time while in Japan.

In the “A Fistful of Yen” segment from 1977’s The Kentucky Fried Movie, Yamashiro stood in for a Japanese palace.

In 1997’s Playing God, Yamashiro was used as the residence where Raymond Blossom (aka Timothy Hutton) lived.

In 2000’s Gone in Sixty Seconds, Yamashiro is where Mirror Man (aka TJ Cross) posed as a valet to steal a car.

In 2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha, Yamashiro showed up twice. It was first used as the spot where Chiyo (aka Suzuka Ohgo) took dancing lessons as a young girl.

And it also appeared later as the place where the large party was held in honor of Sayuri’s (aka Ziyi Zhang’s) debut.

In the Season 6 episode of The Hills titled “Loves Me Not”, Lo Bosworth and boyfriend Scott Hochstadt celebrated their one-year anniversary at Yamashiro. The restaurant was also supposedly used in 1987’s Blind Date, but I scanned through the movie earlier today while writing this post and did not see it anywhere.

On a stalking side note – my good friend Nat, who lives in San Francisco, just sent me a package this past Friday. In it was the book pictured above. Cutest. Present. Ever.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Yamashiro Hollywood is located at 1999 Sycamore Avenue in Hollywood. The restaurant is open nightly, starting at 5 p.m. each Saturday and Sunday and at 5:30 p.m. each Monday through Thursday. You can visit Yamashiro’s official website here.

February 28, 2011
Burlesque Lounge from “Burlesque”

A couple of months ago, I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to see Burlesque and, because of all of the bad reviews the movie was generating, I did not have very high hopes that either of us would enjoy it much. As it turns out, though, I could NOT have been more wrong! It is a highly entertaining romp which boasts fabulous musical numbers, sparkling and intricately-designed costumes, and incredibly beautiful sets that made me want to hop right into the movie screen. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it. And even though the movie is definitely a chick flick, the GC said he thoroughly enjoyed it as well. So when I saw that fellow stalker Gary, of the Seeing Stars website, had just published a page detailing various filming locations from the movie, I just about died. The were two locations that I was most interested in stalking, the first of which was the Mediterranean-style apartment complex where Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) and Jack (aka Cam Gigandet) lived, which come to find out does not, in fact, exist. Fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, contacted a few Burlesque crew members on my behalf to find out the location of the apartment building, but they all informed him that it was a set that had been built on the Sony Pictures Studio backlot, which was shocking to me as I had been convinced that the building was a real place. I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on the DVD of the movie, which is being released on March 1st, so that I can listen to the commentary to learn more about the construction of that set. Anyway, the other location that I was dying to stalk was the exterior of the Burlesque Lounge, which, thanks to Gary I now know, was in actuality the side entrance of the historic Ricardo Montalban Theatre in Hollywood. So, I dragged the GC right on out there to stalk the place this past Monday afternoon.

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The Ricardo Montalban Theatre was first built in 1926 by Myron Hunt, the legendary Los Angeles architect who also designed the Rose Bowl, Occidental College, the California Institute of Technology, the Huntington Hotel (now the Langham), and the Huntington Library, among countless other area buildings. The Beaux Arts-style theatre was originally a live, or a “legitimate”, stage venue known as the Vine Street Theatre, but was transformed into a single-screen movie theatre during the Great Depression. A few years later it was purchased by CBS and became a radio broadcasting venue known as the CBS Playhouse Theatre. It was there that legendary Hollywood producer/director Cecil B. DeMille hosted his Lux Radio Theatre show in which movie stars of the day would act out radio versions of his many films. In 1954, the property once again became a live theatre venue and was renamed the Huntington Hartford. In 2000, the 1200-seat venue was purchased by Nosotros, a non-profit performing arts organization founded by Fantasy Island star Ricardo Montalban. The organization set about renovating the theatre and restoring the property to its former 1927 glory and in May of 2004 reopened the space as the Ricardo Montalban Theatre.

In Burlesque, the Ricardo Montalban Theatre’s side entrance, side exterior stairwell, and parking lot area were all used as the Burlesque Lounge’s main entrance. Amazingly enough, the wrought-iron gate which was featured so prominently in the movie is actually there in real life, which I was BEYOND excited to see! You can check out some pictures of the gate dressed for the filming here. (The theatre was having some sort of a movie screening when we showed up to stalk it, which is why there are people camped out on the sidewalk in all of my photographs).

Sadly, the parking lot area, which was featured in the scene in which Tess (aka Cher) and Nikki (aka Kristen Bell) get into a fight, has been ripped up and is currently under construction. According to the signs posted on the fence which now surrounds the former lot, a parking garage is set to be built in that area.

You can see what the parking lot area used to look like thanks to Bing Streetside in the pictures above and by clicking here.

I literally just about fell over when, while stalking the theatre, I recognized the burger stand located next door as the spot where Lucy (aka Britney Spears), Ben (aka Anson Mount), Kit (aka Zoe Saldana), and Mimi (aka Taryn Manning) signed up for the Slide Records singing audition in the movie Crossroads! I had actually been on the hunt for that location for quite some time and was absolutely FLOORED to have stumbled upon it in such a way. For whatever reason, I always seem to have that sort of luck when it comes to Crossroads locales as I also stumbled upon the gas station which appeared in the movie in a very similar manner.

If you would like to stalk the stand, which is named Molly’s Charbroiler in real life, you should do so soon as, according to fave website CurbedLA, the tiny restaurant may be torn down in the coming months in order to make way for a new office building. Have I mentioned how much I love change?

Burlesque Trailer

You can watch the trailer for Burlesque, in which the exterior of the Burlesque Lounge is briefly shown, by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from Seeing Stars, for finding this location and to Chas, from ItsFilmedThere, for contacting Burlesque crew members to find out where Ali and Jack’s apartment building was located!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Ricardo Montalban Theatre, aka Burlesque Lounge from Burlesque, is located at 1615 North Vine Street in Hollywood. The Burlesque Lounge entrance is located on the north side of the property. You can visit the theatre’s official website here. Molly’s Charbroiler, from Crossroads, is located at 1601 North Vine Street. You can visit the burger stand’s official website here.

February 25, 2011