Jennifer Aniston filming locations

July 10, 2013July 10, 2013

Beau Burroughs’ Mansion from “Rumor Has It”

Back in April, when fellow stalker Geoff, of the 90210Locations website, let me know that he had found the Fundraiser House from L.A. Story (which I blogged about here) at 3456 Via Campesina in Rancho Palos Verdes, I remembered that a few years prior I had tracked down a different Palos Verdes locale – the supposed Half Moon Bay-area mansion where Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner) lived in the 2005 romantic comedy Rumor Has It. Because I very rarely find myself in that part of town, though, I had never actually stalked it. So I moved the dwelling to the top of my To-Stalk list and headed right on over there while in the neighborhood visiting the L.A. Story pad just a few days later. And wouldn’t you know it – there was a truck parked right in front of the place when I showed up! Boo!

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The mansion appeared once in Rumor Has It – in the scene in which Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) woke up at Beau’s residence after spending the night with him – and, unfortunately, very little of the actual home was ever shown. The only areas of the property that appeared in the flick were the backyard –

with its gorgeous ocean views;

part of a back door;

and a tiny portion of a bedroom.

Despite the fact that I had so little to go on, though, this location was a fairly easy find. Thanks to the Rumor Has It production notes, I knew that at least one scene had been lensed in the seaside city of Palos Verdes and, because Beau’s manse was shown to be situated on a cliff overlooking the ocean, I decided to begin my search there. While watching the flick, I had noticed that the dwelling was located on some sort of a promontory that was directly across from another promontory. On that second promontory sat an immense Mediterranean-style mansion.

So I used Google Maps to search for that house, which I found fairly quickly thanks to its size, and from there tracked down Beau’s place. As you can see below, the residence sits perched above a site named “Honeymoon Cove.” Um, love it!

In real life, the mansion, which was originally built in 1973, boasts five bedrooms, seven baths, 6,126 square feet of living space, and a 0.59-acre plot of oceanfront land. The property last sold in October 1995 for $2.5 million.

Upon arriving, I was happily surprised to discover how much of the residence is actually visible from the street. I had not expected to be able to see any of it.

As the words on the two pillars that flank the front gate seem to indicate, the residence is named “Punta Vento”, which, according to Google Translate, means “peak wind” in Italian.

I was shocked to discover, thanks to the fabulous Seeing Stars website, that the same home was also used in the 1987 classic Lethal Weapon, in which it portrayed the mansion belonging to Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins). In the movie, a great exterior view of the property was shown.

The backyard and pool area also appeared;

as did a small portion of the interior of the house.

Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for even more stalking fun! And you can check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Beau Burroughs’ mansion from Rumor Has It is located at 2817 Via Segovia in Palos Verdes.

April 2, 2013April 2, 2013

The “Burning Love” Mansion

This past February, thanks to Reality Steve and the E! Channel, I was introduced to the brilliance that is the Ben Stiller-produced parody of The Bachelor titled Burning Love. The Hose Ceremonies along with the catchphrase “Will you accept my hose?” are pure comic genius! The last time I found myself laughing so much over a television series was when I first started watching The Office. Anyone who is at all a fan of The Bachelor will LOVE Burning Love. As of yet, I have only seen the Season 1 episodes that have aired on E! (the show started as a web series and was later picked up by the cable channel), but am already eagerly awaiting Season 2 – although I cannot imagine a better lead character than Mark Orlando (Ken Marino – who also directs the series and whose wife, Erica Oyama, is the head writer). So when I saw that fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, had tracked down the mansion where the contestants live on the show, I just about passed out from excitement and dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk it while we were in L.A. this past weekend.

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Back in June 2012, Geoff came across this Yahoo TV article about the series in which Ken Marino stated that the Burning Love mansion was located in Calabasas, in the same area as the ranch from The Biggest Loser (which I blogged about here). I so love that Ken knew that, by the way! Most people in the industry could care less about filming locations, but I digress. Anyway, Geoff started looking for the ginormous Tuscan-style estate in the Calabasas hills, but the hunt proved to be a bit of a tough one. Because the property was recently constructed in 2008, most angles of Google and Bing Maps show its location as a vacant plot of land. It was not until Geoff randomly switched the map view to a different direction at one point during his search that the abode appeared and he realized it was the place he had been looking for.

In real life, the massive manse boasts seven en-suite bedrooms, eight baths, 9,684 square feet of living space, a 7.29-acre plot of land, a media room, a play room, an office/library, five fireplaces (!), a 1,500-bottle wine cellar, hand-crafted ceilings, 360-degree views of the Santa Monica Mountains, a sauna, a pool, a spa, and a built-in BBQ. The property last sold in April 2011 for $2,600,000 and is currently for sale for $3,950,000. You can check out the home’s real estate listing here.

Before arriving at the residence, I was nervous that it would not be visible from the street, so I was completely floored to discover that it was, for the most part, in open view!

Burning Love, which is so spot-on in its parody of The Bachelor that I constantly have to remind myself that the show is not actually a reality series, centers around several woman, most of whom are dental hygienists, hoping to find love with Mark, the boneheaded fireman who in the premiere episode announced that his soul mate was “someone who can make me laugh, but isn’t afraid of robots.” LOL The mansion was used extensively in the filming, which according to this Yahoo TV article, took only eight days to complete. The areas of the estate that appeared on the show include the front exterior;

the entryway;

the kitchen [and yes, contestant Haley (Chelsea Lately’s Natasha Leggero), who is pictured below, does not wear pants on the series, causing Mark to say in one scene, “I can definitely see us starting a family together, maybe in a town where they accept people who don’t wear pants.” LOL];

the living room;

the family room, where the Hose Ceremonies take place;

the master bedroom (check out the old school back pillow sitting on the floor – again LOL) . . .

. . . where Mark gazes at himself longingly in the mirror;

and the pool, where Mark throws a pool party because “I thought it would be a great chance to see the girls let loose . . . uh, also to see a lot of top and side-boob and, if we’re lucky, a little butt cleavage.” As Dan Casey said in his post about the show on Nerdist, “From the needlessly confusing rules, the preposterous theme dates and the plucked-from-Guess Who contestants, Burning Love hits the nail on its vapid, empty head.” That it does, Dan. And I couldn’t love it more. If you are at all a fan of The Bachelor (or just simply love to hate it), Burning Love is a must-watch!

You can watch the first episode of Burning Love, which features a cameo appearance by Jennifer Aniston, as well as a handful of other stars, by clicking below.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Burning Love mansion is located at 2760 Country Ridge Road, just off of Stokes Canyon Road, in Calabasas. King Gillette Ranch, aka The Biggest Loser ranch, is located just down the street at 26800 Mulholland Highway.

December 7, 2012December 6, 2012

Justine’s House from “The Good Girl”

Today’s post is going to be a rather short one as I spent most of the day yesterday with my girl Miss Pinky Lovejoy, of the Thinking Pink blog, attending the annual craft fair at her work – which was loads of fun, but, unfortunately, did not leave much time for blogging. So please pardon my brevity. Anyway, last Tuesday morning, when I texted Mike, from MovieShotsLA, to let him know that I was heading back out to Santa Clarita to stalk Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, he suggested that I also make a stalking stop at the house where Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston) and her pothead husband, Phil Last (John C. Reilly), lived in The Good Girl. And even though I was not a huge of the ultra-depressing 2002 film, because Justine and Phil’s residence was only a short two miles away from the auto body shop, I figured why not. Then, when I found out there was a Starbucks in between the two locations, that pretty much sealed the deal. Winking smile

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Mike, who does not live too far from Santa Clarita, first learned about this location way back in 2001 when The Good Girl was being filmed. I never had occasion to stalk the place, though, as I do not get out to Canyon Country very often and, for some reason, whenever I did happen to be in the area, I completely forgot to drive by.

Justine and Phil’s house was one of the main locations used in The Good Girl and the pad showed up repeatedly throughout the movie. As you can see below, though, the residence looks quite a bit different in person than it did onscreen. The front door that appeared in the film has since been swapped out with a new, glass-paned one, a stone façade has been added to the home’s exterior, the garage door has been replaced, and the wood paneling removed from the side of the garage. Boo! Thankfully though, the abode is still, for the most part, recognizable as The Good Girl house.

Justine's House The Good Girl (5 of 7)

Of the locale, The Good Girl production notes state, “Although the design concept was naturalistic, finding locations in sunny California to pass for small town Texas was difficult, specifically the search for Justine and Phil’s house, which is painstakingly defined in the script. ‘Our principal character lived physically and emotionally in the very last house on the street, out from which stretched miles of dry, barren nothingness,’ clarifies [production designer Daniel] Bradford. ‘And of course, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere there are palm trees which are not appropriate for West Texas.’” I really have to give kudos to The Good Girl location managers for finding the property because when I pulled up and saw the large telephone poles, flat streets and general ruralness of the area, my first thought was, ‘This neighborhood does not look AT ALL like an L.A. neighborhood.’

In real life, Justine’s house, which was originally built in 1961, boasts three bedrooms, two baths, 1,125 square feet of living space, and a 0.16-acre plot of land.

And while I would have bet money on the real life interior of the home being used in The Good Girl, that does not appear to have been the case. As you can see in the photographs below, which I got off of an old real estate listing for the property, while the living room very closely resembles what appeared onscreen . . .

. . . the kitchen area does not. And while the real estate listing does mention that the kitchen was “recently remodeled”, it differs far too much from the Last kitchen for me to believe it was used in the flick.

You can find me on Facebook here and on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And be sure to check out my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Justine’s house from The Good Girl is located at 25103 Fourl Road in Santa Clarita. Ricardo’s Auto Upholstery, aka Bill Cozbi’s Auto Body Shop from Bridesmaids, is located nearby at 24347 Main Street. Judy’s home from Bridesmaids is located right around the corner from Ricardo’s at 23418 8th Street. And Officer Rhodes’ residence is located directly across the street from Judy’s at 23425 8th Street. Note – the Bridesmaids houses cannot be reached via Calgrove Boulevard, as that street is blocked just east of Creekside Drive. To gain access to the sites, you can take either Apple or Valley Street south off of Lyons Avenue to 8th Street.

August 2, 2012August 1, 2012

Holden’s House from “The Good Girl”

Another Simi Valley location that Mike, from MovieShotsLA, suggested I stalk this past Saturday after my and the Grim Cheaper’s American Jewish University Brandeis-Barden Campus snafu (which you can read about here) was the supposed Texas-area home where Holden Worther (Jake Gyllenhaal) lived in my favorite movie of all-time, The Good Girl. Ha, just kidding! As I mentioned in yesterday’s post about the Retail Rodeo, I actually hated the 2002 Jennifer Aniston flick. But because the GC and I were pretty much right around the corner from Holden’s house when Mike texted me its address, I figured we might as well stalk the place.

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In real life, the charming one-story, Anywhere, U.S.A.-style residence was constructed in 1964 and measures two bedrooms, two baths and 1,267 square feet. Mike, who lives in Simi Valley, actually tracked this location down way back in 2002 thanks to some local buzz that he heard while The Good Girl was being filmed.

In The Good Girl, Holden lives at the house – after getting kicked out of college – with his spiritless, emotionless parents, Mr. Worther (John Doe – and yes, that is his actual stage name!) and Mrs. Worther (Roxanne Hart), neither of whom utter more than a single word during the entire movie. As you can see below, the property looks very much the same in person as it did onscreen. Even the number plaque next to the garage door is still exactly the same! Yay!

I find it pretty ironic that producers ended up choosing a home with a large mountain range visible behind it to stand in for Holden’s in the flick. As I mentioned above, The Good Girl is supposed to take place in a small Texas town and the Lone Star State isn’t exactly known as being mountainous.

I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house was also used in the flick, but I, unfortunately, could not find any photographs online with which to verify that hunch.

On an interesting The Good Girl side note – according to IMDB, director Miguel Arteta had Jennifer Aniston wear wrist weights prior to and during the filming in order to give her character, Justine Last, a worn-down look. The trick worked as Justine was light years away from Rachel Green. Her wardrobe only added to the effect, especially the drab shoes. And while I realize that I have posted this quote before (back in October 2011 in my column about the What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? house), I absolutely love it, so I figured it bore repeating. In the September 2009 issue of Elle Magazine, Jennifer Aniston said of her process of creating a character, “I‘ll never forget my high school acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, who said, ‘It starts with the shoes.’ When I think about a character, it does start with the shoes: What kind would she wear? How would she walk in them? If I’m going to put on a dress for a role – I don’t care if it’s the hardest dress to put on – I have to put the shoes on first. The physicality leads me to the character . . . Like Justine in The Good Girl: She was so disconnected from how she looked, that’s what led to the discomfort of who she was.” She’s right – Justine’s shoes – and her flood pants – definitely made that character.

And on a Simi Valley side-note – the GC and I stumbled into Aubergine Emporium – the coolest, most unique antique store that I have ever been to in my life – while stalking in the area on Saturday. The place is worth a visit just to check out its decor alone! My favorite adornment was the antique ladder above the cash register, which the owners placed a sheet of glass on top of and now use as a shelf. SO INCREDIBLY COOL AND UNIQUE! Love, love, love it! Aubergine was chock full of creative, whimsical touches like that and I honestly could have spent all day there, walking around gathering interior design ideas. I cannot more highly recommend stalking the place!

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And you can take a look at my latest post – about road trip eats – on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Holden’s house from The Good Girl is located at 5368 Leland Circle in Simi Valley. While in the area, be sure to stop by Aubergine Emporium at 4385 Valley Fair Street for a little antique shopping.

August 1, 2012August 1, 2012

Retail Rodeo from “The Good Girl”

This past Saturday morning, the Grim Cheaper and I headed out to Simi Valley to stalk a location that he was actually excited about for once – the House of the Book building at the Brandeis-Barden Campus of the American Jewish University, which stands in for the Visualize cult’s headquarters on fave show The Mentalist. And even though the American Jewish University website makes it sound as if the place is open to the public (it states that the campus is “an enchanting destination for residents and visitors to the region”), when we showed up we discovered that it most definitely is not. Fail! After a 45-minute drive out there, I was not about to turn right around and head back to Pasadena, though, so I texted Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who lives in the area, and asked him what other locations, if any, were nearby. When he mentioned that Retail Rodeo from the 2002 movie The Good Girl was just a hop, skip and a jump away, I just about flipped my lid as it is a place that I had always wanted to stalk. Yay! So I dragged the GC right on over there.

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I really should admit here that I absolutely hated The Good Girl. In this stalker’s never-to-be humble opinion, the flick was easily one of the most depressing and boring ever produced. I watched it when it was first released, of course, because of Miss Jen Aniston, but by about thirty minutes in I was ready to leave the theatre. Yes, it’s that bad. I even found it painful to scan through the thing today while making screen captures for this post. Ugh! But because Retail Rodeo was such a prominent location in the flick, it stuck with me and I had always wanted to see it in person.

In The Good Girl, Retail Rodeo is the Texas-area drug store where Justine Last (Jennifer Aniston), Jack Field (John Carroll Lynch), Cheryl (Zooey Deschanel – who was fab in her role and pretty much the only good thing about the movie) and Holden Worther (Jake Gyllenhaal) work.

In real life, the place is currently a Flooring 101 carpet and tile center and, as you can see below, the exterior, thankfully, still looks much the same today as it did back in 2002 when The Good Girl was filmed.

I was especially excited to see the front sidewalk area where Justine and Holden ate lunch together everyday.

And the tree that Holden hid behind after stealing $15,000 from the Retail Rodeo safe.

Had to do it! Winking smile

The real life interior of the store was also used extensively in The Good Girl. At the time of the filming, the property was vacant and, because it had previously housed a Thrifty drugstore, producers did not have to do much to turn the space into the fictional Retail Rodeo.

Sadly though, when Flooring 101 took over the space shortly after filming of The Good Girl had wrapped, the interior was completely gutted (like down to the studs!) and it no longer resembles its onscreen counterpart in any way, shape or form. And while we did venture inside for a peek, the place was so vastly different that I did not even bother to snap any photographs, nor did I think the non-friendly owner would have allowed it. Sad smile

Be sure to “Like” IAMNOTASTALKER on Facebook here and “Friend” me on my personal page here. You can also check out the IAMNOTASTALKER About Me page here and you can follow me on Twitter at @IAMNOTASTALKER. And you can take a look at my latest post about road trip eats on my other blog, The Well-Heeled Diabetic, here.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Flooring 101, aka Retail Rodeo from The Good Girl, is located at 2790 East Los Angeles Avenue in Simi Valley. The tree that Holden hid behind in the movie is the second tree in from the entrance to Flooring 101’s parking lot and is denoted with a pink arrow above.

February 22, 2012February 21, 2012

The Interior of the “Bruce Almighty” Party House

In honor of my girl Jen Aniston receiving the 2,642^nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today (a ceremony that I will actually not be attending because, after the debacle that was the Horrible Bosses premiere this past summer, I have a severe aversion to any event that has the potential of being too crowded or too chaotic), I thought that I would blog about a location from her 2003 romantic comedy Bruce Almighty. As I mentioned this past July in my post about the Stern House in Pasadena, which stood in for the exterior of the supposed Buffalo, New York-area Vanderbilt Estate where the Channel 7 news team threw a party in honor of Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) in the flick, I was fairly certain that a different property had been used for the interior. And for the past seven months or so, I had been just a wee-bit obsessed with tracking down that interior. Unfortunately though, while I searched through countless real estate listings and location websites during my hunt, I had come up completely empty-handed.

The most memorable aspect of the interior of the Bruce Almighty party house was the two-story front entrance foyer and its dual curving staircases.

Back in July, while researching the Stern House, I had come across a picture of Jen sitting at the foot of one of those staircases on IMDB’s Bruce Almighty photo page and, it will come as no surprise, that it soon became embedded in my memory.

So when I spotted that very same staircase pop up in the mansion belonging to wealthy steel businessman Henry Rearden (Grant Bowler) in the 2011 movie Atlas Shrugged: Part I a couple of weeks ago, I just about died! I, of course, immediately started doing research on Atlas Shrugged filming locations (in fact, I did not even finish watching the film, I became so obsessed!) and fairly quickly found an article in which a commenter had stated that Frank’s residence was located in La Canada Flintridge, across the street from the 2011 Pasadena Showcase House of Design. And while it would seem that it would be fairly easy to track down the 2011 Showcase House, for whatever maddening reason, I could not find it anywhere! Fortunately, after spending countless hours searching by myself, I decided to enlist the help of fellow stalker Mike, from MovieShotsLA, who texted me back a few minutes later with an address. THANK YOU, Mike! So, this past Monday afternoon, while the two of us were out doing some stalking in the San Gabriel Valley, we ran right over there to take some pics.

In real life, the estate, which was originally built in 1993 by architect Wayne Siggard, boasts 5 bedrooms, 7 baths, a whopping 11,700 square feet of living space!!!, and an almost 2-acre plot of land. The mansion, which, as you can see above, is pretty darn spectacular, is currently listed on MLS for a cool $7,950,000, although it does look like a sale might be pending. You can visit the home’s real estate website here. Oh, what I would not give to see the inside of that place in person!

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In Bruce Almighty, the interior of the mansion was used extensively during the party scene and the master bedroom area was where Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston) caught Bruce in a passionate embrace with his “Spanish-accented” co-anchor, Susan Ortega (Catherine Bell).

The estate was also used extensively in Atlas Shrugged: Part I. Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property appeared in the movie.

And the very same bedroom where Bruce and Susan kissed in Bruce Almighty was also featured as the bedroom of Henry and his wife, Lillian Rearden (Rebecca Wisocky), in Atlas Shrugged.

Photographs of the magnificent stairwell that I spent over seven months searching for are pictured above. Sigh! What I wouldn’t give to sit on them to pose for a photograph like Jen did!

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location! Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The interior of the Bruce Almighty party house, aka Henry Rearden’s mansion from Atlas Shrugged: Part I, is located at 4158 Commonwealth Avenue in La Canada Flintridge.

December 5, 2011December 4, 2011

The Daily Grill at LAX from “Friends With Benefits”

While watching Friends With Benefits this past July, I just about fell out of my theatre seat when I realized that one of the flick’s more pivotal scenes had been filmed at the Daily Grill restaurant inside of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport – an eatery that I am very familiar with. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, my best friend, Robin, lives in Switzerland and comes to visit me just about once a year. He always flies in and out of LAX and every time we take him to the airport for his return flight, we grab one final cocktail together at the Daily Grill. The eatery long ago came to be known as “the sad restaurant” in my family’s lexicon, as, knowing that the hour to say good-bye is near, we are all invariably in tears by the time the check arrives. Flash forward to this past November when, as I mentioned three weeks ago in my post about The Grill on Main in La Quinta, Robin’s mom, Doina, who is my mom’s best friend, flew out to America to surprise my mom on her 60th birthday. At the end of her eight-day visit, we made our regular pilgrimage to the Daily Grill (that is me and Doina pictured above), which I was extremely excited about as it meant that I could finally blog about the place.

The Daily Grill at LAX, which opened its doors in January 1997, is actually the largest full-service airport restaurant in the entire United States (it measures 8,300 square feet!!!) and features a full bar, a private dining room, and what are easily the best chicken strips I have ever eaten in my entire life! In fact, on this particular visit, we ordered three servings of them (!!!!) as we could just not seem to get enough. Best of all, unlike other airport eateries where a single slice of take-out pizza can cost upwards of $7, the Daily Grill is very reasonably priced. (On a random side-note – while doing research for today’s post, I discovered that there are SEVEN Starbucks stores located inside of LAX! SEVEN! According to the Expect Delays travel blog, Starbucks outposts can be found inside of Terminals 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8! Now, that’s my kind of place! Winking smile )

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In Friends With Benefits, the Daily Grill appeared in the scene in which Dylan (aka Justin Timberlake) and his father, Mr. Harper (aka Richard Jenkins), grab a bite to eat – sans pants – shortly after Mr. Harper arrives at what is supposedly Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. It is actually pretty ironic that the Daily Grill masqueraded as an East Coast location in the flick, as Friends With Benefits poked quite a bit of fun at movies that try to pull one over on their audience by having locales in Los Angeles stand in for those in New York.

In the scene, Dylan and Mr. Harper dine in the northeastern-most section of the restaurant in the area overlooking the ticketing counters.

That area is pictured above.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where Dylan and Mr. Harper sat in the flick. Smile

Our super-nice waitress answered all of my silly little questions about the filming of Friends With Benefits and even informed us that the filmmakers had covered over one of the Daily Grill’s overhead lights during the shoot and had forgotten to uncover it afterwards. As you can see above, it is still covered over today! So incredibly cool!

According to the Friends With Benefits production notes, the scene in which Jamie (aka Mila Kunis) hops on a baggage carousel and starts handing out luggage to various travelers was also shot at LAX, although I am unsure of exactly where.

Our waitress also informed us that a scene from the 2005 flick Rumor Has It involving my girl Jen Aniston had been filmed on the escalators located just outside of the Daily Grill, which I could NOT have been more excited about. Our waitress was working during the time the scene was filmed and said she watched Jen ride up and down those escalators for pretty much an entire day! How incredibly cool is that? I would have absolutely DIED!

The escalators have been remodeled since the time Rumor Has It was filmed and no longer have palm trees planted in between them, but otherwise look much the same as they did onscreen.

And I, of course, just had to pose for a pic in the spot where my girl stood in the movie. Smile

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Daily Grill, from Friends With Benefits, is located at 380 World Way in Los Angeles, on the Mezzanine Level of the Tom Bradley International Terminal inside of the Los Angeles International Airport. It is located outside of the security checkpoint, so you do not have to be traveling to dine there. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

November 28, 2011November 27, 2011

Julia Harris’ House from “Horrible Bosses”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I ventured out in the pouring rain to stalk two weekends ago was the ultra-modern abode where Dr. Julia Harris, D.D.S. (aka my girl Jen Aniston) lived in the (horrible) 2011 comedy Horrible Bosses. I was informed of this location via a text from fellow stalker Chas, of the It’sFilmedThere website, who prefaced giving me the address with the query, “Did you like Horrible Bosses?”, to which I wrote back, “Not at all!” When he asked if my dislike stemmed from the fact that the movie was “too crude”, I wrote back, “No! It stemmed from the fact that it was seriously stupid!” Winking smile The GC and I had gone to see Horrible Bosses on opening night in a theatre, as I do with pretty much every new Jen Aniston movie, and were both so bored to tears that we almost walked out! I just did not find the flick funny, like at all, and, for some reason, Charlie Day, who played Dr. Harris’ dental assistant Dale Arbus, seriously grated on my nerves, especially his gravely voice. It was like fingernails on a chalkboard to this stalker, but I digress. Anyway, I was extremely excited to receive Chas’ text, regardless of my feelings about the movie, as I am always, always up for stalking a location that has anything whatsoever to do with my girl.

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Julia’s house actually only shows up twice in Horrible Bosses – first in the scene in which Dale’s friend Kurt Buckman (aka Jason Sudeikis) stakes out the property with the intent of murdering Julia and later on in a flashback scene in which he describes what happens while there. According to the Horrible Bosses production notes, “The deviant doc’s house is stylistically similar to her office — that is, what can be seen of it through its wide street-facing picture windows, which afford her the opportunity to put on the kind of show she couldn’t get away with at work.”

In real life, the five-bedroom, four-bath, 3,906-square-foot home, which was completely rebuilt in 2008, is pretty darn spectacular! The property features a double-sided fireplace, a floating staircase, an open floor plan, Cherry wood and poured concrete flooring, exposed steel beams, a six-burner range, and three fireplaces. The property sold on July 22 of this year for $1.73 million. You can check out some great interior photographs of the place here.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location. You can check out Chas’ extensive Horrible Bosses filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Julia Harris’ house from Horrible Bosses is located at 2361 Midvale Avenue in the Westside area of Los Angeles.

September 2, 2011September 2, 2011

Aunt Mitsy’s House from “Rumor Has It”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like ages now is the home where Aunt Mitsy (aka Kathy Bates) lived in the 2005 movie Rumor Has It. Even though I was never a particularly big fan of the flick, I pretty much fell in love with Aunt Mitsy’s adorable little bungalow – and her huge front porch – at first sight and have wanted to stalk it ever since. Especially being that my girl Jen Aniston had filmed a scene on the premises. Because no apartment number, street sign, or even a full view of the exterior of the property was visible at any point during the movie, though, I figured this was one locale that would be virtually impossible to track down.

Enter fellow stalker Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, who emailed me last week to ask for some help in locating the home where Grandma Bunny (aka Betty White) lived in the 2010 romantic comedy You Again. Well, I took one look at the screencap he sent me (pictured above) and realized that, while it was not the same house featured in Rumor Has It, the two properties looked amazingly similar – which got me to thinking that they might just be located in close proximity to each other, quite possibly even on the same street. So I immediately began searching for the You Again house and also got fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Owen on the case.

As fate would have it, Mike happened to recognize the yellow Victorian-style home located in the background of the Rumor Has It scene and when he looked at that property on Google Street View, sure enough, there was Mitsy’s house right across the street. Yay!

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Aunt Mitsy’s house was only featured in one very brief scene in Rumor Has It, in which Sarah Huttinger (aka Jennifer Aniston) asks Mitsy for information about her deceased mother. It is there that Mitsy first tells Sarah about her mother’s affair with Beau Burroughs (aka Kevin Costner), at which point Sarah realizes that her family served as the inspiration for the movie The Graduate. (Yeah, yeah – lame plot for a movie, I know.) From its appearance in Rumor Has It, I had assumed that the home was an extremely small, one-story dwelling and searched for it as such. As it turns out, I could not have been more wrong.

In real life the house looks nothing at all like how I had envisioned it to look in my mind. Not only is the place two levels, but it is also pretty darn huge!

And furthermore, the property is actually an apartment building – not a private residence as I had originally thought! As you can see above, the dwelling has several front doors and consists of at least three separate units. This is one location that I can honestly say I NEVER would have found on my own. Not in a million years.

Thankfully, the front porch area looks pretty much the same today as it did back in 2005 when Rumor Has It was filmed. There is currently much less foliage in place and the house is now painted blue instead of yellow, but otherwise little else has changed in that section of the property over the years and it still looks just as cute in person as it did onscreen. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to sit on that porch in the same spot that Jen sat to pose for a pic! Smile

The other houses on the street that appeared in the background of the scene look exactly the same as they did in the movie, as well. And, yes, we did also end up finding Grandma Bunny’s house from You Again – well, fellow stalker Chas found it – and I will be blogging about it soon.

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding this location and to fellow stalkers Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, Geoff, from the 90210Locations website, and Owen for all of the time and effort they put into this search.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: Aunt Mitsy’s house from Rumor Has It is located at 485 Ellis Street in Pasadena.

July 14, 2011July 13, 2011

The “Bruce Almighty” Party House

Last week while going through the glove compartment of my car, I came across the Scott’s L.A. Audio Tour of Pasadena CD that I had purchased about seven years prior. For those who have never heard of Scott’s L.A., the family-owned company produces a series of audio driving tours of the Southern California area, all of which feature numerous famous locations, including quite a few that have appeared in movies and on television. Since I had not listened to the CD in years, I decided to spend a couple of hours re-taking the tour. And I am so glad that I did because there were a few locales mentioned on it that I had completely forgotten about, the most important of which was the party house from the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty. And even though I was not at all a fan of Bruce Almighty, because my girl Jen had filmed a scene at the house, I figured it was most-definitely stalk- and blog-worthy.

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In real life, the Bruce Almighty party mansion is known as the Stern House and it was originally built in 1938 by architects Garrett Van Pelt and Robert E. Alexander. The Mediterranean-style property, which sits on 0.83 acres of land, boasts 7 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, and 7,146 square feet of living space. And even though the residence has a name and seems to be historic in some way, surprisingly I could not find any other information about it online.

In Bruce Almighty, the Channel 7 news team throws Bruce Nolan (aka Jim Carrey) a party at the supposed Vanderbilt Estate in New York in honor of his recent promotion. When Bruce’s girlfriend Grace Connelly (aka Jennifer Aniston) shows up at the party, she catches him kissing his co-anchor Susan Ortega (aka Catherine Bell) and a fight ensues out in front of the mansion.

And while I could not find any photographs of the inside of the property to verify this, I am fairly certain that a different residence was used to film the interior party scenes.

Ironically enough, while scanning through Bruce Almighty yesterday to make screen captures for this post, I noticed that the house belonging to Debbie (aka Lisa Ann Walter) in the flick is the very same property where the Simpson family lived in fave movie She’s Out of Control, which I stalked this past May.

I also came across this super-cute photograph on IMDB of my girl Jen and Bruce Almighty director Tom Shadyac which was taken out in front of the She’s Out of Control house. Love it!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! Smile

Stalk It: The Bruce Almighty party house is located at 1395 Ridge Way in Pasadena. You can visit the Scott’s L.A. website and purchase the company’s various tour CDs here.