Tag: movies

The Bistro Garden

A couple of weeks ago, while searching online for different filming locations from The Office, I came across some information about an area restaurant which not only appeared in The Office, but in countless other productions over the years, as well – the Bistro Garden in Studio City. So, I, of course, dragged the Grim Cheaper right out to stalk it that very weekend! And I think it is safe to say that we both pretty much fell in love with the place immediately upon arriving! The Bistro Garden was first opened by Carolyn Niklas Pappas, the daughter of famed restaurateur Kurt Niklas (who founded the enormously popular celebrity hotspots Bistro and the original Bistro Garden in Beverly Hills) and her husband Gregory Pappas in 1990. Two decades later, the place is still one of the Valley’s most popular restaurants – and definitely its most romantic! According to this 2009 Los Angeles Times article, restaurant reviewer Max Jacobson said of the Bistro Garden that it “may have been the most beautiful restaurant he had ever dined in”. And he wasn’t exaggerating – the place is exquisite.

The Bistro Garden, which according to its website was modeled after a “European Wintergarden”, features a central indoor courtyard with a huge, peaked skylight roof, large French doors, and a perimeter of potted trees covered in twinkle lights, all of which give off the feeling of being outside in some sort of magical garden oasis. And I swear they must pump some sort of rose fragrance through the air conditioning vents, because the place smells like fresh cut flowers – it’s AMAZING!

The restaurant’s wood-paneled mahogany bar area, where the Grim Cheaper and I ate, definitely evokes a feeling of Old Hollywood, especially with the Michael Buble and Frank Sinatra music that plays in the background. Love it! 🙂 The staff also could NOT have been friendlier and answered all of my silly little questions about the filming that has taken place there over the years. Oh, and the food was absolutely incredible, too! And even though the restaurant is a bit pricey, the Grim Cheaper thoroughly enjoyed himself and said he can’t wait to go back! That in and of itself is a testament to how good the place is.

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In the Season 6 episode of The Office titled “Double Date”, the Bistro Garden stood in for Paparazzo’s (LOL!), the Italian restaurant where Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) hosted a birthday luncheon for Pam’s (aka Jenna Fischer’s) mom, Helene (aka Linda Purl). It is there that Michael decides that Helene, at age 58, is far too old for him and promptly breaks up with her . . . in the middle of her birthday lunch.

Steve Carell also filmed a scene from 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin at the Bistro Garden – the scene in which his character Andy attends a Date-A-Palooza speed-dating event.

Randomly enough, The Office’s Mindy Kaling also made an appearance in that scene.

In 2010’s Valentine’s Day, the Bistro Garden was the spot where Julia Fitzpatrick (aka Jennifer Garner) confronted her boyfriend, Dr. Harrison Copeland (aka Patrick Dempsey), after finding out that he was married.

In 1997’s Liar Liar, the Bistro Garden was the spot where Jerry (aka Cary Elwes) proposed to Audrey (aka Maura Tierney).

Bistro Garden has popped up twice in Desperate Housewives. In the Season 2 episode titled “Remember (1)”, the restaurant’s bar area was where Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria Parker) discovered (wrongly) via a newscast that her husband Carlos (aka Ricardo Chavira) had died in a car accident.

The restaurant was also where Zach Young (aka Cody Kasch) unveiled himself to be Gabrielle’s secret admirer in the Season 3 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Not While I’m Around”.

The Bistro Garden also showed up twice on fave show Beverly Hills, 90210 – first in the Season 8 episode titled “Toil and Trouble” as the spot where Cooper Hargrove (aka Christopher Orr) gifted Valerie Malone (aka Tiffani Amber-Thiessen) with a diamond necklace.

And second in the Season 10 episode titled “Laying Pipe”. But in actuality only the exterior of the Bistro Garden was featured in the “Laying Pipe” episode.

As you can see in the above screen captures, the interior filming took place elsewhere. The restaurant was also featured in an episode of Melrose Place, but because I didn’t really watch that show, I am unsure of exactly which episode.

Bistro Garden is also something of a celebrity hotspot, as well. Just a few of the celebs who have been spotted dining there recently include Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, and Steve Carell.

On a side note – I will not be publishing a new blog post for tomorrow, or for the next two Fridays.  Because of my upcoming wedding, I wrote all of my August blog posts in advance and unfortunately was only able to get enough done to publish four each week. But I will be back on Monday with a whole new post. 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Bistro Garden is located at 12950 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

August 12, 2010
The “Date Night” House

Last night, the Grim Cheaper and I sat down to watch the movie Date Night which FINALLY came out on DVD this week. We somehow missed seeing the flick in theatres when it first came out in April and I have been not-so-patiently waiting for it to be released on DVD ever since. Especially since Mike, from MovieShotsLA, tracked down the house which belonged to Phil and Claire Foster (played by Steve Carell and Tina Fey, respectively) in it over four months ago. Because I suffer from the need for immediate gratification, I actually stalked the place immediately after Mike told me its location and, as you can imagine, have been ABSOLUTELY DYING to see the movie ever since – even though the previews didn’t look especially promising. I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised while watching it, too – despite what the reviews said, Date Night is a really cute movie! It’s heartwarming and sweet and laugh-out-loud funny. Not to mention the fact that Tina Fey and Steve Carell are exceptional in it! Loved it, loved it, loved it! But I digress!

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Mike tracked down the Date Night house pretty much immediately after seeing the movie in theatres. He knew from the get-go that the supposed New Jersey-area home was actually located somewhere in Pasadena thanks to these JFX Online paparazzi photos taken of Tina Fey and Leighton Meester during the filming. He also spotted an address number of “620” while watching the movie and from there used Google Street View to search all of the 600 blocks in the Pasadena area until he found the right residence. Thank you, Mike!



The Foster house actually shows up only a few times in Date Night, most notably in the ending scene in which Phil and Claire return home after their disastrous date in New York City.



And I am very happy to report that not only does the home look exactly the same in person as it did in the movie, but it is also ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE. In fact, it is almost too adorable. Had Mike not found the property’s real life location and had I not seen the place with my own two eyes, I would have been absolutely convinced that it was a fake house located on a studio backlot somewhere in Hollywood. The residence has that “studio” feel to it even in person and looks like it belongs on Wisteria Lane and not in the real world. 😉

As you can see in these photographs of the inside of the home, the real life interior of the property was also used in the filming.

And, ironically enough, the “Byzantine/Mediterranean” house that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of Date Night is located right next door to the Foster home, which makes things convenient for us stalkers.

On a Date Night side note – If you haven’t yet watched the bloopers reel featured at the end of the flick, you REALLY need to and can do so by clicking above. They are absolutely hilarious and really show how much fun the movie must have been to work on. It was actually watching stuff like this that first made me want to be an actor. Yes, the hours are long and the work is tedious, but in what other kind of career does one get to laugh as much as this??? 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Mike, from MovieShotsLA, for finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Phil and Claire Foster’s house from Date Night is located at 620 Vallombrosa Drive in Pasadena. The home that Claire tries to sell at the beginning of the movie is located right next door at 608 Vallombrosa Drive.

August 11, 2010
Jessica’s House from “Sleepless in Seattle”

One of the locations that I was most excited about stalking while visiting Seattle this past May was the home where Jonah Baldwin’s (aka Ross Malinger’s) best friend Jessica (aka Gaby Hoffman) lived in fave movie Sleepless in Seattle. Fellow stalker David, who I had the pleasure of meeting and doing some stalking with during my brief three-day vacation, managed to track down Jessica’s house just about a week before I headed up to the Pacific Northwest. He found the locale after posting an inquiry on this area filming locations thread on the West Seattle Blog website. David had spent quite a bit of time trying to find the house on his own without much luck, so thankfully the West Seattle Blog readers offered to lend a hand and through some amazing detective work came up with the right address. YAY! So, I immediately put the home high up on my must-stalk-while-in-Seattle-list and could NOT have been more excited about seeing it!

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The exterior of Jessica’s house was actually only featured in one very brief scene in Sleepless in Seattle in which BFF’s Jonah and Jessica mail a letter to Annie Reed (aka Meg Ryan) which they have written on behalf of Jonah’s father, Sam Baldwin (aka Tom Hanks). After putting the forged letter in Jessica’s mailbox, the two sit on her front porch and wait for the mailman to come pick it up.

Even though the home appeared only once, and very briefly at that, I was still absolutely floored over seeing it in person because, as I’ve mentioned before, Sleepless in Seattle is one of my very favorite movies of all time. And I am happy to report that Jessica’s house still looks very much the same today as to how it appeared onscreen in Sleepless, which is pretty darn amazing being that filming took place over 17 years ago! Sadly, though, the mailbox where Jessica and Jonah mailed Annie’s letter is not there in real life. I am fairly certain that it was never truly a part of the house, but was a prop that was brought in solely for the filming. 🙁 So sad! Also missing, of course, was Jessica’s mom’s “Four Winds” travel agency sign that was displayed on the home’s front porch in the movie.

I am fairly certain that the actual interior of the house was used in the filming, as well.

According to a comment posted by a West Seattle Blog reader named “westseattledood”, a home located just a few doors down from Jessica’s stood in for the Chicago-area residence where Sam and Jonah lived during the beginning of Sleepless. Only the interior of that house was shown in the movie in the scene in which Sam’s sister, Suzy (aka Rita Wilson), tells Sam how to prepare the food she has made for him.

And even though the residence’s exterior was never shown in Sleepless, since we were less than a block away, I just had to stalk that property, too! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to David and to the West Seattle Blog readers for their help in finding these locations! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Jessica’s house from Sleepless in Seattle is located at 1816 4th Avenue North in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. The home used for the interiors of Sam and Jonah’s Chicago residence can be found just down the street at 1701 4th Avenue North.

August 10, 2010
Jim and Pam’s Wedding Hotel from “The Office”

Now that I have watched all six seasons of The Office, I can honestly say that my favorite episode hands down has to be the Season 6 episode titled “Niagara” in which Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinski) and Pam Beasley (aka Jenna Fischer) finally get married. I loved the episode for two very different reasons – one, because Jim and Pam’s relationship is so incredibly sweet, and two, because it so perfectly captures what it is like to plan a wedding. Whoever wrote “Niagara” must have gone through the ordeal that is planning a wedding just prior to penning it, because, let me tell you, they got things absolutely, one hundred percent SPOT ON! And right now I can TOTALLY relate. Yes, planning a wedding is fun and exciting and heartwarming, but, at the same time, dealing with people is just not my forte. I honestly want to call up some of our guests and/or vendors and scream, “NO, I will not provide you with shade during the ceremony, NO, I will not pick you up from the airport on the morning of my wedding, and NO, it’s not OK that you RSVP-ed yes, but are now backing out even though I have already given my caterer the final head count!” – all of which were recently said to or asked of me and my fiancé! Sigh! The scene in which Pam says to Jim, “Everyone’s driving me crazy. This is supposed to be our wedding day! Why did we invite all these people?” especially resonated with me when I watched the episode and I can’t tell you the number of times since then that I’ve seriously considered jumping on a ship to tie the knot sans guests just like Pam and Jim eventually did. 😉 Anyway, while watching “Niagara”, I immediately recognized the hotel where Jim and Pam’s guests stayed during their wedding as the historic Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City. So, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk it when we were in the area two weekends ago.

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The Sportmen’s Lodge Hotel has been around since the early 1880s, but at the time it was named Hollywood Trout Farms thanks to the fact that it was surrounded by a series of man-made lakes and piers from which guests could fish for trout which would then subsequently be cooked and served to them for dinner by the staff at the main restaurant. In 1962, a new, larger hotel was built on the property, which had since been re-named the Sportsmen’s Lodge. It is that structure that still stands today.

And while the trout lakes have long since been removed, the hotel now boasts an Olympic-sized swimming pool, numerous ponds and waterfalls, and eight picturesque acres of land. Due to its proximity to the Hollywood studios, the Lodge has long been popular with movie stars, including Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, Doris Day, David Lee Roth, Billy Bob Thornton, Trisha Yearwood, Spencer Tracy, Lauren Bacall, Tallulah Bankhead, Lena Horne, Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, and Bette Davis, all of whom have been spotted there at one time or another. In 2007, the hotel was purchased by real estate developer Richard Weintraub who set about extensively renovating the property. And, unfortunately, along with that renovation came quite a bit of change. 🙁

In The Office’s aptly named “Niagara” episode, Pam and Jim head to Niagara Falls to tie the knot. And while the interior scenes were filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge, as I mentioned above, the exterior shots were filmed at an actual Niagara Falls lodging named the Red Coach Inn. And, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, the two hotels look nothing alike.

The Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel actually has two lobbies, and it is the back lobby, which is located off of Coldwater Canyon Avenue, that was used in the episode. Unfortunately, as you can see in the above screen captures and photographs, that lobby looks MUCH different today than it did when The Office was filmed. During the recent remodel, all of the back lobby’s wood was covered over with white paint, making the space appear much less lodge-like.

Gone, too, is the hotel’s former stone-covered fireplace, which has been revamped to look like an ordinary, everyday fireplace. Such a shame! The hotel, which used to have a very kitschy feel to it, now appears traditional and run-of-the-mill. I am actually quite surprised that Weintraub had the place remodeled in such a way, as I am sure that it is no longer quite as appealing to producers and location managers.

And I have to say here that I absolutely LOVE the scene in which Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell) shows up to the hotel’s front desk and informs the clerk that he doesn’t have a reservation because Jim and Pam have “blocked” rooms for their guests. LOL LOL LOL Man, I can SO see that happening in real life! I don’t know what it is about a wedding that renders seemingly normal, intelligent people into helpless, self-absorbed morons, but, let me tell you, it happens!

Several of the Lodge’s hotel rooms were also featured in the “Niagara” episode, including Room 642, where Pam’s grandmother, Meemaw, stayed;

Room 644, where Pam stayed;

Room 641, where Dwight stayed;

and Suite 639, aka the “Honeymoon Suite”, where Andy stayed.

All of the rooms featured in the episode can be found in the same hallway, which is located on the hotel’s second floor, directly above the main lobby.

I could NOT for the life of me find the ice/vending machine closet where Michael spent the night in “Niagara”, though. Oddly enough, according to the housekeeper that I spoke with, the hotel only has one ice machine area and it is located next to the pool. I checked it out, though, and it looks nothing like the room pictured above, which leads me to believe that producers either created a fake room in one of the hotel’s storage closets for the filming or that the ice machine room where filming took place was removed during the recent remodel.

The very same back lobby which appeared in The Office was also the site of the graduation dance in the Britney Spears’ movie Crossroads. I obtained this information from a crew member while I was working as an extra in the movie and I actually thought it was a bit odd being that a vast majority of the flick was lensed at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel. It seems like it would have been a whole lot easier to just shoot the dance sequence in one of the former hotel’s many ballrooms since the cast and crew were already filming on location there, but, then again, what do I know? 😉

And, of course, I just HAD to pose on the Sportmen’s Lodge’s stairwell since Britney had once been there. 🙂

The actual dance scene in Crossroads was filmed in the Lodge’s Starlight ballroom. And, as you can see in the above screen captures and photograph, the room’s light fixtures and the banister surrounding the dance floor still look the same today as they did in 2002 when Crossroads was filmed. YAY!

The hotel was also where Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman) stayed after leaving her husband Tom (aka Doug Savant) in the Season 2 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Remember (1)”.

And if you look at the room where Lynette stayed in that episode, you will notice that it is a perfect match to the room Lucy Wagner (aka Britney Spears) and Henry (aka Justin Long) rented after the dance in Crossroads, which is extremely odd as I would have guessed – once again – that that scene would have been filmed at the above-mentioned Ambassador, as was the case with all of the other hotel room scenes in the movie. So odd!

The front entrance of the hotel also appeared in Crossroads.

The wedding from the end of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry was filmed at the Lodge, in the hotel’s lagoon area, and, according to a staff member I spoke with, the movies Leverage, Made, and Day the World Ended, and episodes of the television series Reno 911, Columbo, and Falcon Crest were also all filmed at the Sportsmen’s Lodge,

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Sportmen’s Lodge, aka Jim and Pam’s wedding hotel from The Office, is located at 12825 Ventura Boulevard in Studio City. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. In the “Niagara” episode, Pam stayed in Room 644, Dwight in Room 641, Pam’s Meemaw in Room 642, and Andy in Suite 639. All of the rooms that were featured in the episode are located in the same second floor hallway of the hotel, directly above the main lobby. The back lobby, which appeared in the both The Office and Crossroads, can be reached via Coldwater Canyon Avenue.

August 2, 2010
The Pasadena House Where the Prom in “Twilight” Was Filmed

One location that I have been on the lookout for for what seems like forever now is the Pasadena-area home where part of the prom scene from the original Twilight movie was filmed. I first found out about this location while browsing through Catherine Hardwick’s fabulous book Twilight: Director’s Notebook at my local bookstore. According to Hardwick, after filming of the 2008 flick had been completed, it was decided that an additional conversation between Bella Swan (aka Kristen Stewart) and Jacob Black (aka Taylor Lautner) was needed to complete the prom scene, which had been filmed at a picturesque hotel in Oregon named the View Point Inn (pictured above). Because the cast and crew had long since returned to Southern California, the movie’s location manager was called upon to find a property in the area that looked similar enough to the View Point Inn that a scene could be shot there without the audience realizing it was a different locale. He found that location at a private residence in Pasadena and filming took place there in late August of 2008. And even though I wasn’t a huge fan of the vampire movie, I was absolutely DYING to stalk the house. The only problem was that, for the life of me, I could NOT find it. Until I called in Mike, from MovieShotsLA, that is, who tracked down the property in record time – and without the aid of screen caps, I might add!

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Mike, who had yet to watch Twilight, knew that the prom scene had been filmed at a Tudor-style property with a long driveway, so armed with those two rather vague descriptions he went to work. Late Wednesday afternoon, he ended up stumbling upon some sort of Twilight message board where a girl had posted a comment saying that a scene from the flick had been shot in her neighborhood on Arroyo Boulevard near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. From there, Mike used aerial maps to search the area for a Tudor-style house with a large driveway and eventually landed upon the right location. Yay! Thank you, Mike! And, as soon as he gave me the address, I ran right out to stalk the place. Sadly, though, not much of it can be seen from the road.

While not gated, as you can see in the above aerial images, the home is set quite a ways back from the street and is surrounded by a massive amount of foliage.

And while a bit of it can actually be spotted through the tall trees which line the front of the property, because the view is so limited, this house, unfortunately, makes for quite a disappointing stalk.

But that’s why God created real estate listings, which is where I snagged the two images pictured above. 🙂 The house, which was designed in 1915 by architect Stiles O. Clements, is currently for sale at a price that is only given “upon request”. The property boasts seven bedrooms, TEN bathrooms!, five fireplaces, a separate one bedroom, one bathroom guesthouse, and sits on over 3.5 acres of land. You can visit the home’s real estate listing and see a more close-up view of the property here.

The scene shot at the Pasadena house was a very brief one in which Jacob warns Bella upon entering the prom that her boyfriend, Edward Cullen (aka Robert Pattinson), may be a dangerous individual. Bella blows off his warning and then walks arm-in-arm with Edward around the corner and into the prom, at which point the location miraculously transforms into the View Point Inn.

The scene was filmed on the lawn in front of the north portion of the home’s wrap-around driveway, which is denoted with the blue “X” in the above aerial image.

I find it absolutely amazing that the location manager was able to find an area home that not only looked quite a bit like the View Point Inn, but one that was also situated in an Oregonian-like setting. When I first heard that the scene in which Jacob walks out of the woods to talk to Bella had been filmed in Pasadena, I wrongly assumed that fake trees had been brought in to make the property appear more wooded and forest-like. But in reality, the scene pictured above is what the grounds surrounding the house actually look like. It truly is an incredibly piece of property!

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

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The house where the beginning portion of the prom scene in Twilight was filmed is located at 1200 South Arroyo Boulevard in Pasadena.

July 30, 2010
The Historic El Paseo Shopping Center from “It’s Complicated”

Another It’s Complicated location that I stalked while visiting the Santa Barbara area a few weeks back was the historic El Paseo Shopping Center located in the heart of Downtown State Street. In the movie, the Spanish-style marketplace stood in for the “Santa Barbara Medical Building” where Jane Adler’s (aka Meryl Streep’s) therapist, Dr. Allen (aka Peter Mackenzie), worked. In reality, El Paseo does not actually house medical offices, but is in fact California’s very first and oldest shopping center. I found the location thanks to this fabulous December 2009 Los Angeles Times article about the filming of It’s Complicated and even though I had yet to see the movie, I dragged my fiancé right out to stalk the place pretty much immediately upon arriving in the area.

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El Paseo Shopping Center was originally built during the 1920’s and currently houses several boutiques, restaurants, and independent offices situated amongst picturesque courtyards, sparkling water fountains, and wood-framed balconies. The place is absolutely huge and, including its parking lot, encompasses an entire city block, which is how my fiancé and I ended up stalking the wrong section of it. Because I had yet to watch It’s Complicated, I had no idea what particular part of El Paseo had appeared in the flick. So, while the Grim Cheaper and I did walk quite a bit of the property and snapped photographs of what we thought was every square inch of the place, we somehow missed the back entrance – which, of course, was the only section of the center used in the filming. Murphy’s Law strikes again!

Thankfully though, our good friends Chris and Amy, who live in the area, agreed to re-stalk the place for me this past weekend. And even though the two aren’t stalkers like myself, they did a FABULOUS job of matching their photographs to the screen captures I had sent them. YAY! Thank you, Chris and Amy!



Filming of It’s Complicated took place at El Paseo’s east entrance, which can be reached via Anacapa Street. As fate would have it, that area of the shopping center happens to be located directly across the street from the city’s main post office. During the shoot, the entire stretch of road in front of the shopping center and post office had to be shut down to all pedestrians and traffic, which on an ordinary day probably wouldn’t have been that big of a deal. But the It’s Complicated therapist office scene was actually shot on April 15, 2009. Yes, you read that right – the city actually shut down the street in front of its main post office on TAX DAY! Someone in the SB Planning Department seriously dropped the ball on that one! 😉

El Paseo’s main entrance is pictured above and, as you can see, looks markedly different from its back entrance. So different, in fact, that I thought the Los Angeles Times article had printed erroneous information when it reported that filming had taken place at the historic shopping center. It wasn’t until I did some cyber-stalking of El Paseo using Bing aerial maps that I figured out my mistake.

Amazingly enough, the It’s Complicated crew only filmed on location in Santa Barbara for a mere three days. The rest of the filming took place in Los Angeles and New York. According to IMDB’s It’s Complicated filming locations page, some of the flick was also lensed in Santa Barbara’s De Le Guerra Plaza.   From what I’ve been able to discern online, the Plaza was converted into a Christmas tree lot for a scene that never actually made it into the movie. You can see some photos of the filming and read a great on-set report on the Fussy blog here.

Big THANK YOU to Chris and Amy for stalking El Paseo and taking the above photographs for me! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The area of El Paseo Shopping Center that was used in It’s Complicated can be found at 813 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. De La Guerra Plaza, where the deleted Christmas tree lot scene was filmed, is located in front of the Santa Barbara City Hall, which can be found at 735 Anacapa Street.

July 27, 2010
The Moonlight Mile Bar from “Beautiful Girls”

While going through my trusty stalking notebook this morning, I realized that I still have quite the backlog of Minnesota filming locations that I have yet to blog about. Not to mention the slew of Seattle locales that I haven’t even yet begun to post! I’m going to mix them all in with L.A. area locations over the next few weeks so that my fellow stalkers don’t get bored reading about the same city over and over again. But for today I thought I’d write about Minneapolis’ Nomad World Pub, the watering hole which stood in for the supposed Knight’s Ridge-area “Moonlight Mile” bar where Paul Kirkwood (aka Michael Rapaport) took Andera Womack (aka Uma Thurman) on a date in fave move Beautiful Girls. At the time, the bar was known as the 5 Corners Saloon, but ownership changed hands back in December of 2004 and so did the name. I found this location, once again, thanks to fellow stalker Owen and his highly-coveted Beautiful Girls master locations list! So, I, of course, just had to drag my parents out to stalk the place while we were in Minnesota this past May.

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In Beautiful Girls, Paul cooks up a ruse to bring “the lovely Andera” out on on a date at the Moonlight Mile bar for the sole purpose of making his ex-girlfriend Jan (aka Martha Plimpton), who hangs out there regularly, jealous. And I am very happy to report that even though ownership of the establishment has changed and over fourteen years have passed since Beautiful Girls was filmed, the interior of the Nomad still looks much the same as it did in the movie. YAY!

And, as it was portrayed in the flick, Nomad World Pub is actually a live-music venue.

Sadly though, the set of booths where Paul and Andera sat in Beautiful Girls, which used to run along the pub’s north side, have long since been removed. 🙁 I was seriously disappointed once I realized that as I had so wanted to sit in the exact spot where Michael Rapaport and Uma Thurman sat in the scene. UGH! Have I mentioned before how much I dislike change?? 😉

Even though little has been altered since Nomad World Pub took over ownership of the property, the former 5 Corners Saloon is apparently well-missed. There is even a Facebook page named “Remember the 5 Corners Saloon” that has been set up in honor of the historic former bar. So darn cool! You can see photographs of how the place used to look here.

For whatever reason, a different location entirely – a place known as Rich’s Health Shop in Stillwater, Minnesota – stood in for the Moonlight Mile’s exterior in Beautiful Girls. Sadly though, that building was torn down several years ago to make room for a new loft development, so I did not get to stalk it. And as you can see in the above photograph and screen capture, it beared little resemblance to the 5 Corners Saloon’s actual exterior.

Big THANK YOU to Owen for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: Nomad World Pub, aka the Moonlight Mile bar from Beautiful Girls, is located at 501 Cedar Avenue South in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can visit the pub’s official website here. Rich’s Health Shop, which was used as the exterior of the Moonlight Mile bar and has since been torn down, was located at 304 Main Street North in Stillwater, Minnesota.

July 19, 2010
The Santa Barbara County Courthouse from “It’s Complicated”

Two weekends ago, my fiancé and I headed up to Santa Barbara to spend the Fourth of July holiday with some friends. And just minutes before we left, fellow stalker Kerry texted me to let me know that the 2009 romantic comedy It’s Complicated had been filmed in the area, just in case I wanted to do some stalking while I was there. Well, let me tell you, I just about died upon hearing that and even though I had yet to see the movie, I spent the entire ninety minute drive up to Santa Barbara researching It’s Complicated filming locations on my blackberry so that we could stalk them as soon as we arrived. As it turns out, though, not all is at it seems, for while the movie was set in Santa Barbara, very little of it was actually filmed there. Oddly enough, over ninety percent of the flick was lensed in New York of all places! I was absolutely shocked when I heard that as I honestly can’t think of a place that is more diametrically opposed to Santa Barbara than New York City, aesthetically speaking at least. Anyway, one of the main Santa Barbara locations featured in the movie was the historic county courthouse, so I dragged my fiancé right over there pretty much immediately after we checked into our hotel.

And I have to say that I just about died when I saw the place as it is absolutely GORGEOUS! I’ve actually been to Santa Barbara countless times in the past as it is one of my family’s favorite vacation spots, but for some reason I had yet to ever visit the courthouse. So, I am extremely grateful to It’s Complicated, because otherwise I might never have seen the place and it is definitely a must-see Santa Barbara attraction! 🙂 The Santa Barbara Courthouse was first dedicated on August 14, 1929 and was designed by William Mooser III. It was built after the great 1925 earthquake completely leveled the county’s original courthouse. Apparently, that first courthouse had been designed in the Greek Revival-style, which is mind-boggling to me as pretty much all of Santa Barbara is either Spanish or Moorish in design. According to the National Historic Landmarks Program, the courthouse which now stands was the catalyst for the Spanish architecture that now dominates the area, so it is amazing to think about how architecturally different the city would have been had that first courthouse not been destroyed! I can’t even imagine it!

Inside, the building looks much more like a museum than it does an actual working courthouse. In fact, when we first walked in, I was convinced that the property was no longer in use, but it actually still is! Can you even imagine serving jury duty in a place that looks like that??? Would make for a much more enjoyable experience than serving at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in Downtown L.A., I can tell you that! 😉 The Santa Barbara County Courthouse features vast archways and long sweeping hallways,

intricate tiling with wrought-iron detailing,

elaborately painted ceilings,

and a HUGE sunken garden.

I was most taken with the property’s historic detailing, though, like its old-school “Quiet, court is in session” signs,

wooden telephone booths,

and colorfully-painted court directory signs. LOVE IT!

The courthouse also features an 85-foot tall clock tower which is accessible to the public. The tower formerly housed the solitary confinement chamber of the now-defunct jailhouse which used to be located on the premises. It now offers visitors unsurpassed 360-degree views of the city and Pacific Ocean beyond. My fiancé and I almost neglected to visit the tower as we were feeling a bit lazy due to the heat and let me tell you what a mistake that would have been! Take my advice – no stalk of the courthouse can be considered complete without a climb up to that tower!!! The views are simply breathtaking!

The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is actually only featured very briefly in It’s Complicated, in a scene in which Jane Adler (aka Meryl Streep) is shown shopping at a local farmers’ market while making a phone call to her ex-husband, Jake Adler (aka Alec Baldwin). And when I say very briefly, I mean VERY briefly – the scene only lasted a scant 17 seconds. Not kidding! It is amazing to me that producers not only rented out the entire Santa Barbara County Courthouse, but also set up an elaborate set and hired a few dozen extras to film a scene that took up less than twenty seconds of film! I mean, couldn’t Jane have made that phone call to her ex-husband from anywhere? Did they really need to create the whole farmers’ market scenario? But I digress. Anyway, the It’s Complicated scene was filmed in the sunken garden area of the courthouse which, unfortunately, does not actually host farmers’ markets in real life.

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Santa Barbara County Courthouse is located at 1100 Anacapa Street in Santa Barbara. You can visit the Courthouse’s official website here.

July 15, 2010
The “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” Apartment Building

A couple of weeks ago, fellow stalker Owen set out upon a mission to try to track down the Spanish-style apartment building where Peter Bretter (aka Jason Segal) lived in the 2008 romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He emailed a few screen captures of the building to me and to the rest of “the team” – aka Mike, from MovieShotsLA, and Chas, from ItsFilmedThere – and, while my first instinct was that the dwelling was located somewhere in Hollywood, most likely in the same neighborhood as Brenda Leigh Johnson’s duplex from The Closer, I just couldn’t seem to locate it. Thankfully though, Owen also called upon master stalker Gary, curator of the Seeing Stars website, who ended up tracking the place down. Thank you, Gary! As it turns out my instincts were way off – the building was not located in Hollywood as I had originally thought, but a few miles northeast of it in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles. So, last weekend, after what had amounted to a more-than-month-long hiatus due to my dad’s illness, I finally, finally resumed my stalking habit and dragged my fiancé out to Los Feliz to see the Forgetting Sarah Marshall apartment. YAY!

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Because the vast majority of Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed on location at Oahu’s Turtle Bay Resort, Peter’s building is actually only featured in a few scenes in the movie, most notably the scene in which Peter’s step-brother Brian (aka Bill Hader) stops by the apartment after Peter’s landlord reports seeing smoke coming out of his unit.

And I am very happy to report that Peter’s building looks almost EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen in the movie.

In fact, the only difference I noticed was the color of the front door, which was white in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but is now painted a light green. The building is SUPER cute – and super colorful – in person and is located in an adorable little neighborhood. I highly recommend stalking it!

On a side note – A few months ago, while my fiancé and I were trying to decide where to go for our upcoming honeymoon, I, of course, made mention of the Turtle Bay Resort, which, besides Forgetting Sarah Marshall, has also been featured in episodes of Murder, She Wrote and the reality series The Big Break and was used as the main location in the 2004 series North Shore, which starred Brenda Walsh herself, Shannen Doherty. Sadly though, my fiancé immediately put the kibosh on that one as he had no desire to honeymoon in Oahu, which has the stigma of being known as Hawaii’s most crowded island. All was not lost, though, as we ended up booking a week at my girl Jen Aniston’s favorite vacation spot – Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. 🙂 I SO wanted to stay at her favorite resort there – One&Only Palmilla, which also just so happens to be the the site of Spencer and Heidi’s November 2008 elopement – but unfortunately, rooms there START at $1,000 per night. Yes, you read that right – the lowest priced room at One&Only Palmilla is $1,000 per night! Not kidding! Don’t worry, though, we will OF COURSE be stopping by there to grab a bite to eat at some point during the honeymoon. Fellow stalker David asked me a few weeks ago if I would be stalking on my honeymoon. And my answer to that question is OF COURSE! I mean, don’t you know me at all by now? 😉

Big THANK YOU to Gary from Seeing Stars for finding this location!

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Forgetting Sarah Marshall apartment building is located at 1973 Palmerston Place in Los Feliz.

July 5, 2010
The “Spanglish” House

The Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby, British Columbia, which I blogged about yesterday, was actually the very last Vancouver locale that I had logged away in my location library and, while I have a slew of Seattle area spots that I have yet to write about, I thought that for today I’d mix things up a bit by posting about a location that can be found right here in Southern California. So enjoy! A few weeks ago, fellow stalker Nick emailed me to let me know that he was in the process of trying to track down the residence belonging to John and Deborah Clasky (played by Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni, respectively) in the 2004 movie Spanglish. I was extremely excited upon hearing about this endeavor as the Spanglish house is one that I’ve long been wanting to stalk. Unfortunately, though, my father was in the hospital on the day that Nick emailed me, so I wasn’t able to offer him much help in the hunt. As it turns out, though, he didn’t need my assistance, after all, because less than 24 hours later he emailed me back with an address! Nick had read on IMDB’s Spanglish filming locations page that some filming of the movie had taken place on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air, so he immediately got to searching the area via Google Street View and, lo and behold, found the house! YAY! Thank you, Nick!

So, since things have calmed down considerably regarding my dad’s health in recent weeks (he just had his final surgery to implant the permanent nerve block device last Friday evening and is feeling great!), I was finally able to drag my fiancé out to stalk the Spanglish house this past Saturday afternoon. Sadly, though, due to a large gate and massive amounts of foliage, not a whole lot of it is visible from the street.

I am happy to report, though, that what was visible looks much the same as it did in the movie. 🙂

And from the way the movie was shot, I am fairly certain that the real life interior of the house, which boasts 3 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, and 4,295 square feet of living space, was used in the filming, as well.

And, as you can see in the above aerial image and screen capture, the home’s real life backyard and pool area were also used in the flick.

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And while not much of the property could be seen from the street, I must say that the Spanglish house was still very exciting for me to stalk because quite a few scenes from the movie were actually filmed out in front of the residence –

– most notably the scene in which Deborah Clasky and her housekeeper Flor Moreno (aka Paz Vega) engage in a spontaneous foot-race after dropping their kids off at the bus stop on the first day of school.

On a side note – I will not be publishing a new blog post tomorrow, Friday, July 2nd, as I have a bunch of wedding appointments scheduled on the day prior that, unfortunately, will leave me with very little time for blogging. I’ll be back Monday, though, and in the meantime I’d like to wish all of my fellow stalkers a very happy Fourth of July! 🙂

Big THANK YOU to Nick for finding this location! 🙂

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 🙂

Stalk It: The Clasky house from Spanglish is located at 1130 Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air.

July 1, 2010