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Thursday, April 25, 2019

Just Like a Woman (2012)

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Last updated: March 7, 2023

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Drama. Two women support each other on a cross-country road trip of discovery. Starring Sienna Miller, Golshifteh Farahani, Tim Guinee, Bahar Soomekh, Sayed Badreya, Roschdy Zem, and Usman Ally. New Mexico filming locations: Jemez Springs, Laguna Pueblo, Pojoaque, Santa Fe, and Zia Pueblo.



Notes on Individual Scenes
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Introduction

Trailer Court - 1509

Cityscape - California store? - Doesn't look like California - Chicago area

Store/ Apartment/ Home

Tram

Cityscape - Dance Studio

Ambulance - 2040

Park

Casbah, 155 North Lebanon Avenue, Belleville, IL?

Roadsides traveling west

Cattleman's Restaurant

Vega turnoff - Interstate 40 - near Amarillo

Los Ojos



Hiland Meadows Grocery, February 2023. Highway 6 Self Service (34.945630°, -107.156134°)


Drive

Roadside phone call (34.930690°, -107.129113°)

Looks like Jemez Springs area

Beautiful scenery at the swimming hole! - Possibly Penasco Tank area near Ojo del Diablo, maybe near (35.592184°, -106.865191°)

Tribal police - driving up wash

Valley - can't quite place it

Campsite near pool - Zia Reservoir - (35.528470°, -106.755076°)

Somewhere at Zia Pueblo

Driving - unclear

Lensic Theater - Santa Fe


Train station - Lamy, NM












Observe and Report (2009)

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Last updated: March 11, 2020

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Comedy. A bipolar mall cop tries to catch a flasher. Filmed primarily at Winrock Mall in Albuquerque, with additional filming in Bosque Farms. Starring Anna Faris, Seth Rogen, Ray Liotta, Patton Oswalt, Michael Peña, Collette Wolfe, Jesse Plemons, Aziz Ansari, Foued Zayani, and Z. Ray Wakeman.



Notes on Individual Scenes
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Winrock

Indoor Shooting range

House


Police Dept., 400 Roma Ave. NW, as seen from Marquette Avenue.


Police Dept.





Ridealong

Street corner


The Crossroads: Second and Hazeldine Ave. SW.


Training facility - by railroad -

House

House

Bird or fish mural Restaurant


Motorbike Ride (Hoffmantown Shopping Center)


Picnic table

Riding motor bike in Bosque Farms area

Love N' Dancing (2008)

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Last updated: March 12, 2020

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Romantic Comedy Drama centered around West Coast Swing dancers. Starring Amy Smart, Billy Zane, Betty White, Caroline Rhea, Rachel Dratch, Leila Arcieri, Catherine Mary Stewart, Maulik Pancholy, Gregory Harrison. Filmed around Albuquerque.



Notes on Individual Scenes
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Cityscape (apparently Philadelphia)


Judging from the carpet pattern, the 2002 (& 2008) US Open Swing Dancing Ballroom were hosted in the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Albuquerque.








Millburn Middle School


Kress Dance Academy, 414 and 416 Central Ave. SW - Luxfer Prismatic Tile Windows!





Classroom

Cityscape

Elevator/ Studio/ Studio B

Restaurant - Gold Street Caffe, 218 Gold Avenue SW


Caravan East, 7605 Central Ave. NE


School building - Bathroom

Kitchen

Urban apartment

Wedding venue

The Reunion (2011)

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Last updated: May 30, 2019

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AKA: Blood Brothers. Action Drama. Estranged siblings have to undertake a dangerous challenge in Mexico to inherit an estate. Starring John Cena, Ethan Embry, Boyd Holbrook, Lela Loren, Jack Conley, Michael Rispoli, Dylan Kenin, Gregg Henry, Josh Berry, River Shields, Rio Alexander. Filming locations: Albuquerque, Cerrillos, Lindsay Ranch (San Pedro, Santa Fe County), Sandia Park, Zia Pueblo.


The interesting thing about this movie is how easy it was to determine filming locations in the first half of the movie, and how damnable difficult it was to determine filming locations in the second half of the movie. It just shows that I'm not familiar enough with the BLM and Zia lands south and west of San Ysidro, and in the Ortiz and San Pedro Mountains.



Notes on Individual Scenes
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The Bank of the West Tower, near San Mateo Blvd. and Central Ave. (used for both north and south facades), used to be the tallest building in New Mexico when I was a kid (when it belonged to First National Bank), and apparently now ranks as 5th-highest.


Apartments - Central & 10th St.


The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), 100 Deputy Dean Miera Dr. SW.


The Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) southwest of town.


Cathedral of St. John, 4th St. & Silver Ave. SW.

This church was designed by renowned local architect John Gaw Meem.

The front and interior of the cathedral was used for "The Reunion."








Cathedral of St. John, as seen from the parking garage across the street.


Cathedral of St. John, 4th St. & Silver Ave. SW.


Cathedral of St. John, 4th St. & Silver Ave. SW.


L. C. Bail Bonds -

Copper & 3rd St., looking north


Police Dept., 400 Roma Ave. NW, as seen from Marquette Avenue.


Police Dept.





Unidentified building w. arches


First Methodist Episcopal Church, 314 Lead Ave. SW.


First Methodist Episcopal Church, 314 Lead SW.


Winding road - National Monument

Lawyer's office - on 5th St., midblock, & just north of Tijeras

Bar (old Woolworth's at 4th & Central?)

Houses (looks like west of downtown)

Interior of kidnapee's home


Roosevelt Park.


LA/Mexico City stock footage

Palace Theater - don't know that place

Strip club - Caliente

City street

4th floor, apartment building

Drive through hills (near Madrid?)

Just south of Main St. & First St. in Cerrillos

House

House w. tiny windmill

Just north of Main St. & First St. in Cerrillos - Mary's Bar

Fancy house

Nighttime buildings

Road

Mennonites - probably Sandia Park

Zia land - backside of ridge

A crest... Near Albuquerque?

Creek





Trump's Risky Strategy

The electorate keeps getting less white, and for the first time in 20 years was less white in the last midterms than in the previous presidential election:
The 2018 election saw the highest midterm turnout rate since 1914, so I expected the midterm electorate to more demographically like a presidential, but I did not expect to see the non-Hispanic White share of the electorate actually drop from 2016.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Truth Be Told (2011)

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Last updated: March 11, 2020

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TV movie, Comedy. A woman seeking a position as a radio show host dealing in advice has a friend pose as her husband when she visit's the boss's ranch in New Mexico. Starring: Candace Cameron Bure, David James Elliott, Ronny Cox, Emma Gould, Christopher Brochu, Michael Sheets, Antonia DeNardo, Deanna Douglas. Filming locations: Albuquerque, Bonanza Creek Ranch, La Mesita Ranch (near Pojoaque), Santa Clara Pueblo, Santa Fe.


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Notes on Individual Scenes
-----------------------------

Paddle ball court

Swimming Pool - probably West Mesa Aquatic Center

Colonial-looking house

Football field and stands

A-frame window on house


Citizens for a Better Colorado - New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, 1801 Mountain Rd. NW.


Cityscape. Denver?

NM Ranch - La Mesita Ranch

Everwood Community Sports

View of mountain and road

Solar panels

La Mesita Ranch - Pojoaque

Bonanza Creek Ranch - Guess as to location: (35.521624°, -106.072005°)

Mesa

Puye Cliffs?

Trap shooting at Mesita Ranch

Indoor pool

Bonanza Creek Old West town - possibly (35.520088°, -106.105002°)

Music event

View of Denver

House

Bishop Communications

Dissonant American Values As Expressed in the Film "Truth Be Told"

Recently, as part of my project to make an online Atlas of Albuquerque Filming Locations, I watched "Truth Be Told," a 2011 Craig Anderson/Walmart/Proctor and Gamble production filmed in New Mexico that emphasized American Family Values. Since I was watching for filming locations, I didn't follow the plot particularly carefully. Nevertheless, I soon became aware of a dissonance in the film between proclaimed Family Values, and the actual values made evident on the screen. Movies are a visual medium, after all. Here are some of those dissonant points:

1.) White Anglos rule. The male lead coaches football and other sports. The female lead is some sort of mediagenic family counselor. The kids are white, clean, with perfect teeth, and winning ways. Everyone is gorgeous. The only blacks in the film are her presumably-troubled clients. They talk about Family Values - showing one another baby pictures, for example - but we never see the baby pictures. Come on, movies are a visual medium. Let's see the baby pictures!

2.) Apparently the female lead is applying for a job with a (probably Christian) media mogul. The mogul invites the female lead, and the male lead too, to his lavish New Mexico ranch (a real place, in Pojoaque, NM) to apply for a job in his empire. The mogul is supposed to be a difficult man, but in his perfect white shirt he resembles a preacher more than a mogul - not really that intimidating. The unmarried male and female leads portray themselves as married, for the sake of convenience, and strive to keep the mogul from finding out their unmarried status.

3.) The mogul is frequently portrayed as chopping wood, even though the ranch is so large - the size of a small college campus - that natural gas is surely the fuel they use. Nevertheless, the mogul, in his pressed white shirt, seems preoccupied with chopping wood: a noble American virtue, to be sure. It just seems he's overmatched and out of place here.

4.) Product placement is important. I see the Dawn Dishwashing Liquid.

5.) The mogul invites everyone to go horseback riding, another honored American virtue. When the female lead is late to the gathering, the impatient (but not unfriendly) mogul fires a pistol into the air - guns being another honored American consumer virtue - despite the fact that horses carrying riders can easily be spooked by loud noises.

6.) When the female lead shows up in tennis shoes rather than the approved boots, the mogul decides she should ride in an ATV rather than a horse. ATVs are now another American consumer virtue, and an excuse for showing lots of footage of ATVs rolling around ontrail, and sometimes just offtrail. Lots and lots of footage. Beaucoup footage.

7.) Indian ruins are portrayed as spooky remains from a long-lost civilization, even though the direct descendants of said spooky civilization live just a short distance away.

8.) The Bonanza Creek Old West Town, seen in dozens and dozens of westerns, and familiar to generations of movie watchers, is portrayed as the mogul's construction.

9.) They have a rock band and singer and jukebox set up in one of the Old West buildings. Who knew? The place didn't look like it even had electricity. Rock music is also now a familiar American virtue, particularly when co-opted for modern Christian purposes.

10.) The couple's married lie is discovered. The mogul tells them all to bounce. He barely seems irritated that all his plans have come undone, however.

11.) The couple apparently wed. The mogul changes his mind, for some inscrutable reason - we don't see the wedding, so the reasoning for his change of mind is unclear. The mediagenic family counselor now gets her show on the network - because that's where American Family Values now live - on-the-air. Doesn't everyone feed into a media empire these days? (I guess we do - this blog is carried by Google, for example.) Everyone lives happily ever after. And the media mogul can now go back to chopping wood.


Like I say, I didn't follow the movie very carefully, so I'm probably mangling the plot pretty badly. Nevertheless, the Supreme American Value of product consumption above all else is advanced.

Sunday, April 21, 2019

Space Unicorn 10 Hour Version

When two minutes of Space Unicorns just won't do....