The view Frasier has of the Seattle skyline was completely impossible without rearranging city blocks and moving buildings around the city.
Plus, one of them pronounced Lake Chelan like She-lawn, not, She-laan…and that just ruined it for me.
Brazil is always misrepresented everywhere, but two funny cases come to mind:
There was a House episode where Dr. House was treating a CIA officer who had been to Bolivia and had eaten a lot of nuts. At the end of the episode House realized the officer has actually been to Brazil and not Bolivia and then figures out that he ate Brazil Nuts, which could cause all the symptoms he had. In reality Brazil Nuts are much more common in Bolivia than they are in Brazil (or anywhere else).
The other case was Westworld, Vincent Cassel speaks perfect Portuguese while playing an American character, talking to a Brazilian character whose actor speaks it incorrectly and with an extremely loaded accent.
Fast and Furious 5 comes to mind, with the awful portuguese and the stupid american desert that’s apparently around Rio de Janeiro.
Ah yes, notoriously arid Rio.
Did they throw a yellow filter in the camera, too?
They always show India incorrectly, way more colourful and cleaner than it is. I think mostly not shot here too. Especially in older movies. Also the people speak English in an accent that only Indians abroad speak in.
Also the people speak English in an accent that only Indians abroad speak in.
Curious about this, are the local accents very different?
Midsommar got pretty much nothing right. They also decided it should take place in Hälsingland because I guess that sounds cool to Americans.
The finnish youth movie Pitkä Kuuma Kesä, set in 1980’s Joensuu, really portrays the cops in far too positive light. They werent as jovial and unviolent as in the movie - they employed their rubber batongs much more freely irl. I know from experience.
They are luckily far less violent and authoritarian in current times, per my own experience and being told by my friends.
First example is probably going to be Emily in Paris, it’s a running gag on French media how distorted the image of the city is in that show.
I haven’t seen one for my city yet. They’ve pretty much called it out as the shithole it is the few times I have seen my city mentioned by name in some popular media.
I’m American so I could list so many movies from Hollywood (ie made by my own country) that misrepresent this country. Just pick anything at random, really. They all make it look better than it is, even when showing off what sucks.
There was this show called “Night Shift” that was supposed to be set in San Antonio… complete with mountains in the background. (It was filmed in Albuquerque and San Antonio has no mountains near it)
Portlandia, there are definitely a lot more homeless here and there is certain neighborhoods you don’t want to be in at night.
I went to the Museum of Liverpool today and they have a big section on the city in film and TV and it has appeared in a lot more than media than you’d think but largely standing in for elsewhere.
When it is featured as itself, the depictions are usually pretty accurate because they’ve been written by locals. I suppose the worst example is 51st State but that is over-the-top and so everything is rather cartoonish - my brother’s friend was an extra in that gang of punks but was largely left on the cutting floor.
1940s New York for a chemically enhanced all American soldier, get yourself down to Liverpool docks. 😁
Yes, that is one of the more high profile example, along with places like St George’s Hall standing in for Gotham in Batman. First Avenger was filmed in the Stanley Dock area and the adjacent dock road - apart from the big “Brooklyn” sign it’s actually pretty unaltered as there’s some interesting buildings down there (not sure if the hexagonal clock gets screentime you see the box bridge, the main dock walls, etc). There’s even a nice family connection as my grandfather (who would go on to be a gateman on the dry dock further down the road) learned to swim in the Bramley Docks which are the next ones along.
That’s lovely. You’ve reminded me, I live near Tilbury Docks which they passed off as Venice for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Just along the road from there is the Tilbury Fort which was turned into the Tibetan prison for Batman Begins.
Stuffs everywhere!
They are some great examples because most local people don’t give it a second thought but some location scout saw that and went "well there’s our Tibetan prison.
Liverpool has done well as a location because we were rather ignored for decades so the Victorian dock complex was left untouched, where, elsewhere, they’d have just been demolished and some soulless glass and concrete apartment blocks would have been built all over it.
The only one that comes to mind is a film called The 51st State starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle.
There was a group of us at a job many, many years ago performing a survey of Liverpool. One night in the hotel, Channel 4 broadcast the film, which is set in the city. The following morning, two of the guys who had been surveying all the backstreets and alleyways commented that the chase in the film made no sense to them. This was because they could see the cars were jumping to different spots in the city, and it wasn’t coherent.
But I guess you could make that comment about a lot of car chases in the movies.
I just mentioned 51st State - twinsies.
Jesus Emp! I’m gonna have to start my own server, give me some room man! 🤣
You can try but I fear we are in an It Follows situation here. Not sure which of us is it though.
A-Team the movie is bad in many aspects but what really sticks out for Germans is that while the movie played in Frankfurt (and was shot in Vancouver), they showed aerial shots from Cologne. Which is especially weird because I don’t think aerial shots of Frankfurt should be hard to come by (they are used extensively in Arrow for example) and Cologne is probably one of the most recognizable cities in Germany
Every single day an actor tries to do a Southern accent but most are cringeworthy to a Southerner. (US)
Fargo, but I love it anyway.
Vikings portrayal of Uppsala is absolutely laughable, in the show it’s portrayed as this väst landscape with mountains and waterfalls. Uppsala is almost completely flat, it’s sometimes referred to as “The Uppsala flats”.