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‘Planet of the Apes’ and LA Locations Fun

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For some reason I’m up late watching Conquest of the Planet of the Apes on Sci-Fi Channel. I don’t know the exact reason for watching it other than it happens to be on and I like Planet of the Apes movies. This is the one where the apes revolt against their human oppressors and take over the planet in futuristic 1991. The movie was actually released in 1972 and was partially filmed in the then very futuristic-looking Century City Mall — now known as Westfield Century City.

A great deal of the film was also shot at the very nice UC Irvine Campus as well. The college’s buildings have also seen quite a bit of film production over the years, including this Apes film and sequences from other films like Ocean’s Eleven, Poltergeist and TVs Arrested Development.

If you ever get to Irvine, or better yet, LA you can go to the mall and see the actual locations used in the film. They are still there and in most cases look pretty much the same. Century City is a pretty popular area where other films like Die Hard and Liar Liar (starring Jim Carrey) were filmed — which makes sense, especially in the case of Die Hard, as the entire area used to be part of the giant backlot of 20th Century Fox Studios. In fact, the infamous Nakatomi building in the film is actually the Fox Tower.

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But really, you can’t go very many places in LA without seeing a place where something was filmed for some movie or TV show. In fact, its hard to drive through the city sometimes without running into some actual filming taking place on the streets, in the buildings or at the swimming pool of your favorite hotel.

You can always tell when you see old and obviouly retired motocycle cops sitting on their motorcycles on the side of the road that you’re getting near to some film or TV production. Orange cones are many times a telltale sign as well. Also, look for the big trucks filled with all sorts of equipment and a whole bunch of people mostly standing around waiting to spring into action at a moments notice.

Really, that’s what a lot of film and TV production is — standing around. Well, sometimes, if you’re smart and/or important, you actually get to sit. Either way, you end up waiting for the opportunity to do something much of the time. Not that people who work in production don’t work very, very, very hard. They do, believe me. I’ve been there. Its just that you have a lot of downtime and waiting around and then a period of intense activity. Then, its back to waiting again. That’s just the nature of the business. Hurry up and wait.

putting your best face forward (or at least the one you like the most)

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if you live in and go places in Los Angeles it is pretty hard to avoid running into either someone you know, someone you don’t like or who doesn’t like you or some sort of famous person. yesterday was typical of the last one.

some friends and i were out enjoying some psuedo-mexican food at the burbank taco bell and jennifer love hewitt came in, got some food, chatted with some of the staff, then left in her mini cooper. she looked great, btw. taller than i thought, which is a surprise. usually, they are almost always much shorter.

anyway, what struck me as interesting about this encounter was that she came in herself, alone. she didn’t send her assistant or something. she drove herself over from the house or the studio (take your pick), made her own order, took her bag of 99 cent bean burritos or whatever and drove herself away. she did this on her own with no help from anyone. i was impressed by that. from everything i have heard, she is one of the nice ones.

don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying that all famous people are too dumb or too arrogant or too lazy to drag their own asses to taco bell but it might not be too far from the truth in many cases. let’s face it, famous people are not always the most interesting or most pleasant people to be around. in fact, many times they can be downright nasty.

you can’t really blame them, though. if enough people told you your were the greatest thing to come along in years and that yes, your shit doesn’t, in fact, stink, you might start to believe it too. no, what am i saying. that would never happen to you.

another telling example of this was during the oscars. hilary swank won again for her role in “million dollar baby”. during her acceptance speech, who did she thank? she said a big thank you to her “best friend and publicist”. interesting, no? her best friend is someone she pays to say nice things about her. if that isn’t a warped sense of reality i don’t know what one is.

you may get the impression from this entry that i have something against famous people. actually, i don’t. some friends of mine are famous people and i like them just fine. do i think they are stellar human beings not completely full of themselves? some are, some aren’t. oddly enough, that ratio probably holds true for non-famous people like you and me as well.

well, no, not like me. i really am full of myself. oh, and i am also lazy too as i am going to start posting in all lowercase. starting now, as you can probably tell. it’s too much effort to hit the shift key along with all of these other keys.