The Mysteries of Pittsburgh in the Summer

Lately my heart has been overflowing with love for my city. Which is not unusual in the slightest. I wouldn't have a blog dedicated to Pittsburgh if this feeling wasn't the norm. I'm sure that the onset of summer is cause for the recent surge of pride and love. Summer + PGH = favorite time. No matter what, whenever I'm in Pittsburgh in the summer, I feel like a kid again. I want to be out with friends. I want to ride bikes. I want to dance. I want to see the sun come up. There's hope and courage and reckless abandon that comes with every Pittsburgh summer.

This morning, while killing time before setting out for the day, I came across this video, which I'm sure has already made the official PGH-blog rounds, but I'm sharing here now because it's just so awesome and not to be missed:



I'm not ashamed to say that I started to get a tad misty-eyed toward the end. The tears started welling up at the scene of soccer-playing at the Point. That's from the (very terrible) adaptation of one of my most favorite books, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. When that movie came out, I was living in Boston and was incredibly homesick. I saw it by myself in a Cambridge theater because I couldn't subject anyone I knew to a) a movie I knew would be terrible and b) the crying I knew would happen because I missed my home so so much. It was the soccer-playing scene that cued the waterworks then, so it's only fitting that's what did it for me this morning too.

Every summer I make it a point to reread The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. That annual tradition will begin today, when I take my signed, dogeared, underlined copy down to the Arts Festival. After four long years of being dormant, the fountain is back on - and it's glorious! Several hours today shall be spent sitting near its wonder, feeling its mist when the wind shifts, and soaking in the best thing: Pittsburgh in the summer.

"When I remember that dizzy summer, that dull, stupid, lovely, dire summer, it seems that in those days I ate my lunches, smelled another's skin, noticed a shade of yellow, even simply sat, with greater lust and hopefulness--and that I lusted with greater faith, hoped with greater abandon. The people I loved were celebrities, surrounded by rumor and fanfare; the places I sat with them, movie lots and monuments. No doubt all of this is not true remembrance, but the ruinous work of nostalgia, which obliterates the past, and no doubt, as usual, I have exaggerated everything." - m. chabon

Filmed in PGH: She's Out of My League

On the list of things that I am a sucker for, romantic comedies may lead the pack. I can appreciate filmmakers like Katherine Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino, but I struggle with their movies because I just don't want to watch them. Sometimes I feel like regular life is stressful enough. I'd much rather pay money for some lighthearted entertainment, and when it comes in the form of a movie like She's Out My League, well that's just fine.

I saw this movie with friends in Boston, pretty soon after it came out. I admit that its "filmed in Pittsburgh" quality was a driving force in getting everyone to agree to see it. A few weeks before it appeared in theaters, I had made the decision to move back to Pittsburgh. I was nearing the beginning of the end of my five years there, and I can remember sitting in the theater seeing my home on the screen and feeling like it was officially within my reach. I just kept thinking: "I'll be there soon."

As I sat down to watch this last weekend, I did so with a pen and a pad of paper. In lieu of a formal review, here are my thoughts:

- Jay Baruchel = Canadian. And, as I was watching the opening scene, I couldn't help but think he could play Tyler Kennedy in the Tyler Kennedy Movie. (Which obviously will happen some day.)

- First Pittsburgh site on screen: the airport. Next we get a sweeping shot of downtown. Then there's a party at the Warhol. I can't help but have fun watching a Filmed in PGH movie and picking out all the places I've been or places I know.

- Hockey! There's a scene of this movie at a Penguins game, in the Igloo. Now that the Pens have been in Consol for a couple seasons, the newness is beginning to feel more like normalness. So to see the Igloo from high above and then from under its retractable shell made me feel a bit of sad nostalgia. In other news. Hockey is back! Hockey is back!

- Patrick Jordan is in this movie. When I saw it in the theater, I didn't know this and because I'm easily excitable I may have shouted "I know him!" 

- One of the dates takes place in Market Square, before its renovation. There's a nice romantic scene where Kirk and Molly have a chat on a bench outside of Primanti's with its neon lights glowing.

- Jack Reacher had its dizzying car chases that geographically made no sense. She's Out of My League threw me for a loop when people entered a party through Brillobox's front door, but the party took place inside of Thunderbird. 

I adore this movie. It's a great story with many funny bits. It's a lovely showcase for my fine city too. Two thumbs up. 10/10 Bridges.

And CONGRATULATIONS on scoring the Pens' first goal of the season!

Go Pig Go.

Filmed in PGH: Jack Reacher

A few weeks ago, my friend Lindsay, who lives in Boston, asked me - I believe somewhat eagerly and excitedly - if I had managed to catch a glimpse of Channing Tatum, who was in town filming a movie. Since I moved back in 2010, those words "in town filming a movie" have become more and more a part of the Pittsburgh everyday vernacular. Though I had not and have not seen this year's Sexiest Man Alive, I've stood next to Gus Van Sant at Brillobox, watched Anne Hathaway slink into her trailer outside the Mellon Institute, and stared (mouth-agape and all) at Christian Bale through a window in a press box at Heinz Field.

In the past year, The Dark Knight Rises, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Won't Back Down have all shown on the big screen. All Filmed in PGH movies. The latest of these to hit the theaters is Jack Reacher, the Tom Cruise-produced and Tom-Cruise-starring action thriller.

Last Friday night, I went to the Southside Works and paid my $9.75 to see this movie. Had this movie not been filmed in Pittsburgh, that would have never happened. This is a cheesy action-thriller full of ridiculous one-liners ("I don't need a pen.") and bad-ass threats ("Drink your blood out a boot."). Tom Cruise puts himself on display and I think we're supposed to find him sexy in the scene where he stands around shirtless because he only has ONE SHIRT and he's currently washing it in a motel room sink. I could name a dozen or so other scenes as goofy as that.

But as silly as Jack Reacher was, it featured Pittsburgh quite nicely. Within the first few seconds there is a sweeping shot of our skyline. There's a van we're following from afar, through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, across the bridge, and along our city streets. The movie turns grim pretty quickly after that, as the van holds a sniper, who sets up in a parking garage along Fort Duquesne Boulevard and shoots five people on the North Shore Trail across the Allegheny. From there the movie sprawls into conspiracy and Tom Cruise trying to act tough.

When I watch a movie filmed in Pittsburgh, I'm easily distracted by the many times I'm thinking "I know where that is!" or "That must be in [insert neighborhood name]!" (Sometimes I'm also distracted by people I know showing up. Mostly this is my friend Patrick Jordan.) In both The Dark Knight Rises and Jack Reacher, car chase scenes made me dizzy. Batman kept going in circles around the Kaufmann building and Jack Reacher's chase scene hopped from one side of Downtown and suddenly to the North Shore and through the Armstrong Tunnel, which didn't have a curve, and so on.

Last year, I made a resolution to read books that had to do with Pittsburgh. This year, I'm going a different route. Filmed in PGH will hopefully be a regular feature on EvBetPGH throughout 2013. The year's first Filmed in PGH entry, Jack Reacher, might not get any thumbs up for content, but for its Pittsburghness, I'd give it 8/10 Bridges.