Real to Reel

I saw this in a kickass theatre in Edmonton at the West Ed. Mall-- the stunts/effects were great! Okay, the plot had holes, but so do most movies anyway, especially action.

The movie was filmed in Vancouver. Why? Canada kicks ass for movie making-- especially Vancouver, though: Skilled crew, skilled actors, skilled post-production facilities and a relatively low dollar so studios don't have to break their coffers-- they can put the money where it deserves to be: on the screen.

Jackie Chan's "Rumble in the Bronx" was filmed in Vancouver because no other city would allow them to film the action sequences required-- mainly a hovercraft ripping down a street of a populated city-- no backlots and no miniatures!!

The Steven Spielberg epic mini-series "Taken" was filmed in Vancouver. They needed over 200 locations to standin for areas all over the States (westcoast to eastcoast). And they found them all there, all for a smaller budget.

Steve Martin's "Roxanne" was filmed in the actual real city of Nelson, British Columbia. The film makers kept the name of the city in the movie, but other details were changed. Red Canada Post mailboxes were replaced with blue U.S. postal service boxes.

Ballistic was interesting because they didn't try to hide the fact that it was filmed in Vancouver. During the opening credits a cityscape sweeps by and you see a building with the letters "Royal Bank" (RB being a Canadian bank) lit up on it.

Vancouver probably did for "Ballistic" what it did for "Rumble in the Bronx" but the plot still sucked.