MovieChat Forums > Youth in Revolt (2010) Discussion > Why Oakland?

Why Oakland?

posted 11 years ago by jimbofinesse
4 replies | jump to latest

I just saw this movie for the first time today. Overall I liked it. Cool story. Fun characters.

I just don't get why it's set in Oakland. I lived in the Bay Area for a few years. I've been to Oakland and Berkeley many times. I'm sorry, but if you're going to try and pretend the characters are in Oakland then you better have some Black and Asian folks in the movie. The only brother I saw was one of the Navy guys and I did not see any Asians.

With infinite choices available to set a fictional film why place a nearly all white cast in a city that is in reality loaded with folks that aren't white? Even if all the principal cast of the story are white there should be non-white folks out on the street as extras in scenes if we're pretending it's Oakland.

Overall, it's just a movie and it is a fun movie so I guess it doesn't really matter that much. It just makes me wonder.

[–] CubesChunksCrumbles 10 years ago

This movie was based off a book.

[–] dvd7 10 years ago

Ha, I came here to ask the same question! I understand it's set in Oakland in the book and all. But the moment he mentioned being in Oakland in said out loud "that's not Oakland!"
It annoys me when they set a movie in a particular city but make little or no effort to feature the location accurately.
In particular Oakland is, as you say an incredibly diverse city and yet it looked like they were in, well, Michigan. To say nothing of thev distinctive neighborhoods, buildings and landmarks of the area.

[–] psdhart 9 years ago

me too. just watched this, thought they filmed it in Canada
It's too green, Oakland is nothing like that

[–] chaosHD 9 years ago

Yeah, during the movie i kept thinking "these locations look nothing like oakland or clearlake". The movie was shot in Michigan, with some reshoots in Louisiana. It's surely the first film in history to be set in northern CA and shot in michigan.