Tag: Movie Set Hotels
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6 Vintage NYC Hotels To Make Jay Gatsby Feel Right At Home
In honor of Baz Luhrman's much-hyped The Great Gatsby hitting theaters tomorrow, we've put together a list of Manhattan hotels where (we think) Jay Gatsby himself would have stayed. From art deco glamor to 1920s-themed cocktails, these are a few 'great' hotels with vintage style all of their own.
This historic hotel opened in 1929 under the name "The Lexington," then for a while it became the Radisson Lexington. Now, nearing completion of a multi-million dollar renovation, it's back to being The Lexington. The new design pays homage to jazz age glamor with "brilliant gold elevator doors, and verses from Irving Berlin's Russian Lullaby…dancing through the room." Rates from $359/night.
Jay-Z and Leonardo DiCaprio showed up at The Plaza on Wednesday night to celebrate the The Great Gatsby's premiere, which didn't surprise us at all. F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were big fans of this hotel, and in their honor, a Fitzgerald Suite will debut tomorrow (starting at $2,800/night), featuring Art Deco furnishings, photos of the author as well as the cast of the 2013 film, the complete F. Scott Fitzgerald collection, and gramophone-shaped iPhone speakers.
As a bonus, the hotel teamed up with Moët & Chandon to create a Gatsby-inspired cocktail, made with Moët Imperial and a sugar cube soaked in green Chartreuse. The drink is available exclusively at the Plaza, and is a unique way to 'soak up' some history. Non-suite rates from $584/night.
Four more after the jump!
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Follow Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler All the Way To Sun City This Summer
Over the weekend, Drew Barrymore spilled the beans to the Wall Street Journal about her next project, a romantic comedy with long-time collaborator Adam Sandler.
The duo haven't starred in anything together since 2004's 50 First Dates. In that one, Barrymore's character suffered from a short-term memory disorder, meaning every date was technically a "first date." And according to the WSJ, this new movie will center around "a couple who, after surviving a dreadful first date, find themselves at a family resort with the kids from their respective previous marriages."
Which tells us two things: one, they clearly have a theme going here. Second, they'll be filming at a resort.
Sure enough, an insider confirms that the entire cast and crew will be heading to Sun City Resort in six weeks to begin shooting the film. The resort, which is two hours from Johannesburg, is made up of four hotels totaling 1,301 rooms, with botanical gardens, outdoor pool, hiking trails, golf course, man-made lake, and a casino.
The Palace of the Lost City Hotel (pictured above) is modeled after a "fairytale African palace," while the Cabanas Hotel is the top choice for families (so we're guessing that's where the actors will end up doing their thing.)
Concerning the three-month shoot, Barrymore told the WSJ that she's "a little worried" about the long-haul flight and "making sure there's medevac if anything happens." We can't say we blame her—when you're that far away from home, the last thing you want to deal with is an injury. How else are you supposed to enjoy the zip slides?
Rates at the Cabanas Hotel from $165/night.
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Filming in Hotels: Can It Be Done Without Bothering Guests?
Last week, we were dismayed to hear about Johnny Jet's bad experience while staying at the Ojai Valley Inn during filming of the cheesy dating show, The Bachelorette. A five-star hotel should definitely not shaft its guests just so a production crew and reality stars can film the perfect shot.
But is there really a way where a hotel, its guests and a TV or movie production crew can all get along?
One HotelChatter commenter thinks so. He writes:
Hassle can be minimized. I've been on both sides of this type of situation. Years ago, I was Night Manager of a hotel where a movie was filmed. I had guests complain because they couldn't access the health club, indoor pool, or spa because of the movie. That was horrible because my hands were tied. I couldn't kick the film crew out; and, discounting the room didn't do much to mollify guests who expected to be able to use the hotel amenities.
Occasionally, I work on some of the TV shows shot here in South Florida. A few weeks back, we filmed in the lobby of one of the hotels in Ft. Lauderdale. The production did a great job of not inconveniencing guests. While guests were prevented from walking across the lobby, that only happened during the shot. And, the longest any guest had to wait was about 4 minutes. Since guests could stand and watch the scene, no one seemed to be bothered.
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'Spring Breakers' Got Down and Dirty At Abandoned St Pete Hotel
For an indie flick, the hyper-raunchy Spring Breakers did pretty well at the box office over opening weekend. Not that we're too surprised—with two former Disney stars in bikinis and James Franco playing a cornrowed rapper called 'Alien,' the movie was bound to pique a fair amount of curiosity.
Tampa Bay natives will recognize the local ice cream parlor, liquor store and police station that make cameos in the film, but for Spring Breakers' most iconic scene, director Harmony Korine rounded up a bunch of real life spring breakers drinking real life booze to stage a real life pool party. The venue of choice? An abandoned hotel located on the grounds of the Coral Reef Resort.
According to multiple TripAdvisor reviews, the "abandoned pink building" located in the front of the resort is something of an eyesore for actual guests, but for Korine's purposes, the crumbling edifice worked just fine.
He told Ain't It Cool:
"The party scenes were chaos. There were thousands of kids in abandoned hotels just destroying things...and that’s the thing about chaos, it’s chaos. It’s almost impossible to control. So that was pretty intense."
Phew. We're glad it wasn't us down in St Pete last spring. These guys make Justin Bieber antics seem almost civilized.
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Donna Karan's Short Film Takes Place Entirely at the Surrey
What are the requirement to make a memorable short film shot entirely at The Surrey in New York City? Donna Karan knows. Get Angelica Huston to direct, throw in Felicity Jones and Jack Davenport and attach your name to it. The result is one of the best hotel video promotions ever conceived. Interestingly, that wasn't the intention. It's a film about hosiery. But it still makes a great hotel promo video.
Now, we love us some Donna Karan and we love us some Surrey, so this was a collaboration just waiting to happen. Felicity Jones and Jack Davenport play strangers that meet at the bar, and thus a romantic interlude transpires. There's a lot of things going on with Felicity's legs, as you'll notice. Hosiery, remember?
We won't tell you what happens next but it involves a candle. Or maybe it doesn't. Either way, you'll most likely be paying attention to the backdrop… The Surrey has never looked so sexy!
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Life At La Quinta Must Have Been Really Wonderful
One of the most classic Christmas movies, that doesn't involve Santa Claus or elves or Tim Allen, is Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life. We don't like to get too nostalgic about the 'good old days,' but we imagine it must have been pretty magical going to one of those old-time movie theaters on Christmas day in 1946 and watching it for the very first time.
As it happens, the black-and-white classic very well might have been written at a hotel.
The Press-Enterprise recently published a piece about Capra's affinity for La Quinta Resort & Club. Apparently, the guy loved the place so much, he moved there permanently with his wife when he was 84. The PE reports:
"Frank, and his wife Lucille, always stayed in the same room while vacationing at the La Quinta Hotel — Suite 136 in the San Anselmo Casita — and their room is now marked with both a memorial placard and a memorial bench."
But could this also be the place where Capra wrote the award-winning script? According to his autobiography, the hotel (which is now a part of the Waldorf-Astoria collection) was his "Shangri-La for script writing" over the years. (Not to be confused, of course, with Shangri-La Hotels.)
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Denzel Washington Took 'Flight' At The St Regis Atlanta
It's not all in-room movies and #HurricaneSandy mania for all hotels. Others, like the St Regis Atlanta, are celebrating their fifteen minutes of fame in what many are hailing as the next movie to sweep the Oscars.
We received word that Denzel Washington filmed scenes for the upcoming Robert Zemeckis-directed film Flight, which comes out this Friday, November 2, at the Atlanta hotel. And if initial reactions at this month's New York Film Festival are anything to go by, then this is definitely a movie we want to check out.
An insider confirms that Denzel filmed three scenes for the movie inside the hotel, including the above shot, which was taken at the hotel's Wine Room. Additionally, the film will show the actor in the St Regis Bar, as well as the lobby. Even better: Denzel actually gets to call out the hotel in one of the scenes, with a quick one-liner, "Meet me at the St. Regis." We will, Denzel, we absolutely will.
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How to Stay Like Bruce Wayne in Chicago at Hotel 71
Bruce Wayne makes a grand entrance in "The Dark Knight" (2008), filmed in this penthouse ballroom atop Hotel 71
Ed. Note: The opening of The Dark Knight Rises movie was eclipsed by the senseless shootout in Aurora, Colo. This post was written before the tragedy and while the movie and the shootout will be forever linked, we thought giving you some behind-the scenes info on the first Dark Knight movie might separate the two...if only for a little bit.
Next time you visit Chicago, add Hotel 71 to your sight-seeing itinerary as this is where Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) fought the good fight in The Dark Knight and where Transformers ran amok for the movie's third franchise.
Take the elevator up to the hotel’s 39th floor penthouse ballroom and it will all come back to you. Formerly staged as Bruce Wayne’s penthouse apartment in “The Dark Knight,” the penthouse ballroom is simpler now, but the floor-to-ceiling windows and panoramic city views are unmistakable. Take a closer look out the windows, spy the adjacent balcony and some of the best scenes from “Dark Knight” are sure to come flooding back.
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5 Hotel-Themed YouTube Videos You Should Know About
Thanks to the Almighty miracle that is YouTube, we could spend all day just browsing clips of featherbrained folks doing weird things in hotel rooms (like watching Cuban rapper Pitbull get it on with a hot female plumber in Miami's Epic Hotel—not the kind of thing you see every day).
But to make things easier, we've whittled down the selection to just five videos, showing the best of what YouTube-broacast hotel shenanigans have to offer. Click below to see for yourself!
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Twitpic of the Week: Here's Why You'll Love Staring At An Empty Wall At The James Chicago
In the ever-expanding universe of Twitter, there is one particular trend @HotelChatter happens to quite enjoy: candid hotel photos. These pics range from stunning views to anti-views to celebrity tomfoolery and everything in between. And we can't get enough of 'em! Every Monday, we commemorate our favorite "Twitpic of the Week." Got a favorite of your own? Want to show off your sweet suite? Send it in!
It's no secret that the James Chicago likes to offer fun little "extras" at the hotel: whether that's a pop-up ice cream shop, or a noteworthy artist-in-residence program or an in-room cocktail amenity. And so we weren't too surprised to see a recent guest tweet this photo of one of the hotel's 26 in-room DVD projectors.
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The NoMad Hotel Is Spreading The Good(fellas) Vibes
Call us old-fashioned, but when it comes to movie set hotels, we're used to film crews who show up and incorporate the hotel into scenes for their movie. But in Manhattan, it's the NoMad Hotel who's decided to incorporate scenes from a movie into their hotel.
How does that work? Well, the hotel has released a three-minute promotional clip, which shows executive chef Daniel Humm and General Manager from Eleven Madison Park recreating a famous scene—almost shot for shot—from Goodfellas, where Ray Liotta leads Lorraine Bracco through the back kitchen and into the dining room of the Copacabana. Just like in the movie, the entire shot is unbroken and quite fun to watch.
To see what we're talking about, click through for a look at the clip!
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Can You Guess Lenny Kravitz's Hotel Hangout in Charlotte?
We know, we know. What a random acting role for musician/hotel designer Lenny Kravitz! Just in case you haven't been up and up on the "Hunger Games" madness, Lenny stars as Capitol stylist, Cinna, in the movie which premieres this weekend.
Yet what befuddles us hotel geeks more than this role for Lenny is rather where he and the cast were staying during filming.
According to the NY Post, Lenny's "ritzy" hotel digs became the "unofficial hangout" for his co-stars.
“My hotel room became the after-hours joint,” Kravitz tells The Post. “Any given night there you’d see me, Stanley [Tucci], Gary [Ross], Woody [Harrelson], Elizabeth [Banks], Josh [Hutcherson], Jennifer [Lawrence.] It was fun.”
You know what this means--it's time to Guess the Hotel!!
