Films which show contemporary depressing American commercial landscapes (strip malls, etc.)

Where do you live?

primer, thumbsucker, 24 hour photo... it seems like there are quite a few of these yet not many come to mind right now. i can only really recommend primer of those i've listed.

(x-post)I live in the U.S., in a "big city"...but I know from experience, that once one drives out of the city (or sometimes within the city, depending on where one lives) that sprawl awaits, complete with this very sort of landscape.

I apologize if I sound defensive at all in that response...I'm just assuming that you're asking me that while perhaps thinking that I live outside the U.S. and that I have gobbled up some potentially bogus stereotype.

Thanks, LaMonte! I have never even heard of any of those films, so they are a good place for me to begin.

the last one's actually called 'one hour photo', sorry.

"or much of American Job"

this is one of my favorite movies. and i was gonna mention it, but you already did! which is cool, cuz it's the kind of movie you would recommend to someone and they would NEVER rent it, you know? cuz life is short. i've seen it, like, ten times.

The name of the film you want is "Chain", directed by Jem Cohen. Thank me later!

Good luck finding it, though! If you have access to the right torrents sites maybe.

The Good Girl? =/

(xxxx-post) Yes, I quickly figured that out after imdb-ing them. Wow, with the exception of Primer, it looks like the others have pretty big-name casts. How do I not remember these coming out? I sorta-kinda try to keep up with at least the reviews in the alt-weeklies...Either these films disappeared after only a week's showing, or I have early-onset Alzheimer's.

"ruby in paradise." man i love that movie.

What class are you taking?

ruby in paradise is probably my second favorite movie of the 90's. after safe. and american job would be in my top ten. i'm depressing.

Does Gummo show this?

BTW, Chain played here...I delivered flowers to Guy Picciotto!

...cuz life is short. i've seen it, like, ten times

heh-heh

Yeah, Scott! I saw American Job when it first arrived at the local indie/rep theater where I was living at the time, and I thought it was fantastic. Subsequently quests for it in video stores and the like proved fruitless, though. And I am weirdly lazy or something about ordering stuff through Amazon or other online sources. But maybe I will try to cheat and search for a torrent. I really wanna see that again. I always tell people about it, and no one ever seems to know what I'm talking about (I saw it alone, for the record).

So many great scenes in that one-- the motel stuff, the gas station convenience store, the weird and hilarious passive switching-chairs role-reversal getting-fired part!...

Plus it's that same actor from Chuck and Buck, right?

PT Anderson also maybe?

admrl, I'll thank you now!...man... The description on imdb sounds great. I do know Jem Cohen's name from the Fugazi association, but I have never seen any of his films. I remember wanting to see Benjamin Smoke when it came out. Off-topic, I guess, but has anyone seen that one?

Man, I seriously have been Rip Van Winkling it or something...

I saw Benjamin Smoke...it's good, not amazing. Chain IS great, really really great I think.

True Stories

Linklater's subUrbia (like completely 100% could not be any more about depressing American commercial landscapes, etc.)

Also pretty bad but totally watchable.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MRFYWA2BL._AA280_.jpg

Steve, I know my question makes it sound like I am writing a paper or something, but this is actually not for a class. Like I said, I'm not a big movie person by any stretch, but lately I've been binging on films for whatever reasons, and I tend to gravitate towards American stuff...I mean, not just films produced in the U.S., but films that have distinctly American themes and flavors... So, I've been gravitating towards the usual round-up of seventies gems (e.g., watched Five Easy Pieces for the first time today (and loved it))...but also, am big into most any drama that has pretensions towards realism; hence my longing to see more films from the past decade or so that show the physical America that is more familiar to my everyday experience, or what I gather most people's everyday experiences are...

Ruby in Paradise! Ah, the memory of seeing that a couple of times on, Bravo, I'm guessing, maybe ten yrs. ago, has been haunting me as of late. I would love to see that one again.

I think it was also Bravo that around the same time showed both 3 Women and The Rain People, which was my first exposure to either of those films. In some ways maybe both of those capture a seventies version of what I'm thinking of here...

Mac and Me

The Good Girl?

http://www.lovefilm.com/lovefilm/images/products/3/34653-large.jpg

The 40 Year Old Virgin

actually its setting was one of my favourite things about this film

try 'Down to the Bone' for one about small-town shit living and drug abuse. Low did a lot of the score, too.

also One Hour Photo is a brilliant brilliant film, and is one of Robin Williams' finest acting moments.

you saw Brown Bunny

yeah, Punchdrunk Love

fargo?

that parking lot shot is a++

David Gordon Green movies

yeah, "Chain" is like the exact right movie for this question...it's been on sundance channel recently if you have access to that...

This may not be contemporary enough for your purposes, but the movie Dawn of the Dead was filmed almost entirely inside the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh.

hmm maybe Fried Green Tomatoes? relatively contemporary ; )

Oh yeah...good example. The 40 Year-Old Virgin is one that I actually have seen.

I'm thinking that comedies do this more than dramas. To cheat somewhat and cite an example from television, the (U.S.) version of The Office makes frequent use of those sort of settings (the office parties/meetings at Bennigan's (or wherever it's supposed to be) or Benihana; Dale ending up working at an Office Depot/Staples-type place; the depressing location of their actual office...)

Now my memory is starting to blur the more that I think about this, and I am thinking that there are countless other films that incorporate those kinda locations. But surely I am not completely crazy; can anyone verify for me the fact that this kinda thing is underrepresented in American film?

ummm My Cousin Vinny, What's Eating Gilbert Grape

Wow, y'all are feeding me great stuff, thanks!

I will break into someone's house who has Sundance Channel and watch Chain. It seems imperative at this point. I tried looking it up on a pretty generic torrent search site, and I'm guessing that something listed as "Chain Smokers XXX (gonzo)" is not the same deal.

I liked Punch Drunk Love quite a bit, and that makes sense in this context, now that I think about it.

And Fargo, yeah...one of the things that I actually enjoyed most in that one was the Smorgasbord restaurant scene.

Down to the Bone is one I will definitely have to check out.

Milo, what can you tell me about David Gordon Green? I know nada.

But surely I am not completely crazy; can anyone verify for me the fact that this kinda thing is underrepresented in American film?

they are underrepresented, oddly. perhaps it's because most film locations are scouted for a certain "look", usually something more photogenic than a large chunk of what America actually looks like.

David Gordon Green has directed three movies, all set in a mystical/gothic south of old mill towns and derelict buildings and small farms. Not the chain-store hell you're talking about, but an imagined flipside, what became of small towns when the 'burbs and big boxes took over, the characters with the same listless unease.

"Milo, what can you tell me about David Gordon Green?"

i am not milo, but rent all his movies. um, there aren't many. so good. especially if you are a ruby in paradise fan. he makes everything look great though. he should be america's art-director.

x-post

I guess I'm seeing this more from a character perspective rather than retail landscape, but I'd also look at Election & Freeway (and from this perspective, it's a view that's not at all under-represented)

xxx-post

high schools in movies are almost always in that pre-70's older style rather than modern prison-looking ones you see all over the place.

Milo & Scott,

Thanks, the DGG stuff sounds great! I love that kinda thing, as well (small-town/rural America viewed in the wake of post-modernity, or whatever era this is).

I've not seen Freeway, but I loved Election.

Latebloomah, thanks for confirming that I am not totally crazy...and your point about depictions of high schools is interesting...

<i>My Cousin Vinny</i>

wtf? there are like a total of three settings in that movie: a courthouse, a roadhouse, and a cabin in the woods.

inland empire? (you could even count hollywood blvd as a depressing commercial landscape)

Safe
Happiness
Edward Scissorhands
ET

NO TABLE DO ANYTHING BUT DON'T TAKE ME TO THE MOFVIES

Fast Times @ RHigh. Not sure if you could label it as depressing but there's definitely a mall!

I was coming here to say Linklater's SubUrbia but got beaten to it.

Come tothink of it, Penelope Spheeris's Suburbia also fits this bill in a sense.

Down In The Valley

'Happiness' seconded. Actually, most Solondz movies totally fit that vibe.

Good call on the US 'Office' too.

Linklater's subUrbia (like completely 100% could not be any more about depressing American commercial landscapes, etc.)

seconded. In fact, I clicked on the thread just to post subUrbia.

After all the Jem Cohen talk, thought I'd post this here for the NYC people:

http://www.ifccenter.com/event?eventid=999831

My Blue Heaven has a strip mall scene iirc. I thought I posted that already but I guess not.

I seem to remember a really great part in Ulee's Gold (directed by Victor Nunez, who also did Ruby in Paradise), where Peter Fonda is basically just quietly driving down a road in Florida at night, past all the strip malls and neon.

high schools in movies are almost always in that pre-70's older style rather than modern prison-looking ones you see all over the place.

The thing that I always notice about high schools in TV/movies is the absence of fluorescent overhead lighting. Usually, it's a dusky late-afternoon light that comes in through the slits on a window's vertical blinds and illuminates the dust on the corner of the teacher's antique wooden desk.

Crumb - there are a few really incredible scenes about the absurdity of the suburban landscape.

on a much bigger and artistic scale, check out this documentary on photographer Edward Burtynsky called Manufactured Landscapes.

SubUrbia fourthed!

If you can find Jon Jost's Chameleon that would be good too, but I don't know if any of his earlier movies are on VHS or DVD.

jaymc, yeah! High school classrooms are made to look almost ridiculously poetic compared to the reality. I realize that it's cinematic license or whatever, but, this is probably done even in the wannabe-gritty films where the teacher comes and magically inspires the demoralized urban school kids...

Steve, I will have to watch Crumb again. I only saw it when it first came out, and don't recall any of the sequences that you are talking about.

Manufactured Landscapes-- I saw a book of his photography by the same name in a bookstore, and I almost blew my wad right there on the spot (take that either in the vulgar sense, or fiscal, as you like). Cool!

Everyone keeps mentioning SubUrbia, but Milo upthread said that it wasn't that good. I guess I will have to check it out regardless.

I'm happy that this thread has received so many responses, though I'm a little worried that I'm gonna turn into something along the lines of one of those people who would have a Geocities website listing, say, every film to ever feature that person's weird fetish, like say, women wearing bicycle helmets or something.

The thing is, as depressing as I find strip malls, theme restaurants, etc. to be, at the same time I find them weirdly beautiful in some perverse sense. Like, just 'cause they're there...in all of their stark, ugly-ass cookie-cutter glory. And because that's where human beings go on a daily basis and live their lives.

I had a friend who off-handedly coined the term "new futurism" (I'm sure there is/was already some other existent school of new futurism, but whatever...) in reference to how futurism originally celebrated all of the supposed innate aesthetic glories of industrialism...my friend's concept was along the lines of, "hey, in this post-industrial milieu we live in, everything is already completely fucked-up; we may as well appreciate the fucked-upness of it all while it's there in front of us."

I saw the play of suburbia and the theater actually constructed a section of a concrete parking lot (or a very convincing fake one, anyway) and fully stocked 7-11 as a set.

But I don't like Eric Bogosian that much. I also just saw Talk Radio (play) and thought it was kind of one note.

I only saw it when it first came out, and don't recall any of the sequences that you are talking about.

they're in about the middle. there are 2 distinct scenes i'm thinking of:

#1) Crumb explaining his horrific take on the electrical lines and suburban sameness that fills the backgrounds of many of his panels.

#2) a series of illustrations which show a bit of a time lapse of an old field becoming a path, then dirt road, then hut on road, etc. repeat development until it's a suburban sprawl.

very effective.

I think perhaps Sir Steve of Shasta is referring to the sequence where Crumb shows his sketchbooks full of (sub)urban detritus like telephone poles, etc., the stuff that is always there but you hardly ever really "see". I always remember that part.

xp!

=D

suburbia is more about suburban personalities than the landscapes that you're asking about FWIW.

speaking of crumb, i'm reminded of 'american splendor' which might fit this too

Bully

oh man, I totally thought of those scenes in "Crumb" today w/r/t this thread!

The context is the sketching of all the clustered detritus surrounding roadsides that he includes in some comix...all the various wires, transformers, whatever shit that everyone overlooks...I think the story goes that he had a friend or someone take pictures of these things a while ago and has used it a lot subsequently..

xxxxp (wow i even used the word detritus too!@)

True Stories

As David Byrne is standing in front of the beige, monolithic VariCorp building: "It's a cool, multi-purpose shape: a box." Also, we get a tour of the interior of the mall; drive-bys of long rows of pre-fab metal warehouses; and long shots of residential developments.

Oddly, the tone here isn't despairing, or even satirical. It's a pretty clear that David Byrne sees all this architecture as an optimistic artifacts of economic expansion and the upward mobility of the citizen-consumer, weirdly enough. Not depressing at all!

I've had the idea before (which has probably already been done by somebody somewhere) of doing a coffee table book visually showcasing interesting old-timey dive bars in various areas of the country...along with some text detailing the history of each place, a profile of the owners, etc.

But at the same time, I think it would be really interesting to do a taxonomy of sorts of say, various McDonald's restaurants around the country...with emphasis on for instance, whatever crappy motel-room sort of paintings that they have hanging on their walls.

Is anyone here familiar with that book where the person photographed all of these abandoned shopping carts, and then published it in a book with all sorts of meticulous, relevant details; as if they were biological specimens that he/she were cataloging?

bah, typos.

The fairly awful True Stories shows a fairly awful Texas shopping mall.

You might be interested in the Center For Land Use Interpretation (http://www.clui.org/clui_4_1/index.html) and their book "Overlook".

oh! (xxpost)

This thread is making me think about what I see on the way to my various workplaces, and it's really depressing me. (Route 1/9, ugh.)

True Stories is wonderful, hush your mouth.

Even when in the throes of a David Byrne passion in the early nineties, elmo, I was unamused.

Ah, okay, I was confused. I didn't realize that SubUrbia was the Bogosian one. I thought that was "Suburbia", and that maybe Richard Linklater did some other film called SubUrbia that I was unfamiliar with... But, so "Suburbia" is Penelope Spheeris' flick from the eighties. Hmmm.

Yeah, I caught the end of SubUrbia on TV and just remember guys arguing in a 7/11 parking lot.

'raising arizona' has some good grocery store and parking lots scenes too

and a furniture store
etc

Ruby in Paradise is a great choice: it captures the dust-on-windscreen vibe of the Florida Panhandle (Ashley Judd's best perf too).

Spheeres' Suburbia is set in gutterpunk squatterville, not necessarily what the title suggests.

Agh, I said it upthread already, but I really, really need to see Ruby in Paradise again. So it's set in the panhandle, huh? I couldn't remember...It's been probably 10 years since I saw it.

Kinda funny-- I remember catching some of the film Double Jeopardy on television once, and wondering why I was finding Ashley Judd so attractive...and in retrospect it's probably because I crushed hard on her character in Ruby.

Over The Edge (70s-era suburban teensploitation set in planned community. ESSENTIAL VIEWING)
Pump Up The Volume (dubious plot, but thread-pertinent views of the Phoenix/Mesa sprawl)
Where The Heart Is (most of the movie takes place in a Wal-Mart)
The Trigger Effect (Twilight Zonish movie about the electricity going out, and societal collapse)

Honestly though, I'd just point at any episode of King Of The Hill

Dell - I think you'll find enough material here to keep you satiated:
http://www.radicalurbantheory.com

Soderbergh's "Bubble" would fit this. Also, it's a documentary, but "American Movie".

Oh man, I really need to see Over the Edge again. That left quite the impression on me when I saw it as a kid.