The Film, T.V. Show or Song that best represents your City, State or Nation?

[CaliNative]

For example, L.A.--

Films: Double Indemnity? The Graduate? Sunset Blvd? Singing in the Rain? LaLaLand? The Player? Rebel Without a Cause? The Aviator? The Big Lebowski? Day of the Locust? Chinatown? Down and Out in Beverly Hills? Clueless? Encino Man?

T.V. Show--Mr. Ed? My Three Sons? The Brady Bunch? Dragnet? The Beverly Hillbillies? The Big Bang Theory? (OK, Pasadena), Sanford & Son? Baywatch?

Song--"I Love L.A."? Hotel California? (I Wish They All Were) California Girls? Valley Girls? Good Vibrations? California Dreaming (sung by Mama Cass Elliott); Any song by the Doors?

Did I leave any out? Probably lots

What about for your city, state, region or nation? Which film, TV show or song captures the essense?

[homebucket]

From 90s sitcoms:

NYC - Friends
SF - Full House
Chicago - Family Matters
Philadelphia - Boy Meets World
LA - The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
Springfield - The Simpsons

[Steely Dan]

some of my favorite "chicago" films:

the blues brothers
ferris bueller's day off
the fugitive
the untouchables
hoop dreams
cooley high
candyman
running scared
stir of echoes

[Crawford]

For LA, definitely Heat.

[Acajack]

Some personal favourites

Los Angeles:

Short Cuts by Robert Altman

New York City:

After Hours by Martin Scorsese

[Quixote]

Speed best captures the spirit of LA and its decade of awkward transition—the 90s. I haven’t seen another film that makes so many authentic references to LA-specific names, locales, and cultural entities/idiosyncrasies. Just the fact that it includes people of all races and doesn’t feature an (obviously) Italian/Jewish New Yorker playing the role of someone in power (e.g. police chief, detective) is a miracle in itself and very much ahead of its time.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Quixote

Just the fact that it includes people of all races and doesn’t feature an (obviously) Italian/Jewish New Yorker playing the role of someone in power (e.g. police chief, detective) is a miracle in itself and very much ahead of its time.

Why do movies always do that? Every movie the police chief is a New Yorkah of a certain generation speaking exaggerated Brooklynese. Even the freakin NY police chief doesn't talk like that.

They'll do this even if the movie is based in Seattle or Toronto or some other random, not particularly New Yorky location.

[JManc]

Our police chief was born in Cuba, grew up in California and spent much of his career here in Texas and yet somehow sounds "New Yorky".

Originally Posted by Crawford

For LA, definitely Heat.

Good call..and an absolutely fantastic movie. My personal favorite.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Why do movies always do that? Every movie the police chief is a New Yorkah of a certain generation speaking exaggerated Brooklynese. Even the freakin NY police chief doesn't talk like that.

They'll do this even if the movie is based in Seattle or Toronto or some other random, not particularly New Yorky location.

How often do you see movies that are *actually* based (set) in Toronto, anyway?

[muertecaza]

For Phoenix/Arizona songs:

The new Pedro the Lion album, "Phoenix," is all about growing up in Phoenix-metro, and the lead single "Yellow Bike" has some really great Phoenix-specific details that ring very true to me. One of the best representations of Phoenix I've heard.

Gordon Lightfoot - Carefree Highway. The music captures the feeling of driving through open Arizona country perfectly.

Glen Campbell - By the Time I Get to Phoenix isn't really that much about Phoenix, but I really like the song, especially the Nick Cave cover.

Jimmy Eat World - Goodbye Sky Harbor. They are our native sons and the lines “So here I am above palm trees so straight and tall / You are smaller, getting smaller” manages to capture something about Phoenix in a couple short lines.

Public Enemy - By the Time I Get to Arizona captures our propensity to step in it on national political issues.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

For Phoenix/Arizona songs:

The new Pedro the Lion album, "Phoenix," is all about growing up in Phoenix-metro, and the lead single "Yellow Bike" has some really great Phoenix-specific details that ring very true to me. One of the best representations of Phoenix I've heard.

Gordon Lightfoot - Carefree Highway. The music captures the feeling of driving through open Arizona country perfectly.

Glen Campbell - By the Time I Get to Phoenix isn't really that much about Phoenix, but I really like the song, especially the Nick Cave cover.

Jimmy Eat World - Goodbye Sky Harbor. They are our native sons and the lines “So here I am above palm trees so straight and tall / You are smaller, getting smaller” manages to capture something about Phoenix in a couple short lines.

Public Enemy - By the Time I Get to Arizona captures our propensity to step in it on national political issues.

I don't believe they're from Arizona, but many songs by the Eagles make me think of Arizona and the desert SW of the US in general.

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't believe they're from Arizona, but many songs by the Eagles make me think of Arizona and the desert SW of the US in general.

True, I should have at least mentioned Take it Easy and the classic Winslow, Arizona line.

[sopas ej]

Being that I love the film noir genre and being from LA (and continuing to live in LA) myself, I'm really into the films noirs from the 1940s and 1950s that totally show off LA, or at least are set in LA (and mostly use studio or back lot film locations). I love the time warps that they are, and show what LA looked like back then. I really like that "Sunset Boulevard" and "Double Indemnity" show off what the streets looked like, and include the old semaphore STOP/GO traffic signals.

For "neo-noir" films, "The Grifters" and "Drive" come to mind... both movies of which I like, and they're both so very LA.

For TV shows, and myself being a teenager during the 1980s, I loved "Moonlighting" (the first 2 and a half seasons, anyway), and the show really showcased LA. They did a lot of location shooting, not to mention the opening credits/title sequence. They even made use of the grubby parts of LA, like when David and Maddie/Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd go to a sex shop (which I recognized being on Western Avenue) and when they follow a suspect to Hollenbeck Park in Boyle Heights. They made use of well-known landmarks too, like the Eastern Columbia Building and the (now demolished) Ambassador Hotel. There was an episode where they were supposed to be at Union Station, but I could tell it wasn't there, and looking at the episode later, it looked like an old bank lobby, possibly somewhere in Pasadena. They even paid homage to LA film noir with that one episode they did in black-and-white called "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice."

Quixote mentioned "Speed"...

It made me think of "Die Hard." I think that film totally captures the LA of the late 1980s... the whole Japanese-company-on-the-Pacific-Rim thing, the use of a brand new Post-Modern skyscraper in Century City (as opposed to downtown LA... and by the 1980s, Century City was already considered a prestigious business address)...

[LosAngelesSportsFan]

I think the best representations of all the different kinds of LA by TV shows are The Shield, Southland, Bosch, Ray Donovan, Californication, 90210, OC, Threes Company

[Buckeye Native 001]

To Live and Die in LA?

Cincinnati: Either Rain Man or WKRP in Cincinnati

[Doady]

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[softee]

Some Toronto set movies and TV shows that I enjoyed:

Movies:
Goin' Down The Road
Videodrome
Dead Ringers
Crash
(most Cronenberg movies are set in Toronto)
Strange Brew
Last Night
Exotica
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
The F Word
Enemy

TV Shows:
King Of Kensington
Degrassi (various series')
Forever Knight
Kids In The Hall
Being Erica
The Listener
Flashpoint
Orphan Black
Kim's Convenience
Workin' Moms

[bossabreezes]

I was born in Rio de Janeiro, but have spent most of my life in São Paulo.

This one, although new, is very São Paulo to me. This video is nice too.

São Paulo- Mallu Magalhães

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[edale]

I think Bruce Springsteen's song "Youngstown" is a sad but realistic representation of not just Youngstown, but many of the depressed towns in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GaFUOQWi9A

Well my daddy come on the 0hio works
When he come home from world war two
Now the yards just scrap and rubble
He said, "Them big boys did what Hitler couldn't do"
These mills they built the tanks and bombs
That won this country's wars
We sent our sons to Korea and Vietnam
Now we're wondering what they were dyin' for
Here in Youngstown
Here in Youngstown
My sweet Jenny, I'm sinkin' down
Here darlin' in Youngstown
From the Monongaleh valley
To the Mesabi iron range
To the coal mines of Appalacchia
The story's always the same
Seven-hundred tons of metal a day
Now sir you tell me the world's changed
Once I made you rich enough
Rich enough to forget my name

[Pedestrian]

San Francisco

Recent TV Show: Looking
Older TV Show: Streets of San Francisco

Sort of Recent Movie: Zodiac
Sort of recent honorable Movie mention: Opening scene of Interview with the Vampire*
Older Movie: The Maltese Falcon
Runner-Up: Vertigo

Song: San Francisco (from the movie of the same name)
Runner-Up: San Francisco (the Scott McKenzie one)

*Gotta post this because I love it:

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