Dogma, 1999
Director
Cast
- Matt Damon
- Ben Affleck
- Linda Fiorentino
- Alan Rickman
- Jason Mewes
- Kevin Smith
- Jason Lee
- Chris Rock
- Salma Hayek
- Janeane Garofalo
- George Carlin
- Brian O'Halloran
visit the film locations
Pittsburgh: Flights: Pittsburgh International Airport
Visit: Pittsburgh
Visit: Pennsylvania
Dine at: the Grand Concourse Restaurant, located in the beautifully restored Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Station, 100 West Station Square Drive (tel: 412.261.1717)
Dine at: Franklin Inn, 2313 Rochester Road, Franklin Park (tel: 412/366.4140)
Trivia
For more of Pittsburgh, see The Dark Knight Rises, Flashdance and The Silence Of The Lambs
For Kevin Smith on more familiar territory, see Clerks
Dogma location: St Michael’s Church, supposedly in ‘Red Bank, New Jersey’: Sts Peter and Paul Church, Larimer Avenue, East Liberty, Pittsburgh
Provocative director Kevin Smith risked causing grave offence to platypus lovers with the preamble to his rambling but imaginative satire, which sees Loki and Bartleby (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck), a pair of dispossessed angels, attempting to re-enter Heaven via a loophole in Catholic doctrine.
There are only glimpses of Smith’s usual stomping ground of Red Bank and Asbury Park – at the beginning of the movie, the old man is battered by three strange kids on the Asbury Park Boardwalk, alongside the Paramount Theatre, 1200 Ocean Avenue, but, although the movie is set in New Jersey and Illinois, most of it was, in fact, shot around Pittsburgh.
For instance, ‘General Mitchell Airport, Milwaukee’, where Loki and Bartleby tempt a nun to go AWOL, is Pittsburgh International Airport.
World-weary angel Metatron (Alan Rickman) explains the awesome mission laid on the doubting Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) over tequilas at Mexican restaurant Franklin Inn, 2313 Rochester Road, Franklin Park, northwest Pittsburgh.
It’s in Laverne’s Diner, 113 South Main Street, that prophets and John Hughes fans Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) tell Bethany about their fruitless journey to find ‘Shermer, Illinois’.
Movie location buffs won’t need to be reminded that ‘Shermer’, the North Shore setting of many Hughes films, is fictitious (though the name was inspired by Shermerville, the original name of Northbrook).
Dogma location: Serendipity performs as a pole dancer: Crazy Mocha, East North Avenue, Pittsburgh
On Pittsburgh’s North Side, muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek) wows ’em as a stripper in silver bra and specs at the Park View Cafe – now Crazy Mocha, 2 East North Avenue at Federal Street.
Down southwest of the city in Dormont was ‘Mooby’s Fast Food’ joint, an old Burger King restaurant, the site of Rufus’s (Chris Rock) revelations about the real Christ, which is now a Rite Aid drugstore at 3210 Banksville Road, Highway 19, opposite Dormont Park.
Dogma location: the ‘Mooby Corp Building’: US Steel Tower, Grant Street, Pittsburgh
In downtown Pittsburgh itself you can’t miss the ‘Mooby Corp Building’, which is US Steel Tower, 600 Grant Street – it’s the city’s tallest skyscraper.
Dogma location: the ‘Mooby Corp Building’ boardroom: Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh
The Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, 4500 Fifth Avenue between Dithridge and Craig Streets, supplied the ‘Mooby’ boardroom, where Loki guns down the sinful directors. Incidentally, the side entrance to the institute on Dithridge Street became the entrance to to ‘Blackgate Prison’, from which Bane releases the criminals in The Dark Knight Rises (which used Pittsburgh as ‘Gotham City’).
Dogma location: Metatron makes an astonishing revelation: Grand Concourse Restaurant, Station Square, Pittsburgh
The posh restaurant in which Metatron makes the astonishing revelation that God has gone missing, is the Grand Concourse Restaurant, 100 West Station Square Drive, the restored waiting room of Pittsburgh’s old Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad Station in Station Square. You might recognise it as the spot where Jennifer Beals has a date with her boss in 80s classic Flashdance.
Dogma location: Loki and Bartleby attempt to get back into Heaven: Sts Peter and Paul Church, Larimer Avenue, East Liberty, Pittsburgh
St Michael’s Church, supposedly in ‘Red Bank, New Jersey’, where the Catholicism WOW! movement launched by Cardinal Glick (George Carlin) replaces the depressing crucifix with the upbeat Buddy Christ – and site of the apocalyptic climax – is the Sts Peter and Paul Church, 130 Larimer Avenue in East Liberty, currently empty and in a state of disrepair.
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