Not Another Teen Movie | 2001
- Locations |
- Los Angeles, California
- DIRECTOR |
- Joel Gallen
The first feature from music director Joel Gallen references just about every youth movie from the last 20 years, but it's not quite as smart and funny as it thinks it is.
The exterior of 'John Hughes High' is Monrovia High School, 845 West Colorado Boulevard at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue, Monrovia, east of Pasadena, itself east of Los Angeles. The same school later became 'North Valley High' in 2004 rom-com A Cinderella Story.
There are plenty of familiar locations: the courtyard is Torrance High School, 2200 West Carson Street at El Prado Avenue, Torrance, south Los Angeles (seen in She's All That), and more of the school was filmed at Verdugo Hills High School, 10625 Plainview Avenue, Tujunga, (featured in Eighties classic Heathers).
The home of 'popular jock' Jake Wyler (Chris Evans) is the mock-Tudor mansion at 4252 Country Club Drive down in Long Beach, south Los Angeles, which you might recognise as Patrick Swayze's mansion in Donnie Darko.
The home of Preston Wasserstein in the Risky Business parody is the nearby 4160 Country Club Drive, which was previously Ferris Bueller's 'Chicago' home (it's also the house of the unfortunate Leeds family in Red Dragon).
The Prom Tonight number begins with Jake mooching about alongside Santa Monica Pier, and climaxes with the production number in front of the Park Plaza Hotel, 607 South Park View Street. The prom itself, with Good Charlotte covering I Want Candy, is held in the Park Plaza's famous wood-panelled Ballroom.
One of the most-used locations in Los Angeles , if not the world, you can see the Ballroom again in Barton Fink, New York, New York, The Big Picture, Chaplin, Mystery Men, Hocus Pocus, Hook, Mister Saturday Night, Mobsters, Primal Fear, Stargate and What's Love Got to Do With It? among many others, as well as in countless TV series and music videos.
Built in the Twenties as the Elks Building, the Park Plaza was a hotel for decades until the surrounding neighbourhood, particularly MacArthur Park, became associated with drug related violence. The hotel closed its doors in 1998 and is now exclusively used for movie shoots and private functions.
Look out for 'Spicoli's' television repair shop on the corner of Sixth Street and South Park View, a blink-and-miss-it reference to Fast Times At Ridgemont High.
The finale (featuring a cameo by John Hughes regular Molly Ringwald) is, of course, at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).
