Wednesday, June 8, 2011

United States of Popcorn

This actually showed up a few months ago, but I guess I missed it. Someone made a U.S. map with the state names replaced by movies that had been filmed in the state or best represented the state. A bigger version can be found here.

Not sure how I feel about us being represented by Twister, but on the other hand it's better than the Dust Bowl stereotype Grapes of Wrath or Michael Winterbottom's repulsive The Killer Inside Me. True Grit is supposed to take place in Oklahoma, but neither version was filmed here. Also lucky, I suppose, that we escaped the 1991 rodeo-dud My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.

And it could, quite obviously, have been worse. Nebraska is stuck with Children of the Corn, a Stephen-King derived movie not directed by Rob Reiner or Frank Darabont (a.k.a., "one of the ones that suck"). Georgia is identified with Deliverance, which means none of Ned Beatty's family will ever vacation there. I don't really know how you don't link Georgia to Gone With the Wind, but that's just me. Kentucky is given Kalifornia (konfusing!). Michigan would probably protest Robocop, if it wasn't for the fact that it looks more like a documentary every day. North Dakota shares Jesus Camp with Missouri, which is probably more of an indicator that the mapmaker ran out of ideas than it is that North Dakota is all that much like Missouri.

Even if Twister's not so great, I figure we Okies who want to argue the point will have to take our place in line behind the good folk of Wyoming. A conservative estimate puts the number of Westerns filmed in Wyoming at 73 million, so they probably would like to dispute that their state should be identified with Brokeback Mountain.

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