Come on, Hollywood. At least pretend you give a crap about Rhode Island
2:27PM ON
03/25/2008
BY
Dave Segal
I posted some months back, before anybody actually read this blog, about the time Steve Carell and a dozen fake NYC yellow cabs conspired in an attempt to kill the Providence living wage ordinance.
There’s plenty of concern flying around that the benefits of the state’s film credit program don’t outweigh it’s costs. I’ve co-sponsored, along with Rep. Anastasia Williams, legislation that would require that the credits do what they’re supposed to do — provide jobs to local residents — by requiring that the films hire locals in order to secure the credits.
But it’d also be cool if the films in question, at least occasionally, made it clear that they were being filmed in Rhody, rather than costume it up to look like New York. Case in point — the crew that’s currently running amok through downtown is filming an update to Edgar Allan Poe’s The Telltale Heart. Seems like a great opportunity to use Poe’s old haunts on Benefit Street, including the Athenaeum, on whose front steps his ghost likes to hang out — sloshed, most likely.
Alas, the crew members I’ve spoken with have had no knowledge of Poe’s time in Providence, or his attempts to woo local poet Sarah Helen Whitman. (Can you imagine a Providence-Baltimore romance, pre-Southwest?)
April 7th, 2008 at 7:52AM
Marisol Says:
Well, all of us Benefit Street residents got a kind letter on our doors late last week informing us that they will be shutting our street down for filming for this movie from today until Wednesday.
I have no real problem with this, other than the fact that it’s going to inconvenience me slightly. But I do think that if they’re going to film on your street and make you wait until they’re done filming to let you get out of or into your house… they should at least let you eat off the catering truck. I’m not asking for much.
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