She Treads Softly: Vacation on Location, Midwest

Monday, May 1, 2017

Vacation on Location, Midwest

Vacation on Location, Midwest by Joey Green
Chicago Review Press: 5/1/17
eBook review copy; 240 pages
ISBN-13: 9781613737255

Vacation on Location, Midwest: Explore the Sites Where Your Favorite Movies Were Filmed by Joey Green is the perfect vacation guide for film buffs. This is the Midwest edition, so one would hope other regional editions might be forthcoming, but this covers 40 popular films shot in 11 states. FYI, as you could likely guess, Chicago is a major location destination. Even if you aren't planning a vacation immediately to the sites, it is still going to be an interesting guide to where individual movies scenes were shot.

The organization of the book is a brief introduction and then consists of numbered scenes in the movie with addresses where it was filmed and a brief description. The numbers of the scenes are coordinated to numbered area on a map so you can find the location of the movie scene you are looking for. If there are scenes that were shot elsewhere Green makes a note of it in boxed off "Shot Elsewhere" sections. The notes for each movie are followed by "Other Featured Attractions" a section that includes places where film sets or props (especially vehicles) can be seen. Green includes maps, photos and a bibliography.

Contents
Illinois: The Blues Brothers; The Breakfast Club; The Dark Knight; Ferris Bueller's Day off; The Fugitive; Groundhog Day; Home Alone; My Best Friend's Wedding; Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; Risky Business; The Untouchables
Indiana: Breaking Away; Hoosiers; A League of Their Own; Rudy
Iowa: The Bridges of Madison County; Children of the Corn; Field of Dreams; The Straight Story
Kansas: In Cold Blood; Paper Moon; Picnic
Michigan: Anatomy of a Murder; 8 Mile
Minnesota: Fargo; Grumpy Old Men; The Mighty Ducks; Purple Rain; A Simple Plan
Missouri: Escape from New York; Gone Girl; Up in the Air
Nebraska: Boys Town; Election; Nebraska
Ohio: The Avengers; A Christmas Story; The Deer Hunter; Rain Man; The Shawshank Redemption
South Dakota: Dances with Wolves; How the West Was Won; North by Northwest
Wisconsin: Back to School

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of the Chicago Review Press.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.