Have we done annoying geography in films?

[Stumpy Pepys]

Typically when you watch movies set in locations you know well, only to see protagonists make impossible journeys?

1. There's a 70s John Wayne film called [strike]Branagain[/strike] Brannigan, featuring a no-nonsense US cop on an assignment in London, encountering stuffy Brits. In the car-chase scene, he commandeers a man's car and drives over Wandsworth Bridge Road and turns into York Road. Only to emerge on fucking Tower Bridge Road and driving over the bridge, at least six miles (9.7 km) away

2. In Bridget Jones' Baby, Colin Firth and Patrick Dempsey carry Bridget, who's gone into labour, from Borough High Street to Univisity College Hospital, which is a one-hour walk (4.5 km) according to Google maps

3. At the end of The Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family jump in a car in Salzburg, presumably embark on a short car journey, only to walk over the Alps into Switzerland. Ach was, Kapitan von Trapp!

4. Krakatoa, East of Java, obviously. Not that I've been to Krakatoa.

[San Bernardhinault]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Not sure these are quite "geography"...

Pretty much any US "action" film where they go to London, people seem to be able to drive from anywhere to anywhere else in about 5 minutes, rather than being stuck for 45 minutes trying to make the left turn from North End Road onto the A4...

Also - and admittedly this isn't film, but TV - recently a great many US "action" TV shows (Blindspot, Blacklist, etc) seem to find that travel times in the US are incredibly short: Various FBI heroes in Washington find out there's a bomb about to go off in New Orleans in a couple of hours and are still able to get there in time and fix the problem.

[Gerontophile]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

NCIS: Los Angeles.

Obviously set in a fantasy world with no traffic jams.

[ad hoc]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

There's a Vietnam war film in which the hero (it might be Rambo in fact) escapes from Vietnam over a bridge on a motorbike to... Thailand. Conveniently missing out the tedious and less dramatic need to cross Laos and/or Cambodia first.

Famously of course, Kevin Costner's Robin Hood rides from Dover to Hadrian's Wall in a day

[G-Man]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Gerontophile wrote: NCIS: Los Angeles.

Obviously set in a fantasy world with no traffic jams.

In the movies, only New York has traffic jams. Usually to the airport.

[johnr]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Stumpy Pepys wrote:

1. There's a 70s John Wayne film called Branagain, featuring a no-nonsense US cop on an assignment in London, encountering stuffy Brits. In the car-chase scene, he commandeers a man's car and drives over Wandsworth Bridge Road and turns into York Road. Only to emerge on fucking Tower Bridge Road and driving over the bridge, at least six miles (9.7 km) away

Slightly off topic, but there was a whole bunch of scenes filmed in the 'Beckton Dumps' just over the way from where I grew up. It was big local news at the time. Aye, it was an exciting childhood...

[MsD]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Yeh, every Richard Curtis film and similar romcom set in London has people coming out of a tube then walking along the South Bank or something similar. Really annoying. It would be easy to be accurate, but I guess they just think the audience will see "London". The Parent Trap has the kid coming from Heathrow to Chelsea or somewhere via Big Ben and Tower Bridge.

Notting Hill - they get on a bus going the wrong way.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Stumpy Pepys wrote:
1. There's a 70s John Wayne film called Branagain, featuring a no-nonsense US cop on an assignment in London, encountering stuffy Brits. In the car-chase scene, he commandeers a man's car and drives over Wandsworth Bridge Road and turns into York Road. Only to emerge on fucking Tower Bridge Road and driving over the bridge, at least six miles (9.7 km) away

What about annoying spelling mistakes in annoying geography threads? I'll start: Branagain for Brannigan.

[elguapo4]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

In "hear my song " Adrian Dunbar 's character tracks down Joseph Locke in tullamore co offaly which is as flat as a pancake, the patrons of the local pub then threaten to throw him over the cliffs of moher, about 90 miles away!

[San Bernardhinault]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

It's probably more "annoying meteorology", but there's a peculiarly bad Christmas Movie Rom-Com with Cameron Diaz (perhaps this is a tautology) called "The Holiday", where our protagonist ends up in a cottage in Surrey at Christmas.

And it's snowy.

I understand that many White Christmas movies are deeply meteorologically implausible. But snowy in Surrey at Christmas really annoyed me.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Here is Michael Fassbender hearing a song on the radioWalking out of my old apartment building, and walking across ireland and swimming to america.

Except between seconds 10 and 12, they've cut out the bit where he realises that he's turned the entirely the wrong way at the end of lime street and is heading for london, and has to retrace his steps. BTW, Leap Year starring Amy Adams takes some of the most hilarious liberties with Irish Geography, and the space time continuum. It's well worth watching though. It's occasionally quit amusing.

[MsD]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

The Holiday : I like several things about that film, and it has Eli Wallach, so it's not all bad. But yes, it is Surrey for tourists.

[Giggler]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Not a film, but I wasn't the only person living in Greater Manchester to watch Car Share with Peter Kay and say "He's taking the long way here. He was in Horwich a minute ago, now he's going down Manchester Road in Bury."

[Guy Profumo]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Not so much the geography, but Robert Carlyle's wandering South Yorkshire / North Derbyshire accent in "The Full Monty"

[Sean of the Shed]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

In Pride Joe is watching news about the end of the Miners strike. He's watching a local news programme at his home which is set in Bromley, but the local news presenter is Richard Whiteley, which would be Yorkshire TV's Calender programme.

[Southport Zeb]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

San Bernardhinault wrote: It's probably more "annoying meteorology", but there's a peculiarly bad Christmas Movie Rom-Com with Cameron Diaz (perhaps this is a tautology) called "The Holiday", where our protagonist ends up in a cottage in Surrey at Christmas.

And it's snowy.

I understand that many White Christmas movies are deeply meteorologically implausible. But snowy in Surrey at Christmas really annoyed me.

The other week I was watching Paddington with my dad. He was fine with a talking bear but couldn't accept the heaviness of the snow at the end.

[tracteurgarcon]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

San Bernardhinault wrote: It's probably more "annoying meteorology", but there's a peculiarly bad Christmas Movie Rom-Com with Cameron Diaz (perhaps this is a tautology) called "The Holiday", where our protagonist ends up in a cottage in Surrey at Christmas.

And it's snowy.

I understand that many White Christmas movies are deeply meteorologically implausible. But snowy in Surrey at Christmas really annoyed me.

Worse than this they try to claim that Archie Leach/Cary Grant was from Surrey when any fool knows he was from Bristol.

[Gangster Octopus]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Apparently Millmoor Lane is in London.

And don't get me started on Ring Of Bright Water...

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

I remember that in some thread on Film, we were discussing the Contribution of Martin Shaw to the worst television programmes made this century, and someone from up Middlesborough was pointing out that by far the least plausible thing about the wretched inspector George gently was the jarring use of geography, crossing entire counties by turning corners.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Just wanted to say great topic for a thread.

[Calvert]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Pretty much everything set in Troublings-era Belfast.
If, say, Harrison Ford wanted to nip out to the shop for a packet
of fags and a pint of milk, he'd have to pass by numerous British Army installations/checkpoints, a riot, some men in balaclavas, Crumlin Rd. Gaol, the Sinn Féin advice centre, Bobby Sands' grave, the whole of West Belfast, another riot and quite possibly a shoot-out involving more men in balaclavas and The RUC wearing laughably inaccurate uniforms in Daktari-style Land Rovers before he gets home.
Fuck it, Harrison. Is it worth it?
Just stay home.

[evilC]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Just a tiny one, really, but...

In '28 Days Later', the 'dream sequence' section (when you see the sheep scattering) was filmed at (the very local to me) Waverley Abbey, on the outskirts of Farnham. This always makes me think that, as they were fleeing the devastated London, they must have headed 40 miles SW for a spot of rural sightseeing before heading halfway round the M25 and setting off for the North.

Still - at least there wouldn't be such queues around Heathrow in a zombie-overrun world, eh?

[Sam]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

I can't remember which film it is, but there's a very brief clip of some Hollywood production from the 1990s or 2000s which has become quite famous in Argentina. It involves a clip of a TV news report of raging fires in Buenos Aires, which shows burning trees or houses or something in the hills in/around the city. The reason it's become famous down here is that Buenos Aires is as flat as a pancake and the nearest thing that might generously be described as a hill is (and I'm not exaggerating here) 200 or 300 kilometres away.

[Gawpus]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

Possibly Starship Troopers Sam?

https://youtu.be/DU7EJXXg3No?t=33

[Various Artist]

Have we done annoying geography in films?

It's not Starship Troopers (1998) is it Sam? The on-Earth bits of that are set in some future utopian/dystopian Buenos Aires, if I recall correctly.