Making Hollywood Pay

    Watching the promos for most of the movies coming out this summer leads me to one very depressing conclusion: I am no longer the demographic age for which Hollywood is making its movies.

    Of course, even when I was the target of movie marketing executives, I didn’t pay to see that many movies in the theaters. I’m cheap enough that I waited until they came out on tape or DVD.  But still, to realize that Hollywood is no longer trying to lure me to their big screens, well, that’s just depressing.

   Nonetheless, in my work as a travel writer, I find that now and then I need to go the movies.  When I was writing about some of the Jesse James sites in northwest Missouri, I needed to see the Brad Pitt movie “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.”

    After we climbed to the top of Mount Rushmore, I rented “National Treasure II:  The Book of Secrets.”  Do you know there’s not really a lake on top of Mount Rushmore? That’ll be in my story.

   And when I was in Hawaii at Turtle Bay Resort, I witnessed the filming of “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” so seeing that in order to be prepared to write about it made obvious sense as well.

   Well, now there’s another movie to be released in August that will cause me to fork over $8 for a movie ticket and twice that much for popcorn and a Dr. Pepper, all in the name of research.  It’s a Woody Allen flick starring Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson called “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and guess where it was shot?

   If you guessed Barcelona, and if you can locate Spain on a globe, then you’re brighter and better educated than most of the masses for which the movies are now being made.

   Bruce and I spent a few days in Barcelona at the end of our Holland America cruise through the Mediterranean earlier this summer and the Woody Allen movie was much of the buzz.  So in addition to strolling Las Ramblas, sampling tapas and touring La Sagrada Familia, we visited some of the sights that will appear in the movie.

    I’m not a big Woody Allen fan, but I am a fan of editors who give me assignments like “Three Romantic Days in Barcelona.”  That’s the story I’m working on now for a AAA publication in New York.  Since Woody was quoted in Time Magazine saying the movie would be “a love letter to Barcelona,” then maybe a couple of hours watching what Woody found romantic about the city will provide additional insight and inspiration for my story.

   I just hope I can get a senior citizen discount when I buy my ticket.  That’ll show Hollywood!!!