Studio 360

When Kurt asked what movie best told the story of my home town, I knew I had to write in. "The Big Lebowski" tells the story of Los Angeles. I know that the Cohen brothers specialize in regional stories, but they got Los Angeles I grew up in. LA is so completely mythologized, there are countless films that tell the same "Hollywood", self referential, movie business, story from an LA that I don't even recognize. But Lebowski handels the nuance of personality and regions within the city so well, and the details are there too. It's hard to sum it all up in a short email, but I find it so interesting that the city that American cinema comes from, is so poorly represented by it.

Thanks,

Great show, I listen every week,

Michael Storc

Although my location is Brooklyn, my hometown is Chicago. What I find most annoying is when Hollywood presents geographical impossibilities, such as "Meet me at the corner of Clark and State" (They never meet). The most glaring of these in recent years was in "Risky Business" when Tom Cruise and Rebecca DeMornay have a sexual encounter on an empty "L" car. It was a Ravenswood train and the Ravenswood never goes underground. The entire scene was underground.

Kurt also asked for favorite movies about our hometowns. Mine is a little known and seldom seen film by Haskell Wexler called "Medium Cool". It captures the disappearing grit of Chicago's northside, specifically the Uptown neighborhood long before gentrification and sanitization. The film's story unfolds against the backdrop of the 1968 Democratic Convention. As a 19 year-old Chicagoan, I was there, so the film bring back a significant time and location in my own life.