The "In" Place to Be

by Joyce

Since all of yinz guys ain't from Pittsburgh n'at, you may not know it's a really happening place right now. No, really. It is.

A lot of movies have been filmed in Pittsburgh: Night of the Living Dead, Hoffa, Sudden Death, Striking Distance, Silence of the Lambs, Wonder Boys. (There's a really exhaustive list on Wikipedia. Way more than I knew about!) Some members of the police department where I used to work played the SWAT team in Silence of the Lambs. That SWAT guy crashing through the window was our lieutenant. They filmed a lot of the movie in our township, too.

None of these movies, however, have garnished the kind of attention as our latest claim to fame. In case you haven't heard, they're filming the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight Rises here. There's a lot of coverage in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, if you want to check it out. There's even a Twitter hashtag to follow: #batburgh.

One of the things I find really fascinating is that in the midst of our 90 degree plus heat wave, they've been filming winter scenes. On two of the hottest days of the year they filmed a fight scene on the steps of the Mellon Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and a Gotham City football game at Heinz Field, promptly overtaken by the bad guys. People had to wear winter coats which they promptly stripped off as soon as the cameras stopped rolling. I don't know about you, but thirty seconds in a winter coat in the kind of weather we've been having would have given me heat stroke.

It was just announced yesterday that the Jack Reacher movie will be filmed here, too. Yeah. Tom Cruise. Don't get me started on that one.

And for really geeky people (like me) who watch a lot of PBS (except for the British shows--they put me to sleep), the Antiques Roadshow will be in town this weekend. And I'll be there! A couple of months ago, the local PBS station, WQED, asked for volunteers for the Roadshow. I put in an application, was interviewed, and got the gig. I have to go to training from 4-6 on Friday, then I'll be at the convention center from 6:30 am to 6:30 pm on Saturday. I have no idea what I'll be doing yet--I'll find out on Friday. It'll probably have something to do with corralling about 3000 people, each with two items to be appraised. If you're on Twitter, follow @RoadshowPBS on Saturday. Sometimes they do live tweets.

If I live to tell about, expect a report on my adventure in two weeks. If I'm lucky, one of the two items I'm taking with me will be worth more than $1.98.