She's Out of My League Has Opened

During the "crazy time" in movie-making in Pittsburgh, winter-spring 2008, no fewer than three different movies were being made simultaneously:

She's Out of My League
Shelter
The Road

I was looking for some work, had always wanted to be involved in a movie. After signing up with the various extra agencies, I was called into be an extra for She's Out of My League. It was a lot of standing around and hurry-up-and-wait, but I really enjoyed it. And, there's always the danger that despite your ability to follow directions and be in the right place at the right time, that you never show up in the movie.

I'm happy to say I did get my two seconds of fame when I showed up in the hockey crowd scene. It was filmed during my two days of shooting in the arena. I then shot another six days in the airport, in various crowd scenes. Or, to look at it another way, I made about $800 for 2 seconds of screen time. ;->

League is a fun, raunchy comedy. Jay Baruchel, who is better looking in person, plays the awkward Kirk. Alice Eve, an English actress with a perfect American accent, plays the woman who becomes interested in him. Alice Eve's parents in the movie are played by her real-life parents, both well-known English actors with equally flawless American accents.

One common feature of the movies shot in Pittsburgh - the better the photography is of Pittsburgh, the worse the movie is. Inspector Gadget - a horrible, horrible movie with some of the best Pittsburgh photography ever. Smart People - a surprisingly bad movie with very good Pittsburgh photography.

By contrast, The Wonder Boys - a terrific movie that celebrates Pittsburgh architecture, but you'd have no clue you were in Pittsburgh except that the characters talk about being in Pittsburgh. The Road - shot mostly outside of Pittsburgh, has one or two neighborhood shots that makes the city, very appropriately, look like a post-apocalyptic mess.

Oh, the one exception to this, up until now, has been Carl Kurlander's My Tale of Two Cities, a charming documentary about Pittsburgh with great photography of the city. This is finally getting a formal theatrical release in Pittsburgh at the end of March - go see it!

She's Out of My League has great Pittsburgh photography and some excellent shots of the city from Mt. Washington. And they managed to keep the homeless people and drug addicts out of Market Square for a couple of days. Market Square actually looks like a place where adults would want to hang out after dark, proof that you can Hollywoodize almost anything.

This is not a brilliant script, but it is funny enough, especially the first half. As is usual with such movies, the male characters are a little better drawn than the female characters, who are generally cyphers. Nate Torrance is a particular stand-out as the only married guy of the bunch. For most of the movie, the writers seemed to be writing about sexuality and attraction as very horny virgins, but the characters were supposed to be in their 20s and at least somewhat sexually experienced. I supposed that's because the target audience is clearly teenagers. So the angst level is ratcheted up beyond all reason in places.

Still, even if you're not generally fan of the 20-something sex comedy or of movies that make Pittsburgh look like a great place to live (which, of course it is but people outside of town often don't know that), there might be enough silly jokes in this movie to make it a worthwhile diversion.