Despite playing civic roles in more than 500 feature films and nobody knows how many TV shows and only theoretical numbers can be used to figure how many TV commercials, Long Beach tends to be camera shy when playing itself.<\/p>\n
It can do Calcutta in one take (as it did in \u201cBASEketball\u201d), it barely needs to leave its trailer to do a turn as Baltimore (\u201cAs Good As It Gets\u201d), it can do accents, like playing Beijing in \u201cRed Corner,\u201d and it can even outshine Los Angeles, as it did in \u201cLa La Land.\u201d It\u2019s done Miami way more times than Miami has, thanks to its Floridian palm trees and its poor man\u2019s Biscayne Bay in Alamitos Bay.<\/p>\n
But the city gets all introspective, shy and shaky when it\u2019s asked to play itself. It starts yapping about \u201cwhat\u2019s my motivation here?\u201d and storms off the set and sulks with the extras in the crafts services tent.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll only grudgingly acknowledge the city getting some self-centered spots in the wildly fictional 2006 feature \u201cFreedom Writers,\u201d which wasn\u2019t supposed to be fictional, but it made my beloved alma mater Wilson High look like a hideout for Somali pirates. And, while some scenes were filmed in Long Beach, the role of Wilson was played by Hamilton High in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The last time I recall a show actually being set in Long Beach, it also was filmed outside the city. That was HBO\u2019s \u201cGetting On,\u201d set in the fictional Billy Barnes Extended Care Unit of the deteriorating Mount Palms Memorial Hospital in Long Beach, California. It ran on cable for three seasons, from 2013 to 2015. It starred Laurie Metcalf, of both \u201cRoseanne\u201ds and Alex Borstein, who does the voice of Lois in \u201cFamily Guy.\u201d I never saw it. Any good?<\/p>\n
Coming to your idiot box starting Monday, Aug. 6, is AMC\u2019s \u201cLodge 49,\u201d a one-hour dramedy starring Kurt and Goldie\u2019s son Wyatt Russell, playing a sort of Lebowskian\/Spicolian slacker in search of something to make his life a bit more worth living. He stumbles into a member of the fraternal lodge, and then the fun begins!<\/p>\n
The show, executive produced by Paul Giamatti, is set in the town of Long Beach, and crews have done a lot of filming here for the series\u2019 first season, filming exteriors at several locations, including Bluff Park, a residence on 46th Street and the Bixby Village Golf Course.<\/p>\n
Interior scenes, with the show\u2019s talent, however, have been shot in the film-happy state of Georgia, according to show location manager Debbie Page. In fact, the show\u2019s namesake Lodge is also in the Peach State.<\/p>\n
So, yeah, you\u2019ll get a lot of Long Beach scenery by the city playing itself, but a good portion of the production money is being funneled into Georgia. It\u2019s OK; it\u2019s always good to see our town getting work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The show is set in the town of Long Beach, and crews have done a lot of filming here for the series\u2019 first season, filming exteriors at several locations, including Bluff Park, a residence on 46th Street and the Bixby Village Golf Course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":66169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[69],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filming","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=647"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}