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Anyone been to the intersection at the end of Cast Away?

Started by texaskdog, May 19, 2020, 11:13:28 AM

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1995hoo

Quote from: texaskdog on May 19, 2020, 11:13:28 AM
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cast-away-crossroads?fbclid=IwAR2YtPrEXXBtl66YouRpq35xCYY3CIQPdKP6mrD1c2Owoj1mmJf92Qh-4c4

I haven't been there, but I've been to a location from another of his movies–Forrest Gump Hill in Utah, the location on US-163 in Utah between Mexican Hat and Monument Valley where Forrest Gump ended his cross-country run (there was a sign there off to one side of the road when I visited in 2015). My wife took a picture of me, but she refused to stand in the road to get the picture at the correct angle because she deemed it unsafe to stand in the middle of a two-lane road with a 65-mph speed limit (she was annoyed enough that I insisted on standing in the middle of the travel lane).

BTW, the Cast Away location is marked on Google Maps as an "Historical Landmark," and the Street View car has been through:
https://goo.gl/maps/MUVoRU6RxkYAYeTS8
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

GaryV

We visited the lighthouse in ME 15 years ago.  They told us it was where Forest Gump was filmed.  At that time we hadn't seen the movie yet.  In fact we just watched it in its entirety the first time this past week.

edwaleni

If you try to find the park bench where he waited to meet Jenny, it's in Savannah, Georgia, but the bench isn't there.

It's at the north end of Chippewa Park facing Bull Street to the north.

You can't stand or sit there. The park sign is there now with several plants.

But when you take the historic bus tour of town, you will always see people standing at the spot taking pictures where the bench was for shooting the movie.

Used to be war or presidential memorials or old forts were the thing to see, now its finding movie shoot locations.

Even the "Field of Dreams" ballfield in Iowa is a major destination for "movie tourism".

But I am not sure I want to drive to timbuktoo north texas, just to find where a final scene in a movie was done.



kphoger

Quote from: edwaleni on May 19, 2020, 04:33:00 PM
But I am not sure I want to drive to timbuktoo north texas, just to find where a final scene in a movie was done.

Driving to find where the final scene in Thelma and Louise was done, however, is a different deal.
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

1995hoo

Quote from: edwaleni on May 19, 2020, 04:33:00 PM
....

Even the "Field of Dreams" ballfield in Iowa is a major destination for "movie tourism".

....

MLB had planned to play a game there this August, though that's highly unlikely to happen now.
"You know, you never have a guaranteed spot until you have a spot guaranteed."
—Olaf Kolzig, as quoted in the Washington Times on March 28, 2003,
commenting on the Capitals clinching a playoff spot.

"That sounded stupid, didn't it?"
—Kolzig, to the same reporter a few seconds later.

wxfree

I haven't been there.  Reading the description, I'm disappointed that the dialog doesn't match the roads.  The actual intersection is at two FM roads and a gravel road, none of which matches the description.  The only evident place that matches the description is in Shamrock, where you can be looking south on US 83, have a road to I-40 east (BI 40), turn right and go toward Amarillo (also on BI 40), and where the other way is a whole lot of nothing until Canada.  That's in town and none of the roads is gravel.  The southern intersection of US 83 and US 60 still gives you mentions of California and Canada, although there isn't a good connection to I-40 going east, but that intersection, while rural, is built like a mostly at-grade interchange.  The only point where US highway through lanes cross has an overpass.  It doesn't give the kind of isolated feel of FMs 48 and 1268.
I'd like to buy a vowel, Alex.  What is E?

debragga

Quote from: edwaleni on May 19, 2020, 04:33:00 PM
But I am not sure I want to drive to timbuktoo north texas, just to find where a final scene in a movie was done.
This is semantics, but the intersection is in the Panhandle. North Texas is roughly the DFW Metroplex.

kphoger

Quote from: wxfree on May 19, 2020, 08:03:38 PM
I haven't been there.  Reading the description, I'm disappointed that the dialog doesn't match the roads.  The actual intersection is at two FM roads and a gravel road, none of which matches the description.  The only evident place that matches the description is in Shamrock, where you can be looking south on US 83, have a road to I-40 east (BI 40), turn right and go toward Amarillo (also on BI 40), and where the other way is a whole lot of nothing until Canada.  That's in town and none of the roads is gravel.  The southern intersection of US 83 and US 60 still gives you mentions of California and Canada, although there isn't a good connection to I-40 going east, but that intersection, while rural, is built like a mostly at-grade interchange.  The only point where US highway through lanes cross has an overpass.  It doesn't give the kind of isolated feel of FMs 48 and 1268.

It should be pretty obvious to any roadgeek watching the movie that the dialogue doesn't match the highway.  I cringe every time I see that scene.
Keep right except to pass.  Yes.  You.
Visit scenic Orleans County, NY!
Male pronouns, please.

Quote from: Philip K. DickIf you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use them.

Bobby5280

I've driven close to the intersection once (within about 5 miles), as a passenger riding with an Aunt & Uncle on the way back to Oklahoma from Colorado. My Uncle Jim took some crazy, back-road routes to avoid cities and Raton Pass. I normally go through Amarillo and Raton on the way to Colorado Springs. We would up going through Boise City, Guymon and Canadian getting back down to the US-62 junction with US-83 to go East into Oklahoma.

The intersection of FM-48 and FM-1268 isn't very close to my normal OK-CO road trip route. It's about 75 miles North, mostly along US-83, from the normal turn I take onto TX-256 to get to US-287 in Memphis, TX. It would be a little over an hour long side trip to get to the location, and then do some back-tracking to get to TX-152 to cut across to Pampa, Borger and Dumas.

It's funny that I mention TX-152. Going into Oklahoma it turns into OK-152. There's another interesting movie location along that route, the fart in the telephone booth scene in Rain Man (1988). It's at the corner of OK-152 and OK-37 about half an hour's drive West Southwest of Oklahoma City. The movie's end titles feature a still photo of a highway sign at that intersection. The APCO gas station building is still there, but it has been closed for a long time. The W.S. Kelly General Merchandise store sign is badly faded, but it wasn't in great shape back in the 1980's either. There's no phone booth there anymore.

Quote from: wxfreeI haven't been there.  Reading the description, I'm disappointed that the dialog doesn't match the roads.

Not surprising at all. Movies tend to suck at ever being accurate with geography. And they frequently make up pure bull$#!+ when working route numbers into lines of dialog.

Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away, Chuck Noland would more likely have had great, if not genius-level, knowledge of geography and road networks given he built a career working for FedEx. Then there's all the MacGyver-like stuff he did to survive on the island for years. So the idea that he's going to need help getting directions at the end of the movie is really improbable. But the filmmakers had to come up with some ploy to have Chuck Noland standing at that corner to allow for his chance encounter with the beautiful redheaded artist, Bettina Peterson (played by Lari White, who passed away in 2018).

ARMOURERERIC

FWIW, I drive through Hunger Games District 12 as part of my daily work commute.

texaskdog

Quote from: GaryV on May 19, 2020, 12:06:18 PM
We visited the lighthouse in ME 15 years ago.  They told us it was where Forest Gump was filmed.  At that time we hadn't seen the movie yet.  In fact we just watched it in its entirety the first time this past week.

The rare movie that gets better every time.

rte66man

Quote from: Bobby5280 on May 20, 2020, 02:17:22 PM
It's funny that I mention TX-152. Going into Oklahoma it turns into OK-152. There's another interesting movie location along that route, the fart in the telephone booth scene in Rain Man (1988). It's at the corner of OK-152 and OK-37 about half an hour's drive West Southwest of Oklahoma City. The movie's end titles feature a still photo of a highway sign at that intersection. The APCO gas station building is still there, but it has been closed for a long time. The W.S. Kelly General Merchandise store sign is badly faded, but it wasn't in great shape back in the 1980's either. There's no phone booth there anymore.

The hotel on US66 just east of El Reno that doubled as the Amarillo hotel in Rain Man was torn down a few years ago.  The Guthrie building that housed the doctor's office is still there.
When you come to a fork in the road... TAKE IT.

                                                               -Yogi Berra

edwaleni

Quote from: texaskdog on May 20, 2020, 10:20:32 PM
Quote from: GaryV on May 19, 2020, 12:06:18 PM
We visited the lighthouse in ME 15 years ago.  They told us it was where Forest Gump was filmed.  At that time we hadn't seen the movie yet.  In fact we just watched it in its entirety the first time this past week.

The rare movie that gets better every time.

My kids like "Forrest" the story, but all the references to the 60's and 70's go over their head.

While its about a guy who overcomes his handicaps, it's really a yearbook for the boomer generation and how great they perceive themselves, how they felt they were constrained by society but rose above it to become yet more middle class and in their own minds, significant.

A Gump movie about millennials would be completely different in content, but the same in result.

mrsman

Quote from: wxfree on May 19, 2020, 08:03:38 PM
I haven't been there.  Reading the description, I'm disappointed that the dialog doesn't match the roads.  The actual intersection is at two FM roads and a gravel road, none of which matches the description.  The only evident place that matches the description is in Shamrock, where you can be looking south on US 83, have a road to I-40 east (BI 40), turn right and go toward Amarillo (also on BI 40), and where the other way is a whole lot of nothing until Canada.  That's in town and none of the roads is gravel.  The southern intersection of US 83 and US 60 still gives you mentions of California and Canada, although there isn't a good connection to I-40 going east, but that intersection, while rural, is built like a mostly at-grade interchange.  The only point where US highway through lanes cross has an overpass.  It doesn't give the kind of isolated feel of FMs 48 and 1268.

Are there signs showing California and Canada at that location?  Can you provide a GSV link?



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