3 2
I
D G A M O N T H L Y
CHRISTMAS SHOPPING: Brian Levant, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, staged parts
of Jingle All the Way (1996) at the Mall of America in St. Paul, Minnesota. At
times, Levant found filming "impossible" due to the scale and noise of the crowds
watching production. It was then the largest production to film in the state.
REUNION: Malcolm D. Lee, directing Melissa De Sousa in The Best Man Holiday
(2013), returned to characters he had created in The Best Man 14 years earlier.
When the main characters sing "Can You Stand the Rain" to their female counter-
parts, their surprise is genuine as Lee didn't tell them what the song would be.
HOME ALONE: Nancy Meyers (right) directs Kate Winslet in The Holiday (2006). She
created a lived-in environment for two women who swap houses over Christmas.
Principal photography began in Brentwood, where the Santa Ana winds luckily
gave Meyers a winter day as warm as what the script called for.
CRISSCROSS: One of the convergent story lines in Richard Curtis' Love Actually
(2003) wraps up in a Marseille restaurant where Colin Firth proposes to his former
housekeeper on Christmas Eve. Much of the film was shot on locations around
London, including the opening and closing at Heathrow Airport.
CALIFORNIA DREAMING: Nora Ephron's
screwball comedy Mixed Nuts (1994),
with Steve Martin and Adam Sandler
takes place on Christmas Eve in Venice
Beach. "Somehow, Christmas in Los
Angeles immediately sets the movie
[appropriately] off kilter. It has very
low ambitions, as in low comedy. I just
wanted people to laugh."
— continued on page 35
PHOTOS:
(LEFT-RIGHT
&
TOP
TO
BOTTOM)
20TH
CENTURY
FOX,
UNIVERSAL
PICTURES,
TRISTAR
PICTURES;
COURTESY
NANCY
MEYERS;
UNIVERSAL
PICTURES;
Season's Greetings — continued from page 30
