news
Reel Toronto: Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen
Hollywood bad girls Megan Fox and Lindsay Lohan hanging out in Scarborough. How could we ignore that?
Toronto’s extensive work on the silver screen reveals that, while we have the chameleonic ability to look like anywhere from New York City to Moscow, the disguise doesn’t always hold up to scrutiny. Reel Toronto revels in digging up and displaying the films that attempt to mask, hide, or—in rare cases—proudly display our city.
Because celebrities are the bestest and most important people on Earth, one of our favourite things in doing this column is finding out the funky places they’ve been. There’s something oddly compelling about the idea that Nicole Kidman has been to a Brampton dollar store or that Al Pacino hung out at the Horseshoe Tavern, we think.
It’s in that spirit that we delved into Disney’s happy teen flick Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Sure, it’s not really aimed at our particular demographic, but it’s got Hollywood bad girls Megan Fox and Lindsay Lohan hanging out in Scarborough, and how could we ignore that?
Indeed, the main high school used for this film is Birchmount Park C.I. Here’s Megan Fox hanging in the caf…
…and there’s also shots from all over the place, like this hall area.
However, other shots, like this exterior, were done at King City S.S., which we just saw a few weeks ago, in To Die For.
Of course, this is a reminder that before she went all crazy, Lindsay Lohan did some time acting way on the other end of town, at Etobicoke C.I., for the far superior Mean Girls.
A teen movie’s gotta have a mall, and this one is Erin Mills Town Centre, in Mississauga. You can kinda see the Sears store way in the back there.
You can see this exact same water fountain/escalator combo in Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Don’t dream for a second, uppity 416ers, that downtown somehow dodged the bullet here. A big plot point involves the gals heading into “Manhattan” from “New Jersey” to see this big concert. They come down Yonge Street…
…and head for the show at the Elgin Theatre.
Later, they wander out onto the mean streets of the city. They go by the Flatiron building…
…cross Yonge in front of the Ryrie Building (now home to clothing retailer Buffalo)…
….end up on King West, by Europe Bound…
…and pass this Motophoto, at Victoria and King…
…before stopping in for a snack at the Lakeview Lunch.
There’s also some train ridin’ involved, so Union Station does a turn.
Some films should be thrown in movie jail for denigrating our fine, McCanadian talent. That definitely applies to this one for dragging in the likes of Sheila McCarthy…
…and Tom McCamus. Damn you, Americans and your delicious paycheques!!
Surviving the debacle in style is local gal Alison Pill. She landed a plum role as Lohan’s bestie, which means she had to do things like have pillow fights and then pretend to jam afterwards. Pill has gone on to star in cool stuff like Scott Pligrim, and hit stuff like Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Lohan has gone on to, well, jail. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
(Speaking of which—we like to see a movie that’s so reviled, for whatever reason, that people like messing with its Wikipedia entry. The last time we witnessed this was with The Perfect Man. Unless it’s changed by the time you see this, someone thought it would be funny to pretend this film was shot on location not in Toronto but rather Compton. That’s kinda funny, eh?)