Hollywood, Florida
Words: rakontour Productions
Florida boasts beautiful beaches, perfect palm trees, bikini clad babes and stunning sunsets. Miami based film production company rakontur asks, “Why work anywhere else?” Their 2006 feature documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, examined how the cocaine trade turned Miami into the epicenter of drugs, money and murder in the 1980s, as told by the smugglers, kingpins and assassins who made it happen. rakontur’s 2001 documentary Raw Deal: A Question of Consent explored an alleged gang rape that took place at a fraternity house on the campus of the University of Florida at Gainesville. rakontur’s most recent project, entitled Clubland, is a series of 26 ‘webisodes’ dedicated to exploring the glamorous, and at times gritty, South Beach night club scene. With that much Florida under their belt, who else would we get to list their favorite ‘Made in Miami’ movies?
PORKY’S (1982)
Shot primarily at Fienberg-Fisher Elementary School in Miami Beach, this notorious high school sex comedy ruffled a lot of flamingo feathers down here when it opened, as officials who had permitted director Bob Clark and his crew to shoot at the school were left deliberately in the dark about the story’s raunchy content. Most (in)famous scene: peeking (and poking) through the hole in the girls’ shower.
Shot primarily at Fienberg-Fisher Elementary School in Miami Beach, this notorious high school sex comedy ruffled a lot of flamingo feathers down here when it opened, as officials who had permitted director Bob Clark and his crew to shoot at the school were left deliberately in the dark about the story’s raunchy content. Most (in)famous scene: peeking (and poking) through the hole in the girls’ shower.
ABSENCE OF MALICE (1981)
Sally Field is a Miami reporter in this Sydney Pollack drama-thriller and cable-staple. See it for its Miami locations (Miami Herald building, Vizcaya Gardens, Paul Newman’s character even chills on a boat at a local marina - 3 years before ‘Sonny Crockett’) and Wilford Brimley in one of cinema’s most satisfying conclusions.
Sally Field is a Miami reporter in this Sydney Pollack drama-thriller and cable-staple. See it for its Miami locations (Miami Herald building, Vizcaya Gardens, Paul Newman’s character even chills on a boat at a local marina - 3 years before ‘Sonny Crockett’) and Wilford Brimley in one of cinema’s most satisfying conclusions.
CADDYSHACK (1980)
The 1980s were the golden age of comedy for American film and this shining example helped ring in the decade! Harold Ramis’ classic was shot in country clubs and marinas around Ft. Lauderdale, which not only offered panoramic shots of beautiful golf courses and the intracoastal, but unquestionably contributed to the laid back, improvisational, pot-induced comedic style of the film.
The 1980s were the golden age of comedy for American film and this shining example helped ring in the decade! Harold Ramis’ classic was shot in country clubs and marinas around Ft. Lauderdale, which not only offered panoramic shots of beautiful golf courses and the intracoastal, but unquestionably contributed to the laid back, improvisational, pot-induced comedic style of the film.
ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)
Far from perfect, with its plot liberally borrowed from Major League, director Oliver Stone turned his real-life Miami-fetish into a football faux-epic. Tells the tale of the fictitious professional football team the Miami Sharks; highlights include Dennis Quaid (as a Dan Marino surrogate), colorful Miami location shooting and Stone’s trademark hypnotic editing style.
Far from perfect, with its plot liberally borrowed from Major League, director Oliver Stone turned his real-life Miami-fetish into a football faux-epic. Tells the tale of the fictitious professional football team the Miami Sharks; highlights include Dennis Quaid (as a Dan Marino surrogate), colorful Miami location shooting and Stone’s trademark hypnotic editing style.
BODY HEAT (1981)
Having been shot just north of Miami (in Hollywood, Delray Beach and Palm Beach) did not keep this film noir classic from looking or feeling any less like our own backyard. The sweat pours off the screen in Lawrence Kasdan’s Double Indemnity remake thanks to hot performances from Kathleen Turner (yes, she was HOT) and John Hurt and a sultry jazz-infused score by John Barry (who would later revisit this genre for the far less successful Miami-shot The Specialist (1994)).
Having been shot just north of Miami (in Hollywood, Delray Beach and Palm Beach) did not keep this film noir classic from looking or feeling any less like our own backyard. The sweat pours off the screen in Lawrence Kasdan’s Double Indemnity remake thanks to hot performances from Kathleen Turner (yes, she was HOT) and John Hurt and a sultry jazz-infused score by John Barry (who would later revisit this genre for the far less successful Miami-shot The Specialist (1994)).
MIAMI VICE (TV series 1984-89)
In “MTV Cops”, as it was known to NBC network execs, creator Anthony Yerkovich and exec producer Michael Mann milked Miami better than any motion picture or television project before or since. Over-the-top stories, eccentric characters, outrageous fashions, scenic locations, MIAMI VICE had it all - because Miami has it all!
In “MTV Cops”, as it was known to NBC network execs, creator Anthony Yerkovich and exec producer Michael Mann milked Miami better than any motion picture or television project before or since. Over-the-top stories, eccentric characters, outrageous fashions, scenic locations, MIAMI VICE had it all - because Miami has it all!
BLACK SUNDAY (1977)
For its thrilling third act and famous climax, with a bomb-laden Goodyear blimp crashing into Miami’s Orange Bowl during the Super Bowl, director John Frankenheimer, working from the novel by Miami-based author Thomas Harris (of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fame), weaves one the most suspenseful and intense sequences in motion pictures. (FACTOID: COCAINE COWBOYS’ own transportation guru Mickey Munday helped build special stunt cars for the Miami chase sequence).
For its thrilling third act and famous climax, with a bomb-laden Goodyear blimp crashing into Miami’s Orange Bowl during the Super Bowl, director John Frankenheimer, working from the novel by Miami-based author Thomas Harris (of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS fame), weaves one the most suspenseful and intense sequences in motion pictures. (FACTOID: COCAINE COWBOYS’ own transportation guru Mickey Munday helped build special stunt cars for the Miami chase sequence).
WILD THINGS (1998)
Couldn’t resist. As sleazy and cheesy as it might be (and really is), this movie just OOZES Florida - in all the right and wrong ways! From country club princesses to swamp kids, you need a pickaxe to scrape the grime off of every character in this story. Bill Murray (also in our pick Caddyshack) is hilarious as an ambulance-chasing strip mall ‘abogado’, and then there’s that menage a trois scene that may have been the reason this picture was ever made.
Couldn’t resist. As sleazy and cheesy as it might be (and really is), this movie just OOZES Florida - in all the right and wrong ways! From country club princesses to swamp kids, you need a pickaxe to scrape the grime off of every character in this story. Bill Murray (also in our pick Caddyshack) is hilarious as an ambulance-chasing strip mall ‘abogado’, and then there’s that menage a trois scene that may have been the reason this picture was ever made.
SCARFACE (1983)
Need we say more? You knew the producers of Cocaine Cowboys were not gonna leave this one out! Shot mostly in Los Angeles, thanks to meddling Miami City Commissioners who did not approve of the portrayal of Cuban immigrants in Oliver Stone’s screenplay, this epic masterpiece spectacularly sums up the deadly, tumultuous early 1980s in South Florida. More fact than fiction, Stone and director Brian DePalma managed to faithfully adapt Howard Hawks’ 1932 gangster classic of the same name and create the ideal time capsule for Miami’s “Paradise Lost” years.
Need we say more? You knew the producers of Cocaine Cowboys were not gonna leave this one out! Shot mostly in Los Angeles, thanks to meddling Miami City Commissioners who did not approve of the portrayal of Cuban immigrants in Oliver Stone’s screenplay, this epic masterpiece spectacularly sums up the deadly, tumultuous early 1980s in South Florida. More fact than fiction, Stone and director Brian DePalma managed to faithfully adapt Howard Hawks’ 1932 gangster classic of the same name and create the ideal time capsule for Miami’s “Paradise Lost” years.
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