This is pretty rare, few movies take place in our former town - off the top of my head I can think of Doug Liman's Jumper (see Dubai Was In That Movie Jumper!) and a deleted scene from Iron Man (see Iron Man In Dubai).
Oh, and there was the whole dust up about shooting part of Sex in the City II there (see Sex And A Different City).
Anyway, last night we finally watched Duplicity. It wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was okay.
Of course, the footage from Dubai is all fudged - the first shot of the movie is Jumeirah Beach Residence, up by the Dubai Marina. Thing is, ground was broken on JBR in August of 2002, and this shot is supposed to be July of 2003? Construction in Dubai is quick, but not this quick.
This footage has to be from 2005:
Next, you might remember four months ago the controversy about this flick was the party takes place at the US Embassy in Dubai. Thing is, the US Embassy is in Abu Dhabi, Dubai has a Consulate.
But it looks like they fixed that for the video release:
Sadly the Consulate is not nearly that cool looking. It's actually on the 21st floor of the Dubai World Trade Centre, a very utilitarian 1970s-style building:
Anyway, the scene is pretty quick, and we center mostly on Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. Of course, I can still nit-pick the background extras, who seem to be mostly of African descent.
The one dish-dash we see looks more like a white sweatsuit - I can't imagine there's no authentic Arabic gear in any Hollywood costume house?
Anyway, Dubai isn't doing so hot as a true location in movies, but the same can be said for the state of Maine (insert joke about poorly-accented lobsterman saying "You cahn't get theya from heya" now.)
I just can't believe movies aren't real ...