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[olimario]

CBS
http://www.cbs.com/specials/suburban_madness/

Did anyone catch this on CBS tonight? This happened in my hometown of Friendswood, Texas and it happened to my girlfriend's orthadontist.

It's so odd seeing your town so inaccurately portrayed in a TV Movie like this. The school colors were wrong, the locations were terribly off, and the scenery wasn't close to anything you'd see in Friendswood, much less Texas. It looked like it was filmed in New England somewhere.

And on top of that, the Texan stereotypes were atrocious. The country western band playing at the hotel was wearing these hokey, 80s dress-up cowboy outfits and playing 1970s country music. I don't think that Hotel has ever featured a country western band. It's a very fancy place that usually has somebody playing their grand piano.

They did little to no research of Friendswood, Texas and that upsets me a lot.
Hell, they seemed to do little to no research of the story. It's like they read an Inquirer piece about it and decided to base a movie around the inaccurate piece they read.


-In the movie, the hotel where it happened was called the Bayview and wasn't on a lake.
-In real life, the hotel is a fancy Hilton and it's situated on Clear Lake.

-In the movie, the school colors were teal and white.
-FHS's school colors are blue and white.

I just wish they'd spend more time on big specials like this one. Do their research, captures the atmosphere of the home town, and get all of the details correct.

 

[Particle Physicist]

texas has 3 of the top 10 fattest cities in america.

as for the story.. i cant say it sounds compelling at all. sounds like a Lifetime movie..

 

[olimario]

But see, those are exactly the kind of details that don't matter in this kind of thing. It makes no difference to the story, and nobody cares that they got it wrong except people who happen to live there. So why would they bother?

Accuracy... Commitment to quality? I don't know.
I know that if I had to make something like this, something that would hit national TV, I'd do as much fact checking as possible.

Too much liberty was taken making this, I believe.

 

[Dan]

a) This is not journalistic in nature. It's a movie based on true events.

b) The core audience is not going to give a rat's ass about such trivial details.

c) The only people who are even going to notice such mistakes are the people living in your unheard-of town.

 

[Manabanana]

I saw that building and my first instinct was, "I wanna roll that!" ...Too much Katamari Damacy.

 

[olimario]

I saw that building and my first instinct was, "I wanna roll that!" ...Too much Katamari Damacy.

I see street signs and sections of fence and think the same thing.
WAY too much Katamari.

 

[B'z-chan]

Its not just you guys. I was watching the begining of Boston Legal while fliping channels and was like: Oh my lets roll this mofo down.... Whats sader is that i started to talk like the king of the cosmos earlier tonight.

Katamari is infectious.