Movie Locations

Cambridge University wants to shed its elitist image. It thinks soap operas can help. The university said Tuesday that it had written to producers of Britain's three leading soaps -- "EastEnders," "Coronation Street" and "Emmerdale" -- encouraging them to include Cambridge in their story lines.

Last July, the television series “Ugly Betty” moved from Los Angeles, where it has been filmed for two years, to New York, on account of a recently tripled tax incentive. Given that the series, whose third season premieres tonight, is now being shot in the city where it is supposed to take place, you can't exactly call it a runaway production -- more like a "run-to production," perhaps. Still, it feels like a loss for the home team and an injury to local pride, not to say local pocketbooks.

First it was Louisiana. Then it was New Mexico and New York. Now it's Michigan's turn as the latest hot spot for film production. Not since Michael Moore's documentary "Roger and Me" has the Great Lakes state garnered so much attention from Hollywood. Once considered a relative backwater as a film destination, Michigan has lured more than 60 features and made-for-TV movies this year, up from just three last year, according to the Michigan Film Office.

Hollywood would get a little unexpected boost from the proposed $700-billion bailout of the nation's financial system. The bill wending its way through Congress would provide tax breaks worth more than $470 million over the next decade for movie and TV producers that shoot in the U.S. That's not a lot of money, given that the average studio movie costs $106.6 million to make and market, but it could keep some low-budget productions -- and jobs -- from going offshore.

In the freezing forests of Belarus, as the Nazis swept through Europe, handfuls of Jewish refugees banded together under the leadership of the Bielski brothers to survive the killing winter and beyond. But they didn't just survive; they struck back, attacking German soldiers and collaborators, performing acts of sabotage and supporting other partisan groups. All told, the Bielskis are said to have rescued about 1,200 Jews. And you've probably never heard of them until now.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is not happy that an upcoming HBO drama exploring prostitution is set to be filmed in the city. The show, "Gentlemen of Leisure," is based on the 1999 documentary "American Pimp" and would focus on a middle-aged pimp who wants to get out of the business. Production is scheduled for next year, though no permits have been issued for filming. Dellums and other city officials say they worry the show would promote a negative image of the city. Oakland's film coordinator says another HBO crime show, "The Wire," has had a positive impact on tourism and the economy in Baltimore, where it was set. Dellums' chief of staff said the mayor's office is open to further talks with HBO.

HOW do you light a man on fire, blow seven others to bits, choreograph a gun battle with 20 shooters, discharge 400 special-effects squibs, shatter a panoramic hotel window, separate an FBI agent's torso from his waist, then show a neo-Nazi to his seat -- which happens to be a chain saw -- all in mere minutes? The secret lies with writer-director Joe Carnahan and the team of specialists he brought in to handle the wet works in his new movie, "Smokin' Aces," opening Jan. 26.

BEFORE Interstate 40 bypassed them and drove a stake through their heart, this broiler of a town on old Route 66 and its modernist landmark, Roy's Motel and Cafe, thumped with life day and night. Roy's atomic-age neon sign competed with the stars three hours east of Los Angeles. It was a beacon of civilization to weary travelers rocketing along America's Mother Road, a sign of hope to motorists whose cars had croaked in the desert heat.

Fans of the television series "M*A*S*H" would recognize this rugged terrain. In the show's standard opening, two helicopters swooped over craggy peaks to land on a dusty plateau, where military doctors rushed to save the wounded soldiers aboard. A magnificent backdrop -- but not in South Korea. The popular CBS-TV series, which ran from 1972 to 1983, was filmed in a remote area of the Santa Monica Mountains that is now part of Malibu Creek State Park, near Agoura Hills.