Every Ohioan knows – and complains frequently – about the state’s poor winter weather.
Waking up to snowfall outside the window is dazzling, but within hours, it either melts into cold, wet puddles, or is ground up by passing cars and feet, turning into gray-brown sludge. Sometimes, it’s better to sink into the sofa, grab a blanket and spiked hot cocoa, and escape into a good movie.
Here are a few films that will surely lift your spirits, helping you get away from the treacherous Ohio weather and into the beautiful settings in which they were filmed.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Featuring an all-star cast, Ben Stiller directs and stars in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, based (extremely loosely) on a short story by hometown boy James Thurber. The film follows the average life of an avid daydreamer who is thrust into a real-life adventure.
When his coworker at Life magazine, a world-renowned photographer, loses the negative to the next cover shot, Mitty must spontaneously chase him around the world to find the negative. The story follows Mitty to Greenland, but the film was shot primarily in the mountainous, snowy landscape of Iceland, in impossible-to-pronounce towns such as Seyðisfjörður, Grundarfjörður and Stykkishólmur.
Though Iceland may not be a particularly tropical or even sunny country, its breathtaking views will bring you to a place where winter inspires adventurousness rather than seasonal affective disorder.
Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Alfonso Cuarón is known for his artistic and daring big screen works, with roles directing Children of Men and Gravity, and producing Pan’s Labyrinth.
Each of his films has an edge, commentary mixed in with the cinematic beauty, and Y Tu Mamá También is no different. The coming-of-age film follows two teenagers as they fall in love with the same woman, and take her on a road trip through rural Mexico in search of a beach called Boca del Cielo.
Though the film isn’t one to watch with the kids, you’ll explore the culturally rich views Mexico has to offer when one ventures outside of the resort gates and into the country’s vibrant and historic lands – even if laying out on a beach towel on Playa del Carmen is more your speed.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Though it might be hard to see the gorgeous views in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain through the inevitable tears, this story of forbidden love between two cowboys presents a simpler – but certainly not easier – time, when it was apparently a thing to get paid to camp and herd sheep alone in the mountains of Wyoming.
However, don’t waste your time scouring Wyoming for the mountain looming behind Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in the first half of the film, because it doesn’t exist. Filming took place not in the U.S., but in Alberta, Canada, an area known for its bright, turquoise waters, picture-perfect Banff National Park and the Rocky Mountains.
Brokeback Mountain might just convince you to break out the snow pants and fur-lined boots for a winter campout, but even if you’re satisfied making snow angels on the couch, watching one of the greatest contemporary forbidden love stories next to a fireplace can’t make for a disappointing day.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
A day may come when The Lord of the Rings doesn’t make a “most beautiful film set” list, but it is not this day.
New Zealand is known for two things: having an absurd number of sheep, and being the exclusive location for Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. No tourist is about to stumble into Rivendell, of course, and we all know the saying about walking into Mordor, but Frodo’s journey is still marked with gorgeous New Zealand views untouched by CGI.
The country’s stunning mountains and glittering lakes can make an outdoors explorer out of anyone, and getting lost within each set on The Fellowship of the Ring is effortless no matter how many times one has seen the movie. Following the Fellowship from the Shire – where tourists are welcome to explore the now permanent set and sample a pint at the Green Dragon – to the woods of Lothlorien and through the Pillars of Argonath (though the statues are CGI), it’s not hard to imagine why New Zealand and Middle-earth have come to be associated.
Amanda DePerro is an assistant editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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