True Beauty - ABC Show

I stumbled upon the ABC reality show "True Beauty" last night. The contestants on the show think that they are on a show called "Face of Vegas" where they are auditioning to become a spokesperson for the city of Las Vegas. In reality they are being secretly judged on their character along with their real spokesperson skills.

The show is pretty much mindless reality fare, but it is chock full of Vegasy stuff. The majority of the show takes place at Planet Hollywood (does every Vegas show or movie take place there?), and in the episode I watched they were hanging out at some pretty noticeable landmarks, including the pool and the CHI Showroom. Penn and Teller made an appearance which is always a plus. Establishing shots of the strip were also plentiful.



The show is nothing special, but I will probably continue to watch because of the Vegas scenes alone. You can watch full episodes online at ABC.com.

Harmon Ave Walgreens Coming to Strip

The 2.16 acre parcel of land on Harmon Ave. south of Planet Hollywood and across from Cosmopolitan and CityCenter is being developed. A 3 story, one hundred thousand square foot retail building will break ground in the next few months. Walgreens will be the "anchor" of the building.

It's definitely nice to see something done with this land. If you have walked past it lately you might have noticed that it is pretty barren and often trash laden. A Walgreens might not be what people expected, but this is a high traffic area, and Walgreens will no doubt do a lot of business. This will be the third Walgreens on the strip. There is one in front of Palazzo and another one just south of this proposed location near MGM Grand.

I always think it's an interesting decision to not include a casino in a new project on the strip. It seems like it would be ideal to develop this land into a small walk in casino similar to that of Casino Royale, O'Sheas or Bill's. You could incorporate a Walgreens into that type of project and still print money from the casino. Obviously there would need to be significantly more investment and planning involved for that type of project though, and perhaps the economy can't handle it yet.

Source: Las Vegas Sun.

Get Him to the Greek - Las Vegas Scenes

Movies and TV shows like to take creative license when filming in Las Vegas. The NBC show "Las Vegas" was famous for their fictional hotel which seemed to change locations up and down the strip every episode. In the movie 21 the characters had a suite at the Hard Rock (off the Strip) that seemed to magically overlook the Bellagio fountains. The iconic Vegas movie Swingers had the characters entering the Stardust, but the interior scenes were actually shot at the Fremont hotel. The Hangover actually did a pretty good job with their Vegas exterior shots. I love the scene where they are overlooking the strip from Caesars and then night fades to day focused on Flamingo and Bally's.

Earlier today I saw the new release Get Him to the Greek. Aside from looking like a reasonably funny movie, I heard that part of the film was in Las Vegas, which was an added incentive to see it. Turns out the Vegas scenes are kind of minor. The characters have a suite at Planet Hollywood. They then see the Rat Pack is Back show at Plaza. After that they are partying in another suite which I guess is supposed to be their original suite at Planet Hollywood. The only problem is the view overlooked the strip from a vantage point which looks south from Trump. The characters then exit the hotel and appear to be around Fashion Show Mall, which makes sense... but then the camera cuts and they are suddenly in front of Paris going north. I'm sure 99% of the moviegoers wouldn't notice this, but it was a pretty obvious goof for Vegas geeks to spot.

So bottom line, Get Him to the Greek was a pretty funny movie, but if you were going for the Las Vegas scenes you might want to wait for DVD.