Star-studded cast made ‘Beautiful Girls’ memorable moment in history of Minnesota-made movies

Robert Hundley

Tucked less than the limestone bluffs in the heart of Stillwater, you can find a nod to times absent by.

But approximately 3 many years in the past, the Oasis Café experienced a supporting role in one particular of the most star-studded videos at any time made in Minnesota.

Attractive Women was directed by Ted Demme and starred a constellation of youthful stars such as Matt Dillon, Timothy Hutton, Uma Thurman, Mira Sorvino, Rosie O’Donnell, and Natalie Portman in one particular of her initial roles.

The film follows a team of friends as they navigate daily life and love in a smaller town and the Oasis Cafe was immortalized on the silver monitor as the breakfast spot for some of the key people.

“Of all the flicks I have labored on, it really is my favorite,” stated the film’s assistant location manager Anne Healy.

“This was like their hangout, so we shot here. The guys in the motion picture are snowplow men. They get up at the crack of dawn and plow snow and travel snow plows and occur in this article soon after their shift.”

Healy claims the movie was initially meant to shoot in Boston but the producers selected to arrive to Minnesota instead because they considered there would be additional snow.

Regretably, we had a hotter-than-regular winter season that yr, so the crew had to improvise, hiring an expert to make snow out of shaved ice.

“He made a shredder that shreds blocks of ice and makes it look like white snow. It lasts for 12 hrs so you can movie all working day. It truly is genuinely fantastic at night time. We seriously experienced semis coming just about every early morning with blocks of ice. He was hoping to get more than enough blocks of ice from all over the nation to do just about every scene we required to do,” mentioned Healy.

From February to May perhaps of 1995, the output shot at areas around the Twin Cities which include Bryant Lake Bowl, the Hopkins Property, and the 5 Corners bar, even though Stillwater was the stand-in for the fictional town of Knight’s Ridge, Massachusetts, exactly where the tale was set.

But Attractive Women was not the only movie staying made in Minnesota at that time.

“Fargo” and “Sensation Minnesota” ended up also taking pictures in this article and Healy states the actors from all 3 movies were put up at the same resort in downtown Minneapolis.

“Cameron Diaz, that was her first film, ‘Feeling Minnesota.’ And then Keanu Reeves. All the actors from our forged. Steve Buscemi from ‘Fargo.’ They were all at the Marquette. If you have been running errands and went into the resort, prospects are the stars from one of the a few videos that were being taking pictures ended up standing there in the foyer,” mentioned Healy.

Area Supervisor Andrew Peterson suggests that 12 months was the substantial point for Minnesota’s motion picture business, with 3 major motion photographs filming below all at as soon as.

“At that time, we were being the most popular place in the state. Minnesota was the area to be and studios arrived about and around again due to the fact it was a truly pleasurable working experience to shoot here and they liked the crews, they liked the areas, the ease of acquiring close to, the charge of dwelling, the nightlife, the social items they were in a position to do. It was a seriously thrilling time,” claimed Peterson.

In spite of its buzzy solid and mostly favourable evaluations, Lovely Women wasn’t a blockbuster strike but Healy states it has developed a devoted following in excess of the decades, specially on the East Coast.

“It started off obtaining a whole lot of responses from higher education guys. Men in school. It grew to become like their most loved film. So I’ll be someplace and I will say I labored on Stunning Ladies and folks will say that’s my preferred motion picture. It is not Grumpy Aged Guys, but there’s a whole cross-segment of the region that actually loves Lovely Girls,” claimed Healy.

And even although Stunning Ladies wasn’t established in this article in Minnesota, crew users say it retains a one of a kind place in the state’s film-producing history.

“I consider as significantly as ensembles right here, I think it can be by significantly the most starry solid. Supplied the sheer variety of persons. It has a particular location in Minnesota-designed videos in that it was a small shock and awe with the solid,” stated Peterson.

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