2007 Travel Movie Awards: Entirely Arbitrary and Non-Comprehensive Picks

Travel Blog • Eva Holland • 02.22.08 | 12:00 PM ET

In honor of this weekend’s Oscars ceremony, I’ve put together a few shout-outs to some of my favorite travel-related movie moments of the year. These picks make an odd collection, but each one made me curious about a place I’d never been, or made me see one that I had visited in an entirely new light.

Best Turning of a Romantic Travel Cliché on its Head
2 Days in Paris
Plenty of movies show people falling in love, in two days, in Paris. In fact, in a global vote for the most romantic city in the world, Paris would probably be John McCain to everywhere else’s Mike Huckabee. So it’s a bold move on director Julie Delpy’s part to chronicle the unraveling of a relationship there instead.

Most Enticing Crime Scene
Zodiac
How often does a movie about an unsolved string of killings make the viewer want to visit the scene of the crime? That’s just what director David Fincher did with “Zodiac” and the Bay Area. The graphics showing the construction of the Transamerica Pyramid, time lapse photography-style, were a highlight. Of course, it helps that San Francisco is naturally photogenic. And for my part, Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo didn’t hurt the cause either.

Best Love Letter to a City
Hairspray
Because the intro track, “Good Morning Baltimore,” is one of the more unlikely odes to a city that I’ve ever seen on film.

Best Use of Setting to Make a Graphic and Important Point
Shake Hands With The Devil
This one wins for combining the most beautiful setting with the ugliest content. I don’t know how much noise the movie made outside of Canada—it chronicles the early days of the Rwandan genocide, as witnessed by the Canadian Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, commander of UN forces in Kigali at the time. All the major events, right down to specific killings, were filmed on their actual locations in Rwanda.

Best Portrayal of Slackers in the Land of Botox
Knocked Up
Somewhere between the impromptu backyard “American Gladiator” re-enactments and the Darth Vader bong, Seth Rogen and Co. taught me that there’s more to Los Angeles than shiny celebutantes and their well-documented games of rehab musical chairs. It was a slice of L.A. life I’d never expected. Take that, “Entourage.”