(More on) Real Estate Movies

Stephen Malpezzi has a very well-written essay on real estate movies.

It's a topic that I did not feel up to tackle- preferring instead, to limit the domain to movies concerning real estate agents as opposed to real estate as a whole- that'd definitely include every haunted-house story(my favourite's La Casa dalle finestre che ridono, or The House with Laughing Windows- my introduction to the genre of giallo, the latter being something that I have maintained a morbid fascination with ever since), the carpet- baggers in 'Gone With the Wind'(taken up by Malpezzi) as well as stories on every evil real estate developer out there(Fountainhead- or is that about evil architects and Superman's Lex Luthor?- there's a precious quotation cited in Malpezzi's essay:'Stocks may rise and fall. Utilities and transportation systems may collapse. People are no damn good. But they will always need land, and they will pay through the nose to get it'. Sure beats Mark Twain's 'Buy land. They've stopped making it.') and just about every movie where the house somehow plays a central feature. - I'd start with Mr and Mrs Smith or that cool loft in Hitch(Hollywoodbitchslap says that 'the loft interiors were shot from real lofts in TriBeCa and SoHo, with spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline') Malpezzi cites Citizen Kanes' Xanadu and Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress.

Anyway- do check out Malpezzi's essay. I found the inclusion of HouseSitter and Beetlejuice to be especially inspired.