By Cathy Burroughs
Wouldn’t it be nice if life were like our favorite movies? Romance as passionate as The Notebook, a daily routine as smooth as James Bond’s or super human powers like the cast of X Men? Well…that’s probably not going to happen to any of us any time soon, but you can still come kind of close if you know where to find the right spots. And by spots, I mean hotels.
Traveling movie buffs, eat your heart out.
The Park Hyatt Tokyo: We featured the Park Hyatt as one of the top 5 hotels in Tokyo, and it’s obvious that Sofia Coppola thought pretty highly of it, too. Her film Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, is set in this luxurious hotel where the main characters look to discover their true selves.
The Bellagio Resort, Las Vegas: The Bellagio has seen some of the most on-screen time of any hotel in the world. Aside from the obvious Ocean’s films, you can find it gracing a whole bunch of pieces of cool cinema — personally, I’d recommend Dodgeball, Head of State, and Knocked Up.
Grand Hotel Pupp, Czech Republic: This hotel was the fictional Hotel Splendide in the Bond film Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig. In reality, the Pupp is in the Czech Republic in one of Europe’s leading spa towns. It’s also considered the premiere getaway for stress relief near Prague.
Hotels de Chevaliers, France: In the prequel to Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited, Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman star in Hotel Chevalier. This short film reveals a long-term (and, uh, pretty steam) relationship between the two characters and sets the groundwork for Anderson’s next feature. From the beginning, the hotel can easily be seen as that shining rock on the hill…of France.
Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills: This Beverly Hills Four Seasons is the location for most of Pretty Woman with Julia Roberts getting to see just what the hotel has to offer throughout the film. Some even say you can still see her traversing its long, winding corridors — black stilettos and all — to this day. Yah, we’re just kidding.
The Fairmont San Francisco: San Francisco’s iconic hotel since 1907, the Fairmont is considered the White House of the West Coast because nearly every president has stayed there. The Rock, starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, features this hotel as Connery’s place to stay throughout the film. His $12,000 a night, 6,000 square-foot suite even features a grand piano.
