On Location: Thunderstruck

It's not uncommon for professional athletes to make the transition into acting. Sometimes it turns into a prosperous second career and sometimes...you get movies like Thunderstruck. The 2012 film was legendary baller Kevin Durant's foray into movie stardom and featured the OKC Thunder in all their glory (kind of). So let's pop the top off this can of Pringles:

A fair amount of the movie was shot in Arkansas but since it takes place in Oklahoma City hey made sure to include some obvious local settings.  The most obvious, of course, is Chesapeake Energy Arena.  Plenty of game scenes were shot there:

The story is essentially your basic body-swap-without-a-body-swap story.  Young Brian is an Oklahoma high school student with dreams of being a basketball star but no actual talent.  After getting the opportunity to try to sink a basket from half court during a game, Brian screws it up monumentally and is consoled by KD.  And that's when this Friday gets freaky:

For no apparent reason they switch basketball ability.  Brian becomes incredible talented while Durant starts to play like a high school bench warmer.  As you can imagine, wacky hijinks ensue.  Instead of breaking down the plot (or "plot") let's take a quick look at the few Oklahoma filming locations they used, like this shot outside the Chesapeake Arena exterior:

Later in the film there's a nice establishing shot of downtown that shows crane work being done on the Devon Energy Center.   It was under construction from around 2009 to around 2012 with the cranes arriving around 2010 giving us a nice little time capsule moment for the movie.

Toward the end of the movie our hero Brian hastily heads over the bridge into the Bricktown area on his way to swap back b-ball powers with KD and you get a nice little look at the area:

Once he gets there it's time to de-magic the magic.  But who was the sinister fiend behind the curse this whole time?  It occurs to the guys that the switch first happened after the basketball bounced off Rumble the Mascot's head so they recreate the incident:

Yep, Rumble was apparently (perhaps unknowingly) the mastermind behind this entire voodoo dumpster fire.  At least the guys got their payback.  That monstrous, cheer mongering prairie dweller will think twice before he curses an NBA legend and some rando kid.

So after that, both of the guys win their respective games (spoiler warning, I guess) and we all learned some kind of valuable lesson...The End.  (Also, Jim Belushi was in this movie.)

 

Top 5 at the Banjo Museum

Previously:

Top 5 at the Harryhausen Exhibit

Top 5 at the Oklahoma History Center  - -  Top 5 at the Museum of Osteology

The American Banjo Museum in the Bricktown area of Oklahoma City is serious about banjos.  And they don't want to mislead you about what's inside.  This place is chock full of wall-to-wall banjos.  Everywhere you look, guess what?  Banjos!  So when it came time to give it the ol' Top 5 treatment, we got into full "banjo mode!"

It's worth mentioning that I don't know anything about banjos or banjo music so if/when I get some detail wrong please go easy on me.  And with that plea for mercy, here's the Top 5 Banjos at the American Banjo Museum:

5.  Hummingbird by Renee Karnes

If you don't think about banjos that much then you probably never think about how banjos are made.  But it's a unique art form and someone who is particularly good at it as Renee Karnes.  She was inducted into the Banjo Hall of Fame in the "Design & Manufacture" category in 2005.  This is one of her creations.

4.  Gibson Bass Banjo

I don't know if I've ever seen or heard of one of these but it seems like it would fill the same role as a standard upright bass in a musical group.  I don't think I've ever seen footage of it being played and I'm genuinely curious as to what it sounds like.

3.  Roy Clark's Banjo

You might remember (depending on your age) the legendary Roy Clark as one of the hosts of Hee Haw but he's also a very prolific musician, member of the Grand Ole Opry, and an inductee in the Country Music Hall of Fame.  He also lived in Tulsa and sang at (fellow Oklahoman) Mickey Mantle's funeral.  This is one of his many banjos.

2.  Gilbrech Automatic Banjo Entertainer  

You're probably thinking to yourself, "That doesn't look like a banjo!?!"  And you're right it doesn't.  The museum describes it as "a one-of-a-kind banjo curiosity!"  It's essentially the equivalent of a player piano.  It was made to play on its own, no banjo player necessary.  That's the kind of banjo I could play.

1.  Smokey Montgomery's Banjo

 Whenever I try to fake my way through a banjo conversation (it happens more than you'd think), I play the "Smokey Montgomery card."  The reason is because he's one of the few banjo players I've actually heard of.  He was a member of the "Light Crust Doughboys" and I worked on a documentary project involving his work a few years back so I was pleased to see one of his banjos here.

So the next time you're in the mood for some pickin' and grinnin' you know just where to go to create you're own favorites list.