Best Hollywood References to Denver

In About Schmidt, Alexander Payne’s black comedy about a retired insurance man’s reassessment of his bleak life, Jack Nicholson’s Warren Schmidt sets out from sleepy Omaha in his huge motor home and takes I-80 to Denver, where he hopes to prevent his daughter’s wedding to a dopey waterbed salesman. Payne shot very little of the film here — a few establishing shots and casual exteriors — but in the course of things, Nicholson takes some very specific Denver street directions (“…then turn left on Speer”). Thanks to the magic of movies, Nicholson also winds up in a Denver hot tub that’s not really in Denver — with pushy Kathy Bates.