As we entered the small town of Superior, Arizona, this billboard was glaringly conspicious
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(from my journal) Several years back we rented U-Turn, a film starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, and Nick Nolte. It's set in Superior, Arizona. Bobby Cooper (Sean Penn) is is carrying a bag full of money to Vegas to pay off some Russian mobsters when his car breaks down off a U-turn in this 'hick' town. Yes, he's not a nice guy. Nobody in this movie is a nice guy. They all attempt to use others, and their plans backfire, big time. It's a depressing movie. If there are real people like these characters, I sure wouldn't want to meet them. Superior, Arizona, however, is a real town. In fact, it's just up the road a few miles from Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum, of which you faithful readers have seen so many pictures. This movie was filmed in Superior, but the town was nothing like the real Superior, Arizona. Laura, Julia and I laughed at the stereotypes of the desert. We saw more vultures, animal head skeltons and rattlesnakes in this one movie than Arizona probably has in the whole state. ''Just the thing to generate tourism,'' we joked. ''Yes, this'll scare away all the rampant growth our state has been seeing.'' In every scene, we were made aware of just how hot, dusty and sweaty everyone was. The set designers re-facaded a ghost town section of Superior for the film - made, of course, to look just as hardscrabble as possible. Nothing is real about their depiction of Superior, Arizona, except for one billboard! Yes, the billboard of the blue eyed Jesus is real.
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