Most of the 1996 comedy (at least I think it was supposed to be a comedy) Beautiful Girls was filmed in Stillwater, Minnesota a.k.a. the fictional town of Knights Ridge, Massachusetts. Stillwater is about thirty miles east of Minneapolis on the St. Croix River, but early in the movie Paul (Michael Rapaport) proposes to his girlfriend while she is working at Minneapolis's bowling alley / restaurant Bryant Lake Bowl... she tells him no.

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Overlooking Lake Monona in Madison, WI is the Monona Terrace. Originally designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (a Wisconsin native), it was rejected by a single vote in 1938. Wright continued to alter and refine his plan for the terrace until he died in 1959.

Plans for the terrace were resurrected in 1990, and the project was completed in 1997.

On top of the terrace is a memorial to the soul singer Otis Redding. On December 10, 1967, Redding was flying to Madison with his Stax Records backing group, the Bar-Kays, when their plane crashed into the icy waters of Lake Monona. Except for one member of the Bar-Kays, everyone aboard the plane died.

The crash came three days after Redding had recorded "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay," which would become his first #1 hit song. He was 26 years old.

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I attempted to watch Untamed Heart recently because it was filmed in Minneapolis, but I only lasted about forty minutes. Christian Slater plays someone who is possibly autistic (didn't watch long enough to find out if they explained him at all) who works at a diner and falls in love with his coworker Marisa Tomei. The diner, Jim’s Coffee Shop & Bakery, used to be located on Central in northeast Minneapolis near downtown.

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In 1969, a group of four musicians known as "The Swampers" left nearby FAME Recording Studios to form their own studio. The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio created a number of legendary hits, and The Muscle Shoals Sound Rhythm Section (The Swampers changed their name) was the first rhythm section to own their own studio and, eventually, their own publishing and production companies.

Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, Cat Stevens, and more have all recorded at the facility. The Staple Singers recorded "I'll Take You There" at Muscle Shoals Sound. Paul Simon heard the song, loved it, and got the rhythm section to record with him for "Kodachrome" and "Loves Me Like a Rock."

The Rolling Stones were here from December 2-4, 1969, when they recorded "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses." According to legend, Keith Richards was doing coke in the bathroom while the engineers pleaded with him to get into the studio. Richards responded that wild horses couldn't get him to come out.

Bob Dylan recorded "Gotta Serve Somebody" here in 1979, which won him a Grammy for Best Male Vocalist in 1980.

Although the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio has since moved to an updated facility on Alabama Ave in Sheffield, AL, the original building is occasionally used. The Black Keys recorded their album Brothers here in 2009, which won a Grammy in 2011.

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Jack White's record label Third Man Records (a nod to the Orson Welles film noir The Third Man) has its physical location in Nashville. The building, topped with a Tesla Tower, serves as a record store, production office and recording studio. Some bands that have released albums on the record label, founded in 2001, include The White Stripes, The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs.

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