While Angelina Jolie was filming scenes for Salt in Albany over the weekend, Brad Pitt took their sons, Pax and Maddox, to Niagara Falls for some good old fashion sight-seeing. Pitt, along with his parents, brought the boys for a ride on the Maid of the Mist where the family took pictures of each other in front of the falls and even wore the goofy blue ponchos just like everyone else!

Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling will begin filming the new romantic comedy, Blue Valentine, in the Scranton, PA area next month. But first, they will film a scene at the Wayne Delaware Manor, an assisted living center located just across the Delaware River from Narrowsburg, NY sometime this week.

Today, we checked out the set of Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, in Albany, NY.

According to IMDb,the movie is about Evelyn Salt (Jolie), a CIA officer who swore an oath to duty, honor, and country. When she is accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper spy, Salt goes on the run to clear her name and ultimately prove she is a patriot. Using all her skills and years of experience as a covert operative, she must elude capture and protect her husband or the world’s most powerful forces will erase any trace of her existence.

They are shooting scenes just off of I-787, Exit 3B in downtown Albany (the exit and surrounding exits are closed). You can see the whole production (including Angie) from the highway. We got a few shots of her as we drove by and then pulled off and parked about a block from the set. We were lucky we came across a PA who pretty lax about the whole thing and let us stand just a few feet away from where they were shooting. Because we were in a parking structure on a roof and she was filming on a truck we were eye level with all the action.

The scene involved Angie hanging onto the roof of a 40 foot shipping container speeding down the highway. Her body double was there too but it looked like she was doing most of today’s stunts herself. We watched them film the scene three times and got some great shots of Angelina in between takes. She looked relaxed and seemed to be having a good time.

For more pictures and info, check out our sister site, onlocationvacations.com.

Update:

It looks like Albany isn’t the only upstate location that will be featured in Salt. Tug Hill may also appear in the movie. Location Scouts looking for a snowy location are interested in using a farm in the Tug Hill region for an  exterior shot. There is no word on when the shoot will take place or if it already has. What we know for sure is that Ang won’t be there.

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It was announced this week that Colgate University will welcome Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,  in October for the next edition of the university’s Global Leaders Lecture Series.

SU is also welcoming a world leader this year. Vice President Joe Biden, a Syracuse University Grad, will deliver SU’s commencement address in May.  Vice President Biden will also be presented with an honorary degree from the university during the commencement ceremony, which will be held Sunday, May 10th in the Carrier Dome.

The Late Night with Jimmy Fallon house band, The Roots, will be joining Etta James at the Turning Stone Resort and Casino on May 5th at 8 pm. Tickets for the event, taking place in the Showroom, begin at $55. Some people are criticizing Jimmy Fallon for taking too much time off. The show will be on hiatus again next week allowing The Roots Band to make an appearance upstate.

This year’s Syracuse International Film Festival starts Thursday and includes a line-up of over 100 films from around the world. Highlights of the fest include a screening of Appoloosa with one of the film’s stars, Tom Bower, and the closing night gala featuring World’s Greatest Dad, starring Robin Williams. The movie’s director Bobcat Goldthwait will be on hand to discuss the film as well. Tickets to most screenings are only $8 and are available at the SYRFILM website.

Upstate New York is in the spotlight again for another tragedy. It has been revealed that the “Craig’s List Killer” is a 2004 graduate of VVS and a recent graduate of University at Albany.  Philip Markoff was arrested in the Boston-area as a suspect in the “Craig’s List Killer” case Monday. Markoff is currently attending Medical School at Boston University and is engaged to be married. He is accused of meeting women offering erotic services on online classified advertising site Craigslist.com and then attacking and robbing them in Boston–area hotels.

Last night on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, he did his weekly Headlines bit where he reads poorly worded, humorous newspaper headlines. Savvy Upstate New Yorkers may have noticed “Utica O-D” handwritten on one of last night’s articles. The headline refered to a tractor trailer accident that involved pie and injured 18 people.  We tried to find the headline on the OD’s website but, of course, it wasn’t there.

A Rotterdam man won $50,000 on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”  yesterday.  Fred Ebert, a special education teacher at Niskayuna High School and a Rotterdam resident,walked away with $50,000 on the ABC game show.  Ebert first appeared on Friday and the show continued over to Monday, though it was actually taped on an earlier date.

“Ebert had a chance at $100,000 when asked a question in the “Latitude Adjustment” category, but, not being sure of the answer, he declined to offer a guess and risk losing the $50,000.

The question was: “Which of these world cities occupy roughly the same latitude?: A: Washington, D.C., and Athens; B: Rio de Janeiro and Mumbai; C: Paris and Tokyo; and D: London and Beijing. The correct answer is A, Washington, D.C., and Athens.”