It's been an exciting week so far in the sleepy, overpriced oasis that is South Park: local resident and Hollywood bigshot Chris Columbus has moved in a crew to shoot a few exterior scenes for "Rent." Some minor tweaks were necessary to complete the illusion that we were back east: extra graffiti was installed, as well as some broken fences, dinged-up taxis, an oddly cinematic hobo encampment, a non-functional hot dog cart, and a rechristening of the knoll to "Tompkins Square Park." We hope these augmentations stay -- a little quaint dinginess really gives the place some character, and balances the freeway-squalor that lurks just outside South Park.
Gothamist, our sister site for people who don't know how to leave Manhattan, had previously secured assurances from Revolution Studios that all of the exteriors would be filmed in NYC's East Village, which is so OK with us we don't even care. No word yet on what made them change their mind, or why the film version of the play (which takes place during Christmas) would require footage of a leafy, summery park.

Our only celebrity sighting: Darryl Chan, who we've never heard of either, but apparantly he's some up-and-coming hot young thing. Also present: an iguana, which may appear in the film, may have belonged to one of the eccentric cast members, or may simply have been a neighborhood resident. An iguana being force-fed lettuce by its impatient handler was probably the most exciting thing we saw all day.

We caught a member of the crew asking how he could light Rosario, and for a moment we were really excited and thought that he meant the chracter from Will & Grace, but apparantly he was just talking about Rosario Dawson. Meh.