Don't look for the Pittsburgh money shots in "The Road." You know, the sort that pop up on "Monday Night Football" or as the backdrop for political reporters positioned atop Mount Washington.

"We don't really get to see bright shiny beautiful Pittsburgh," Buddy Enright, unit production manager for "The Road," said this week before packing up and heading to Lake Erie. "It's all rural," with a couple of exceptions.

"The Road," an adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel about a father and son searching for food, shelter and safety in an unsafe world, required gray skies, wintry bare trees and a topography that helps to tell the story. No chirping birds or blue skies required or wanted.

"It's a cold, gray world, and we really expected that, and we got it here and frankly, we're getting out of town in the nick of time with the trees budding and blooming," he said.

"The story starts in the mountains and ends up at the sea and we realized we could tell the story kind of geographically through the Pennsylvania landscape here in Western Pennsylvania using the mountains, using the farmland, using river bottoms," he said.

Eight miles of closed roadways and tunnels, plus access to areas distressed by coal mining and other problems, the city's filmmaking history, its unions and affordability all factored into the movie's coming here.

"I think it's pretty important for the people of Pittsburgh to know we're here because of all the work that the [Pittsburgh] film office and the state legislature's done to bring filmmakers here."

Enright hopes to return with other projects but made a pitch for the Commonwealth to look at passing longterm tax incentives, as other states are beginning to do, so producers can plan and spend for the future. They need space -- for set building and decoration, for storage and for soundstages impervious to ambient sound.

"It's a great place, I think everybody agrees; it's a great place to be," he said.

Once a Pittsburgher, always a Pittsburgher.

Carl Kurlander proved that theorem during the Sonoma Valley Film Festival, which attracted a 93-year-old woman from Mountain View, Calif., who left Pittsburgh in 1954 but still considers the place home.

She saw Kurlander's "My Tale of Two Cities" during the festival, which also honored actor-turned-director Michael Keaton, earlier this month.

Pittsburghers past and present jammed a party, co-hosted by Pittsburgh 250 and Steeltown Entertainment Project, after the "My Tale" debut.

"It was remarkable how many Pittsburghers -- or those with Pittsburgh roots -- showed up to watch the movie and have Iron City beer and chipped chopped ham in wine country," Kurlander said.

His movie tells two stories: one about his return to Pittsburgh from Los Angeles and the other about the city trying to reinvent itself. Plans are under way to show the movie Nov. 28 at the Byham Theater here, possibly with David Newell -- Mr. McFeely from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" -- leading the crowd in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?"

A movie starring Randy Travis as a successful actor whose faith is put to the test will be shown three times this weekend at First United Methodist Church, 3916 Old William Penn Highway, Murrysville. Admission is free.

The movie, called "The Wager," is being screened at roughly 1,000 churches across the country and will be shown today at 6:30 p.m. (as part of a family night with food and activities for younger children), tomorrow at approximately 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.

"The Wager" asks if it's possible to live the Sermon on the Mount today. Travis plays an Oscar-nominated actor whose life starts to fall apart as he faces allegations of adultery and child molestation amid a media firestorm.

Nancy Stafford, Jude Ciccolella, Candace Cameron Bure and Doug Jones are part of the cast of the film based on the book by Bill Myers. Go to www.murrysvilleumc.org for more information and directions.

"East of Liberty: The Fear of Us" will be shown Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the Union Project at the corner of Negley and Stanton Heights avenues.

Admission is $5 and a question-and-answer session will follow with filmmaker Chris Ivey; Hilary Brown, outreach director of the Union Project; Maelene Myers, executive director, East Liberty Development Inc.; Nathan Wildfire, community outreach, East Liberty Development Inc.; and others.

Ivey will film the follow-up discussion for possible inclusion in future segments of the documentary series about urban redevelopment in the East Liberty area.

"The Fear of Us" follows "A Story of Good Intentions," Ivey's debut documentary about East Liberty's path to revitalization and the upheaval of subsidized housing residents as their high-rises were demolished. In the second part, residents are relocating to new housing.

Ivey says the film "echoes not only nationwide sentiments in regard to gentrification fears, race and class relations but also internationally," with the series getting overseas exposure. Go to www.eastofliberty.com for more information.