City of Angels (1998)
Seth is an angel who accompanies the spirits of the recently dead to the ever after. Seth has never been human and so has never experienced touch or taste. When in the hospital however he comes across Dr. Maggie Rice, a brilliant young heart surgeon who is devoted to her profession and her patients. Seth has the power to let himself be seen but Maggie finds him far too mysterious. Seth also meets a patient, Nathaniel Messinger, who has news for him - he too was once an angel like Seth but chose to fall to Earth and become human. Seth makes a decision on his future, which does not turn out as he had expected.
She didn't believe in angels until she fell in love with one.
Seth: I would rather have had one breath of her hair, one kiss of her mouth, one touch of her hand, than eternity without it. One.
Seth: To touch you... and to feel you. To be able to hold your hand right now. Do you know what that means to me? Do you - Do you know how much I love you?
Seth: Some things are true whether you believe them or not.
San Francisco Public Library Main Branch - 100 Larkin Street, Civic Center, San Francisco, California, USA
Big Bear Lake, Big Bear Valley, San Bernardino National Forest, California, USA
Johnie's Coffee Shop - 6101 Wilshire Boulevard, Fairfax, Los Angeles, California, USA
(Restaurant scene with Franz and Cage.)
Terminal Annex - 900 North Alameda Street, Chinatown, Los Angeles, California, USA
(Maggie's hospital)
Crestline, California, USA
When Maggie asks Seth what he does for a living, he says he is a messenger. In Greek, the word for messenger is "angelos" and is where we get the word angel.
The dedication "For Dawn" refers to producer Dawn Steel, who died of a brain tumor on December 20, 1997, four months before this film's release.
When Seth is smoking in a bar, the man smoking next to him is film director Michael Mann.
The word "angel" is mentioned just two times throughout the movie, during a brief dialogue between Seth and Cassiel when both are walking by the beach to see the sunset. It's the only one time that they claim clearly their condition as angels.
When Meg Ryan is looking in the mirror and Nicolas Cage is not reflected, this was shot twice with motion control: once with Ryan and Cage, once without the actors, and mixed together. Also, if you look closely enough, you can see a few strands of Ryan's hair morphing in and out where Cage's face was erased.
Continuity
When Maggie sees the truck she is about to hit towards the end of the movie, the truck is coming from the right side of the road and making a right turn. Later on when Nicolas Cage comes around to where Maggie is lying, the truck position is in the opposite direction, like it came from the left side of the road.
Maggie wakes up in bed wearing a ribbed tank top. She rolls over to check the time on the clock and suddenly she's wearing a satin spaghetti-strap camisole.
When Seth is cutting the lettuce, he pulls a knife out of the knife block containing 4 or 5 knives. In a later shot, after he has cut his hand, there is only one knife in the block.
When Maggie is in the bathtub, Seth can clearly be seen in the corner of the mirror when Maggie runs her hand through her hair. Then in the next shot (the famous 'no-reflection' scene), he has no reflection.
When Maggie is riding her bike to the hospital at the beginning of the movie, the seat is clearly adjusted quite high. When she parks the bike, the close-up of the bike shows the seat only about two inches above minimum.
Factual errors
When Maggie and Seth are looking at Maggie's blood through a microscope, the image shown is too zoomed in for a light microscope (with a maximum resolving power of around X1500).
When Maggie is performing surgery she says her patient to stick alive to give her Seth number. Seth looks like it's a new, but he's supposed to read her mind, he should already knew she was after him before her to say a word.
Maggie enters the public restroom of the hospital to vomit. The angle from behind the toilet shows marble bathroom stall walls and balloon curtains on the windows. This scene was obviously filmed in the public restroom of either an upscale hotel or restaurant, not a hospital.
Incorrectly regarded as goofs
At Messinger's welcome home picnic, Seth's reflection is visible in the sliding glass door. But Seth can be seen if he wants to be.
Revealing mistakes
Although Seth is a physically invulnerable angel, having never been a mortal human being, his skin is visibly scarred.
Miscellaneous
The rooftop basketball goal is at the corner of the helicopter landing pad where it could come in contact with a rotor.
Audio/visual unsynchronized
When Maggie and Jordan are talking in the locker room and Jordan ask her to marry him, you can see his mouth move, several times, when the camera is behind him, but he doesn't speak in the scenes with the camera behind him.
Character error
When Meg Ryan listens to Dennis Franz's heart with her stethoscope, she places the stethoscope in her ears backwards. (Ear canals angle forward and stethoscopes do likewise - putting them in backwards is painful and can also prevent them from working) Ouch!
Cassiel says one of the fun things about being human would be the ability to lie, suggesting they are incapable of doing so, but a short time later, Seth clearly lies to Maggie when he tells her his last name is "Plate".
When Maggie and Nathaniel Messinger had their first meeting she pronounces his name as Messenger, to which Nathan's wife replies that she should pronounce his name properly and later on Maggie does that, by calling Messinguer. However, Nathan himself and in front of his wife says Messenger as his surname and he isn't corrected at all in future scenes.