I enjoyed Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter.” It didn’t come close to making my Top 10 list, but I nodded my head in appreciation when Mick LaSalle put it on his. It was flawed, but interesting and unique — the type of film Clint Eastwood should be making at this point in his career.

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It also contained a mistake that Bay Area native Eastwood definitely should not be making at age 80. During two separate scenes, major characters drive to a cooking class in San Francisco and find parking right in front of the school. These sequences don’t occur in the Sunset District or Potrero Hill, either. I’m guessing based on landmarks and the architecture that they were shot in either Nob Hill or North Beach. (Updated! Apparently I was off by a body of water. See below.)

To be fair, Damon’s character is a psychic, and could have had a premonition about the spot. But this still highlights one of my biggest frustrations about movies that take place in San Francisco: No one ever has to hunt for parking.

When I’m watching a movie that takes place in the Bay Area, I’m usually thinking of two different grades: the overall quality of the film, and the location-specific realism. For example, Philip Kaufman’s “Twisted” would receive a Little Man sleeping, but as a San Francisco film the Little Man would be falling out of his chair. (All of Kaufman’s SF films use the location wonderfully.) “Zodiac” and “The Pursuit of Happyness” are two more recent films that captured the vibe of the city, while getting the logistics right as well.

Below are a few of my specific San Francisco movie frustrations. Yours in the comments …

The presence of hippies: I lived in the Upper Haight for two years in the early 2000s, and still make regular pilgrimages to Amoeba Records and the Pork Store Cafe. And in the last decade, I’ve seen maybe three hippies total in San Francisco. I used to see lots of kids blocking the sidewalk wearing clothes from Urban Outfitters, but I’m guessing they had “The Shins,” not Jefferson Airplane, on their iPods. Other than Paul Kantner and a couple of hippies in Berkeley, I think most of that demographic has moved to Marin.

The disappearance of the Sutro Tower: Please read my post about the subject here. To summarize, it’s the most prominent landmark in San Francisco — visible from more than 90 percent of the city — and yet you only see it in movies made by Kaufman or local indie directors. (In a barely related aside, check out this Uptown Almanac post featuring hard core San Franciscans with Sutro Tower tattoos. I’m guessing Jim Gabbert has one of these.)

Chris Hardy/Chronicle 2001

The disappearance of BART: BART tunnels are used semi-frequently in movies — from “THX 1138” to “The Pursuit of Happyness.” But in the cinematic version of San Francisco, everyone takes cable cars to work. Or they ride Muni across the Golden Gate Bridge. (By the numbers: The cable cars carry just under 10 million passengers per year. BART ridership is just over 100 million. That’s actually closer than I thought it would be. And John Waters did say he sometimes takes the cable car to work …)

No cameos for Frank Chu: Willie Brown has appeared in at least five movies, plus a couple of TV shows. I checked Frank Chu at imdb.com, and his only credit is for some Swedish talk show called “100 hojdare.” I can some sum up this injustice in one word: STRATOSPHERICAL.

The clean sidewalks: This may be surprising from a guy who named his blog “The Poop,” but I hate talking about feces. Apparently so do people who direct films set in San Francisco. I find it odd that I have never walked the block and a half from my BART stop to work without seeing human excrement on the ground. And yet the San Francisco sidewalks in the movies always look like someone scrubbed them with a toothbrush. I totally understand filmmakers who don’t want poop lying around the sidewalk of their shoot. But just once, in the name of authenticity, someone should leave the crap, so Jennifer Lopez has to sidestep it just like everyone else.

The size of apartments: Having middle class San Franciscans living in pricey neighborhoods doesn’t bother me as much as the size of the apartments in movies. In “Hereafter,” Damon’s cash-strapped forklift driver character appears to be residing in a 2,000 square foot flat that an established lawyer would envy. Just once, I want to see a movie San Franciscan begin a scene by converting their futon into a couch.

The wealth of parking: I understand that “Hereafter” wouldn’t have been much of a movie if it showed Damon circling around the neighborhood for 40 minutes, before missing his class and returning home. But as an Oakland native, I would have expected Eastwood to at least have the character return and find a yellow boot on his car. I’ll have to watch the movie again. Maybe the whole thing was a dream …

Let me know what I missed in the comments.

Updated! 1:58 p.m. I’ve received multiple notes from witnesses who said that the cooking school scenes were actually filmed in Emeryville at this school. Thanks to all who e-mailed.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder of this parenting blog, which admittedly sometimes has nothing to do with parenting. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub.