We can't wait till Thanksgiving to get our fill of a bleak landscape adorned by savage people struggling in a post-apocalyptic world with no hope.

Yep, that would be Western Pennsylvania, all right.

Or at least that would be us as the backdrop for the film version of "The Road," Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a father and son trying to survive while on a long stroll after some undescribed catastrophe. The movie was filmed last winter in the region, using desolate parts of Bedford and Crawford counties and points in between.

The movie is to open Nov. 26, evidently as Hollywood's idea of feel-good holiday fare to enjoy with the entire family. ("Don't worry, Susie, those bad cannibals won't really eat the daddy and little boy. Now stop your crying. More popcorn anyone?")

Just to show that the Pittsburgh area wasn't alone in providing useful images of ugly despair, the filmmakers also shot scenes in post-Katrina New Orleans and on Mount St. Helens in Washington state. Chernobyl must have been off-limits, but hey, Conneaut Lake Park will do in a pinch.

"The Road" is no comedy, but punch lines should be rampant from now to Christmas about how useful Western Pennsylvania was to telling its story. Somehow, our Pittsburgh just seems to fit better than Orlando or Salt Lake City for this stark tale, as the cast and crew pointed out to USA Today for a story published last week.

"It's tangible, the misery and hopelessness and the bleakness," handsome actor Viggo Mortensen said, veering dangerously into Sienna Miller territory as he described our attraction -- or lack thereof. "It gives you much more to work with if you're filming in that world instead of a green screen."

We got a pretty nasty reputation as "hell with the lid off" once upon a time, but actually, that might be more appealing than as the current ground zero for tangible misery, hopelessness and bleakness. At least hell conjures up an image of a warm fire, and everyone likes to gather around those. If Viggo and his filmmaking buddies really wanted bleak, shouldn't they have been here in the 1980s instead?

Obviously, no Pittsburgher is going to take lying down -- unless it's after 2 a.m. Saturday on the South Side -- any demeaning characterizations of his hometown, even when it's purely for cinematic storytelling.

This is, after all, our 250th birthday, and outsiders should recognize the outstanding job we've done to rid ourselves of air, water and sign pollution. (Oh, wait -- scratch that last one.)

On USA Today's Web site for reaction to its story about "The Road," blogger Truth2000 wrote: "I am a dyed-in-the-wool, Steeler-true, Pittsburgher. Articles like this only further the false image most people have of Pittsburgh.

"Like any urban center, we have our share of blighted neighborhoods. We also have MORE than our share of beautiful residential areas. Our skyline is one of the most breathtaking in the country. We have beautiful parks and our rivers can only be described as AWESOME! ... If you have never seen Pittsburgh, I would urge you to visit. You will be shocked, amazed and dissuaded."

When Hollywood makes its next movie about alcohol instead of Armageddon, it may head to Austin, Texas, instead of Pittsburgh.

That's because Austin ended up first, and Pittsburgh 11th, in a new Forbes.com report on America's hardest-drinking cities. The Web site used national health data examining how many people in each city say they had a drink in the past month, have more than two drinks a day or binge drink.

In Pittsburgh, 58.7 percent of residents reported taking a drink in the past 30 days, and 18.2 percent had five or more drinks at least one time. The comparable figures in Austin -- a college town with a thriving music scene --were 61.5 percent and 20.6 percent.

Coming in second on the serious-drinking list was Milwaukee, followed by San Francisco, Providence, R.I., and Chicago.

Still, The Morning File believes Pittsburgh should subscribe to the PR maxim that we don't care what anyone says about us, so long as they spell our name right. For that reason, so long as the makers of "The Road" put an "h" on the end of Pittsburgh in the credits, we'll be glad they were here. And if they want to portray us as looking kind of grim and bleak in the winter, well, we all know what Hollywood can do with special effects.