Steve de Jarnatt's "Miracle Mile"
December 21, 2024 5:34 AM Subscribe
Miracle Mile (1988) has the logic of one of those nightmares in which you’re sure something is terrible, hopeless and dangerous, but you can’t get anyone to listen to you. Besides, you have a sneaking suspicion that you might be mistaken. The film begins as a low-key, boy-meets-girl story, and then a telephone is answered by the wrong person and everything goes horribly wrong. Much of the movie’s diabolical effectiveness comes from the fact that it never reveals, until the very end, whether the nightmare is real, or only some sort of tragic misunderstanding. - Roger Ebert (assume spoilers everywhere, inclduing below the fold)
This is not a spoiler but the random call to a pay phone in the beginning is from someone that just said they launched all of their nuclear missiles and apparently called the wrong number trying to frantically warn their family. Good movie.
posted by Brian B. at 6:01 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 6:01 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
it left my jaw on the floor
IIRC, the VHS box had a large blurb saying “Prepare to be blown through the back of the theater!”
Which would be more fitting for Die Hard, also released that year, but yeah, it packs a wallop.
posted by Lemkin at 6:01 AM on December 21
IIRC, the VHS box had a large blurb saying “Prepare to be blown through the back of the theater!”
Which would be more fitting for Die Hard, also released that year, but yeah, it packs a wallop.
posted by Lemkin at 6:01 AM on December 21
I saw this when it came out and have always loved it, despite the poor acting across the board. The script is just great. A little known tidbit is that this was originally going to be Twilight Zone as a movie but then Spielberg said he wanted to do a Twilight Zone movie so this got shoved aside for that shit movie they ended up making where John Landis' outrageous conduct killed Vic Morrow and those kids.
Me and my friends still occasionally drop "Not me! Not Spongey!" when confronted with whether we did something.
posted by dobbs at 6:02 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
Me and my friends still occasionally drop "Not me! Not Spongey!" when confronted with whether we did something.
posted by dobbs at 6:02 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
one of those incredible movies that i highly recommend and will never watch again (exceppppt, I'm seeing it on streaming services and I'm really tempted)
posted by kokaku at 6:03 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
posted by kokaku at 6:03 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
Charlie Brooker:
Biggest Lurch of Tone
Awarded to little-known movie Miracle Mile (1988), which starts out as a twee rom-com in which a nerdy musician and a waitress meet and fall in love in downtown LA – until a wrong-number call informs them that a nuclear war has broken out, with Soviet missiles due to hit the city in 70 minutes. From that point on, it’s pretty much realtime, and not very comforting.
posted by doctornemo at 6:20 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Biggest Lurch of Tone
Awarded to little-known movie Miracle Mile (1988), which starts out as a twee rom-com in which a nerdy musician and a waitress meet and fall in love in downtown LA – until a wrong-number call informs them that a nuclear war has broken out, with Soviet missiles due to hit the city in 70 minutes. From that point on, it’s pretty much realtime, and not very comforting.
posted by doctornemo at 6:20 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
A bunch of us watched this in college and were stunned. We played the game of "well, what would *you* do if you picked up that phone?"
One friend really admired the character played by Denise Crosby (yes, ST:TNG's Tasha Yar) because she *knew* what was going on and immediately made contact with sources, then made plans and acted on them.
posted by doctornemo at 6:21 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
One friend really admired the character played by Denise Crosby (yes, ST:TNG's Tasha Yar) because she *knew* what was going on and immediately made contact with sources, then made plans and acted on them.
posted by doctornemo at 6:21 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Last note: your regular reminder that this horror was how Generation X grew up. We knew well that the missiles could fly any minute.
posted by doctornemo at 6:23 AM on December 21 [11 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 6:23 AM on December 21 [11 favorites]
I saw this about a month before the Berlin Wall fell. At 12 years old, my dreamscape was consistently nuclear apocalypse-oriented. This film kicked the waking obsession into overdrive but watching the Wall come down in real time tempered my fears. Great movie—dark, goofy, and haunting. Time for a re-watch.
posted by Token Meme at 6:24 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
posted by Token Meme at 6:24 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
That was a good book, dobbs. The part that stands out years after read it is Landis mugging for the cameras going into the courtroom, shouting “it’s a Shonda! It’s a Shonda for the goyim!”. Not exactly the expected solemnity of someone defending three wrongful deaths.
posted by dr_dank at 6:25 AM on December 21
posted by dr_dank at 6:25 AM on December 21
this horror was how Generation X grew up
A while back, for old time's sake, I used NukeMap to project a 1 MT air burst over my city's airport. (A likely target in a full-scale Russian attack, I've read.) My house would be near the edge of the thermal radiation radius. So assuming my very old house hadn't collapsed on top of me, I would probably live long enough to at least see everything burning outside my window.
posted by Lemkin at 6:35 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
A while back, for old time's sake, I used NukeMap to project a 1 MT air burst over my city's airport. (A likely target in a full-scale Russian attack, I've read.) My house would be near the edge of the thermal radiation radius. So assuming my very old house hadn't collapsed on top of me, I would probably live long enough to at least see everything burning outside my window.
posted by Lemkin at 6:35 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
We did similar things, Lemkin.
I've told this story before - there was a document circulating around 1983, I think a CIA publication, listing best estimates of Soviet nuclear targets. One was the giant GM assembly plant less than a mile from our house.
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
I've told this story before - there was a document circulating around 1983, I think a CIA publication, listing best estimates of Soviet nuclear targets. One was the giant GM assembly plant less than a mile from our house.
posted by doctornemo at 6:42 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Last note: your regular reminder that this horror was how Generation X grew up. We knew well that the missiles could fly any minute.
This is a movie I became aware of around 15 years ago, and despite an ongoing interest in periodically returning to bathe in the cultural soup of my formative years, as a kid deeply shook up by “Threads”, “Testament” and “When the Wind Blows”, I’ve never been able to make myself watch it.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:42 AM on December 21 [5 favorites]
This is a movie I became aware of around 15 years ago, and despite an ongoing interest in periodically returning to bathe in the cultural soup of my formative years, as a kid deeply shook up by “Threads”, “Testament” and “When the Wind Blows”, I’ve never been able to make myself watch it.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:42 AM on December 21 [5 favorites]
One was the giant GM assembly plant less than a mile from our house
That's the lottery winner! You'd be inside the fireball and never even know what hit you. Instant atomization.
I'd be happy to go that way myself, when the time comes. (Minus the actual nuclear explosion, of course.)
posted by Lemkin at 6:53 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
That's the lottery winner! You'd be inside the fireball and never even know what hit you. Instant atomization.
I'd be happy to go that way myself, when the time comes. (Minus the actual nuclear explosion, of course.)
posted by Lemkin at 6:53 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
Russian generals have their priorities. He who stops the production of the Chevy Vega wins the war.
posted by dr_dank at 7:00 AM on December 21 [6 favorites]
posted by dr_dank at 7:00 AM on December 21 [6 favorites]
A repeated watch on late night HBO growing up Gen X. One of my first exposures to both gay characters in a film (stereotypes abound but one was a helicopter pilot who wouldn't leave without his partner iirc) who happened to be competent and part of the plot.
Goofy in retrospect. Devastating in the moment.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 7:06 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
Goofy in retrospect. Devastating in the moment.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 7:06 AM on December 21 [3 favorites]
ryanshepard, it's very different from the apocalyptic classics you and I were so strongly marked by.
Much of the film is carried by doubt, the possibility that this isn't happening, whereas Testament etc. are utterly certain.
And there's the genre/tone mix, a very sweet love story.
posted by doctornemo at 7:31 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
Much of the film is carried by doubt, the possibility that this isn't happening, whereas Testament etc. are utterly certain.
And there's the genre/tone mix, a very sweet love story.
posted by doctornemo at 7:31 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
one of the better movies for when I want to re-live my time as a young adult in West LA in the late 80s.
posted by torokunai2 at 7:32 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
posted by torokunai2 at 7:32 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Russian generals have their priorities. He who stops the production of the Chevy Vega wins the war.
Not in this case, dr_dank. That plant had retooled to make engines for the M-1 Abrams tank.
posted by doctornemo at 7:32 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Not in this case, dr_dank. That plant had retooled to make engines for the M-1 Abrams tank.
posted by doctornemo at 7:32 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
I saw this once around the time it came out, and didn't see it again after that until it played a movie marathon I was at a few years ago. I was surprised at how well it held up. The acting is definitely a bit uneven, but the uncertainty and tension building up is great.
posted by rmd1023 at 8:14 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
posted by rmd1023 at 8:14 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
This one of my three or four favorite movies EVER. I have a list of things. I could fill the whole page.
Instead, I will make a list:
This movie, along with Steve's other feature Cherry 2000 (a wild postapocalyptic thing starring Melanie Griffith) have both been restored by the boutique Blu Ray label Kino Lorber and are due out by the end of the month. The new edition of Miracle Mile comes with three audio commentaries, several of Steve's short films, a cast reunion, interviews, location notes, and on and on.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:31 AM on December 21 [25 favorites]
Instead, I will make a list:
- Steve de Jarnatt is at the pleasantly retired stage of his career and if you make a public post on Facebook saying something nice about this movie, in all likelihood he will send you a friend request. I know of at least three people connected with him this way, including me. He's a very nice/cool Gen X/Boomer cusp person who regularly shares funny stories. He probably likes the band you like and is mad about the same thing you are from the news.
- Although Steve didn't get to make movie after movie like he dreamed, he had a nice career, working regularly in TV. He did a cool pilot with Joh Hawkes. He worked on Aeon Flux, American Gothic, X-Files, and Lizzie McGuire. The last of those may sound out of place, but the staff and stars were nice people, it was pleasant work, and it's how he made much of his money. You gotta eat.
- Miracle Mile was a famous script, one that kept nearly going into production for years. During this time, Steve was sought after. He also wrote Strange Brew and went into pre-production on and shot footage for a Mickey Rourke boxing movie that sounded cool but got nixed. He did a fair bit of uncredited script doctoring.
- One of the times Miracle Mile nearly got made, it would have had several times the budget and starred Kurt Russell and Rosanna Arquette. When there was a management change at the studio, the project was canceled. Steve held the rights and moved it to its eventual home at Hemdale. Russell still wanted to do it, but his agents didn't want him to make a low budget film at that stage in his career.
- I teased Steve that one of the plot points in Miracle Mile involves Harry pining over a photograph of a girl he met that day. Did he snap pics when we weren't looking, then run immediately to a one hour photomat? I asked. If you think that's stupid, Steve said, why did an alarm clock that he has to wind by hand have a power cord and stop working during an outage?
- Steve and the stars got together a few years back for an anniversary screening. Edwards and Winningham enjoyed reconnecting and started dating. They have since gotten married.
This movie, along with Steve's other feature Cherry 2000 (a wild postapocalyptic thing starring Melanie Griffith) have both been restored by the boutique Blu Ray label Kino Lorber and are due out by the end of the month. The new edition of Miracle Mile comes with three audio commentaries, several of Steve's short films, a cast reunion, interviews, location notes, and on and on.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:31 AM on December 21 [25 favorites]
The threat of nuclear war has never gone away, we just stopped making movies about it. Happy holidays.
posted by spudsilo at 8:31 AM on December 21 [5 favorites]
posted by spudsilo at 8:31 AM on December 21 [5 favorites]
your regular reminder that this horror was how Generation X grew up. We knew well that the missiles could fly any minute.(coughs in Baby Boomer) No hiding in hallways for us; it was under the desk while teacher read us a story.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 8:35 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
(coughs in Baby Boomer) No hiding in hallways for us; it was under the desk while teacher read us a story
Obligatory Lewis Black
posted by Lemkin at 9:13 AM on December 21
Obligatory Lewis Black
posted by Lemkin at 9:13 AM on December 21
Saw the movie once - it was decent. But this is one of the examples of Ebert's review being better than the movie. Damn I miss him.
posted by davidmsc at 9:27 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
posted by davidmsc at 9:27 AM on December 21 [2 favorites]
ebert is not only one of the most insightful American film critics ever, but one of our most consistent and powerful essayists on humanity. his passing was a heartbreak and loss.
posted by j_curiouser at 10:56 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
posted by j_curiouser at 10:56 AM on December 21 [4 favorites]
For my money, this is a better chaos-in-the-city-at-night movie than even Scorsese's After Hours.
It is, at turns, absurd, sad, shabby, sweeping, scary, and itchy as hell.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:18 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
It is, at turns, absurd, sad, shabby, sweeping, scary, and itchy as hell.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:18 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Great film but one which displays one of those annoying Hollywood tropes: the bespectacled protagonist loses his glasses midway through but it doesn't seem to phase him.
Two visions of Lost LA: during the opening credits, what happened to that then-modern-day mural visible at 4:15-4:30? I've searched for it in the La Brea Tar Pits museum, in vain (I have a suspicion it was remodeled into oblivion). And of course the Pan Pacific Auditorium, which burned down a few months after filming.
See the whole movie in the Internet Archive.
posted by Rash at 11:51 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Two visions of Lost LA: during the opening credits, what happened to that then-modern-day mural visible at 4:15-4:30? I've searched for it in the La Brea Tar Pits museum, in vain (I have a suspicion it was remodeled into oblivion). And of course the Pan Pacific Auditorium, which burned down a few months after filming.
See the whole movie in the Internet Archive.
posted by Rash at 11:51 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
And BTW you can ignore the drag queen's recommendation, Doctor Hogly Wogly’s Tyler Texas BBQ is nothing special, certainly not worth the schlepp out to Van Nuys.
posted by Rash at 11:54 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Rash at 11:54 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]
IIRC, the VHS box had a large blurb saying “Prepare to be blown through the back of the theater!”
Which would be more fitting for Die Hard, also released that year, but yeah, it packs a wallop.
That was indeed the tagline in the theatrical trailer for Die Hard, but you’re still correct: Miracle Mile quoted a variation from a review in the Houston Post.
posted by EmGeeJay at 12:51 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Which would be more fitting for Die Hard, also released that year, but yeah, it packs a wallop.
That was indeed the tagline in the theatrical trailer for Die Hard, but you’re still correct: Miracle Mile quoted a variation from a review in the Houston Post.
posted by EmGeeJay at 12:51 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
It's one of accomplished-character-actor Kurt Fuller's best films.
posted by detachd at 1:01 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
posted by detachd at 1:01 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
I'm gen x and may be one of the only ones who as a kid was not bothered by the possibility of nuclear war, I guess. My friends and I never discussed it and honestly I don't recall any drills at school to prepare for the possibility. Mind you, I also did not watch apocalyptic media about it. Maybe it's just another "typical" experience of childhood I missed out on.
posted by maxwelton at 2:01 PM on December 21
posted by maxwelton at 2:01 PM on December 21
>this horror was how Generation X grew up. We knew well that the missiles could fly any minute.
They still could, and may well, and everybody knows it. It's not really an experience that's the property of a particular generation.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:14 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
They still could, and may well, and everybody knows it. It's not really an experience that's the property of a particular generation.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:14 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
Thanks Lemkin for the post: I thought it was kind of a random recommendation, but it's on Amazon Prime so I watched it without reading any more about it. It was quite good. I've never seen it before, so I got the full dose of the "diabolical effectiveness" that Ebert talked about.
posted by netowl at 3:17 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
If you think that's stupid, Steve said, why did an alarm clock that he has to wind by hand have a power cord and stop working during an outage?I watched that scene again, and he's just setting the alarm. It probably would have been better to use one of those flip clocks that had the "clock running" spinner, and the close-up of it stopping.
posted by netowl at 3:17 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
I don't recall any drills at school to prepare for the possibility.
We never had any. Boomers did; by our time, they knew the drills were a waste of time.
posted by doctornemo at 4:27 PM on December 21 [3 favorites]
We never had any. Boomers did; by our time, they knew the drills were a waste of time.
posted by doctornemo at 4:27 PM on December 21 [3 favorites]
I don't think I've seen that, but it looks unmissable. Thanks for the post Lemkin and for the archive link Rash.
A film of similar vintage telling the story of an evening gone badly wrong, and which I enjoyed enough that I recently bought the DVD, is After Hours [trailer], which has lower stakes but retains some intensity. While looking to buy that (I'd forgotten its title in the intervening decades) I also ran across Into The Night [trailer] from the same year, which has slightly higher stakes and perhaps a heavier-hitting cast. Make a movie night of it!
posted by BCMagee at 4:33 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
A film of similar vintage telling the story of an evening gone badly wrong, and which I enjoyed enough that I recently bought the DVD, is After Hours [trailer], which has lower stakes but retains some intensity. While looking to buy that (I'd forgotten its title in the intervening decades) I also ran across Into The Night [trailer] from the same year, which has slightly higher stakes and perhaps a heavier-hitting cast. Make a movie night of it!
posted by BCMagee at 4:33 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
Miracle Mile is a great film, but after I saw it in the 90s, I walked around for a couple of weeks in a state of distress. Like, it disturbed me greatly. And because there was something about it that I could never shake off, even decades later, I watched it again a year or two ago, and it holds up as a powerful movie. But, you know, I think I actually would have been better off never having seen it. That movie is like racing toward a brick wall at a hundred miles per hour and being fully aware of what is about to happen.
posted by jabah at 5:36 PM on December 21 [5 favorites]
posted by jabah at 5:36 PM on December 21 [5 favorites]
He worked on Aeon Flux, American Gothic, X-Files, and Lizzie McGuire.
Anybody involved with American Gothic is okay in my book. Yeah, the network screwing around with it pretty well wrecked it by the end. (What the hell business did the CBS of Matlock and Murder She Wrote have trying to air something like that in the first place?) But it was amazing while it lasted.
And his other movie was Cherry 2000!??! Jesus, I think I need to look this guy up and send him a bottle of Scotch for Christmas or something.
posted by Naberius at 6:55 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
Anybody involved with American Gothic is okay in my book. Yeah, the network screwing around with it pretty well wrecked it by the end. (What the hell business did the CBS of Matlock and Murder She Wrote have trying to air something like that in the first place?) But it was amazing while it lasted.
And his other movie was Cherry 2000!??! Jesus, I think I need to look this guy up and send him a bottle of Scotch for Christmas or something.
posted by Naberius at 6:55 PM on December 21 [1 favorite]
METAFILTER: by our time, they knew the drills were a waste of time.
posted by philip-random at 7:25 PM on December 21 [3 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 7:25 PM on December 21 [3 favorites]
I'm happy to see a couple references to Testament here - I'm a GenX elder and yeah, that movie messed me up deeply. I remember my boyfriend's mom making idle conversation with me by saying, "Oh, so what was that movie you guys saw about?" and me bursting into tears at her dinner table.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:44 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:44 PM on December 21 [2 favorites]
So many "small" films with unsparing themes and plotlines came out in the late eighties / early nineties: this film, The Rapture with Mimi Rogers, and John Huston's beautiful final film, James Joyce's The Dead with Gabriel Byrne and Anjelica Huston. Those are just a few.
I think the 21st century equivalents of these films are the Vince Gilligan TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, in terms of craft and pulling no punches. Perhaps there are cinematic equivalents as well, but I'm much older now, so individual films don't make as much of a mark on me as they used to.
I've seen "Miracle Mile" only once and that was in the theatre on its release. Don't think I'll return to it, don't need more "bleak," but it is an amazing film.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 12:26 AM on December 22 [3 favorites]
I think the 21st century equivalents of these films are the Vince Gilligan TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, in terms of craft and pulling no punches. Perhaps there are cinematic equivalents as well, but I'm much older now, so individual films don't make as much of a mark on me as they used to.
I've seen "Miracle Mile" only once and that was in the theatre on its release. Don't think I'll return to it, don't need more "bleak," but it is an amazing film.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 12:26 AM on December 22 [3 favorites]
I just watched it, because later comments made me think I'd missed a difference in tone between this and the two movied I mentioned. Yes, sorry, I had.
It probably would have hit a bit harder if I'd seen it at the time. Watching it now I felt as though the seriousness of intent wasn't done justice by the writing, although I can't pinpoint why.
I also enjoy watching old media and spotting people I know from later stuff though, and it didn't stint there. Mike Monroe and Barbara Semanski off Northern Exposure! Shape Shifter Guy from the X-Files! Tasha Yar from STTNG! That one guy who always plays comically bad bosses, raving at the end with his shirt off!
posted by BCMagee at 3:22 AM on December 22 [1 favorite]
It probably would have hit a bit harder if I'd seen it at the time. Watching it now I felt as though the seriousness of intent wasn't done justice by the writing, although I can't pinpoint why.
I also enjoy watching old media and spotting people I know from later stuff though, and it didn't stint there. Mike Monroe and Barbara Semanski off Northern Exposure! Shape Shifter Guy from the X-Files! Tasha Yar from STTNG! That one guy who always plays comically bad bosses, raving at the end with his shirt off!
posted by BCMagee at 3:22 AM on December 22 [1 favorite]
Edwards and Winningham enjoyed reconnecting and started dating. They have since gotten married.
This is one of the sweetest bits of fallout (sorry) from this production. I'll bet they still call each other Harry and Julie, too.
Me and my friends still occasionally drop "Not me! Not Spongey!" when confronted with whether we did something.
Inspecting the credits, I wonder, who was Spongey? He's not listed by name; I guess he was the Babbler, Howard Swain? (I was hoping it was somebody famous who just happened to be available for a walk-on, like maybe Neil Young.)
posted by Rash at 9:22 AM on December 22 [2 favorites]
This is one of the sweetest bits of fallout (sorry) from this production. I'll bet they still call each other Harry and Julie, too.
Me and my friends still occasionally drop "Not me! Not Spongey!" when confronted with whether we did something.
Inspecting the credits, I wonder, who was Spongey? He's not listed by name; I guess he was the Babbler, Howard Swain? (I was hoping it was somebody famous who just happened to be available for a walk-on, like maybe Neil Young.)
posted by Rash at 9:22 AM on December 22 [2 favorites]
^ As a kid, I was thoroughly convinced that Spongey was played by Alice Cooper.
posted by Token Meme at 9:43 AM on December 22 [2 favorites]
posted by Token Meme at 9:43 AM on December 22 [2 favorites]
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posted by Dhertiiboi at 5:39 AM on December 21 [1 favorite]