Steve De Jarnatt created two apocalyptic movies that have stood the test of time, even if they've been somewhat forgotten: Cherry 2000 and this film. He also helped write 1983's SCTV movie, Strange Brew, a fact which I'd always list first on my resume.
His movie Miracle Mile sat for a decade, one of the best scripts that Hollywood knew about but balked at making, as De Jarnatt refused to change the downbeat ending. It almost started with Nicholas Cage and Kurt Russell as the leads and at one point was going to be the only tale in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Taking place in real time over a single day and night, this movie is all about Harry (Anthony Edwards, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Julie (Mare Winningham, St. Elmo's Fire), a couple who meet at the La Brea Tar Pits and instantly fall in love. The only problem is that Harry picks up a payphone and learns from Chip - a scientist trying to call his father - that there are only seventy minutes until the world ends.
As Harry tells everyone in a diner about the phone call, one of the diners named Landa (Denise Crosby, Tasha Yar herself), calls a number of politicians in Washington on her wireless phone - a rare thing for 1988 to be honest - and learns that they're all heading for the extreme Southern Hemisphere. She charters a jet to Antarctica - a place with limited rainfall - and offers to take most of the diner's customers with her.
Within hours, Los Angeles has descended into chaos, with Harry even inadvertently causing several deaths. The end is a mixture of fulfilled promise and wasted potential and the end of everything. This isn't a movie full of fun and joy, to be perfectly honest, but it is not free from hope.
Look for John Agar - star of several B films (Night Fright, Revenge of the Creature) and John Wayne movies - as well as Kurt Fuller, who played the sleazy promoter in the Hulk Hogan vehicle No Holds Barred, Brian Thompson (the Night Slasher from Cobra), Robert DoQui (who played Sgt. Warren Reed in RoboCop), Sam Shepherd's wife O-Lan Jones (who was in Edward Scissorhands), Lucille Bliss (the "Girl with the Thousand Voices" who was Smurfette and Crusader Rabbot), former felon and later screenwriter Edward Bunker (he wrote Straight Time and Runaway Train), Peter Berg (who would go on to direct Friday Night Lights) and Jenette Goldstein (who would go on to appear in Aliens and Near Dark). Fred the Cook was going to be played by Eraserhead star Jack Nance, but the actor decided that he wanted to focus on his job of being a security guard instead.
Ironically, Earl Boen plays a character named Harlan, named for writer Harlan Ellison. Boen is in just about every Terminator movie, which is ironic, as Ellison sued the creators of Terminator for stealing their idea from two of his Outer Limits scripts, Soldier and Demon With a Glass Hand.
In 2017, Tangerine Dream released the version of the score that they delivered to the director. Several of the tracks on this version are simply musical effects that they created for the film. It was the twelfth movie that they did the soundtrack for.
If the payphone from this film still exists, it's phone number would be 323-254-9411. Feel free to give that number a call.
His movie Miracle Mile sat for a decade, one of the best scripts that Hollywood knew about but balked at making, as De Jarnatt refused to change the downbeat ending. It almost started with Nicholas Cage and Kurt Russell as the leads and at one point was going to be the only tale in Twilight Zone: The Movie.
Taking place in real time over a single day and night, this movie is all about Harry (Anthony Edwards, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and Julie (Mare Winningham, St. Elmo's Fire), a couple who meet at the La Brea Tar Pits and instantly fall in love. The only problem is that Harry picks up a payphone and learns from Chip - a scientist trying to call his father - that there are only seventy minutes until the world ends.
As Harry tells everyone in a diner about the phone call, one of the diners named Landa (Denise Crosby, Tasha Yar herself), calls a number of politicians in Washington on her wireless phone - a rare thing for 1988 to be honest - and learns that they're all heading for the extreme Southern Hemisphere. She charters a jet to Antarctica - a place with limited rainfall - and offers to take most of the diner's customers with her.
Within hours, Los Angeles has descended into chaos, with Harry even inadvertently causing several deaths. The end is a mixture of fulfilled promise and wasted potential and the end of everything. This isn't a movie full of fun and joy, to be perfectly honest, but it is not free from hope.
Look for John Agar - star of several B films (Night Fright, Revenge of the Creature) and John Wayne movies - as well as Kurt Fuller, who played the sleazy promoter in the Hulk Hogan vehicle No Holds Barred, Brian Thompson (the Night Slasher from Cobra), Robert DoQui (who played Sgt. Warren Reed in RoboCop), Sam Shepherd's wife O-Lan Jones (who was in Edward Scissorhands), Lucille Bliss (the "Girl with the Thousand Voices" who was Smurfette and Crusader Rabbot), former felon and later screenwriter Edward Bunker (he wrote Straight Time and Runaway Train), Peter Berg (who would go on to direct Friday Night Lights) and Jenette Goldstein (who would go on to appear in Aliens and Near Dark). Fred the Cook was going to be played by Eraserhead star Jack Nance, but the actor decided that he wanted to focus on his job of being a security guard instead.
Ironically, Earl Boen plays a character named Harlan, named for writer Harlan Ellison. Boen is in just about every Terminator movie, which is ironic, as Ellison sued the creators of Terminator for stealing their idea from two of his Outer Limits scripts, Soldier and Demon With a Glass Hand.
In 2017, Tangerine Dream released the version of the score that they delivered to the director. Several of the tracks on this version are simply musical effects that they created for the film. It was the twelfth movie that they did the soundtrack for.
If the payphone from this film still exists, it's phone number would be 323-254-9411. Feel free to give that number a call.