Miracle Mile

Best Picture honors at the Houston International Film Festival notwithstanding, this is one of the dumbest movies of recent years. Anthony Edwards (Top Gun) stars as Harry Washello, a guy who falls in love (with Mare Winningham) and discovers that the world is going to be blown to bits by a nuclear war, all within the first ten minutes of the film. Washello learns the tidbit about annihilation by picking up a ringing telephone outside a coffee shop at four in the morning. A voice babbles that "we're locked into it, it's 50 minutes and counting." Gunshots are heard, and a shaken Washello goes in to deliver the major bummer news to the inhabitants of the coffee shop--one of whom is a woman with a cellular phone who apparently has high connections (she immediately begins calling up all the important people and arranging for a flight out of L.A. to Antarctica). The remainder of the film follows Washello's efforts to pick up his new girlfriend and find a helicopter pilot for the trip to L.A. International. The latter half of the film is mostly high camp, but its forced--as if, after watching the early rushes, the filmmaker's decided that no one would take the movie's premise seriously, so they decided to make a parody of an action/thriller in the second half. It just doesn't wash. This partly preposterous, partly absurd seriocomic bomb is not recommended; and I'd avoid the drinking water in Houston for awhile too. (R. Pitman) [DVD/Blu-ray Review—June 30, 2015—Kino Lorber, 87 min., R, DVD: $19.95, Blu-ray: $29.95—Making its latest appearance on DVD and first on Blu-ray, 1989's Miracle Mile features a fine transfer and a DTS-HD 2.0 soundtrack. Extras include two audio commentaries (one by director Steve De Jarnatt, moderated by Walter Chaw; the second with De Jarnatt, cinematographer Theo van de Sande, and production designer Chris Horner), a supporting cast and crew reunion (15 min.), a 'Harry and Julie' interview with costars Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham (13 min.), an 'Excavations from the Editing Room Tar Pits' collection of deleted scenes, outtakes and bloopers (12 min.), an alternate ending (5 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid Blu-ray debut for a lame film.]