Rating: 
Summary: Very good film, bad format
Review: I saw this film in the cinema many years ago. Now, with the DVD, i have the chance of see again this film like in the cinema: ERROR!!! The film is presented in Pan & Scan format, then arround 50% of the image is lost. This can't pass in an era of technology. These DVD can't be selled because are a insult to the creators of the film and to those audience that like the cinema art. Don't buy this DVD if you like to see movies like in the cinema.
Rating: 
Summary: Soul Shredding Nuke Film
Review: I think anyone who lived during the nightmarish years of the cold war will recognize the awesome power of "Miracle Mile," a 1988 film starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. There are many films dealing with different aspects of the nuclear nightmare from different perspectives, from "Dr. Strangelove" to "The Day After" to "Testament." There are many other films, most quite good in conveying the stark, mind blasting terror of a nuclear conflagration. I have seen many of them, and a read a few books dealing with atomic Armageddon as well, but none of these books or movies instilled the visceral, pulse pounding fear that I felt after watching "Miracle Mile." Director Steve De Jarnatt created an edge of your seat thriller about everyday people confronting the unthinkable. It's a movie about blind chance, and how people cope when they learn their lives might end in less than an hour. "Miracle Mile" forces you to consider what actions you would take when confronted with the same choices the people in the film face. While we would probably do something different than Harry Washello (Edwards), the final result might well be the same.Harry Washello is unlucky when it comes to women. Then Julie Peters (Winningham) walks into his life while Harry is in Los Angeles touring the tar pits. The two really hit it off and go on a date, then make plans for another outing set for fifteen minutes after midnight when Julie gets off of work at a diner. Harry goes back to rest in his hotel room so he'll be ready to meet Julie later. In what is the first of many morbid "chance" incidents, Harry flips a cigarette butt off the balcony before turning in for his nap. A bird picks up the cigarette and sticks it in a nest on some power lines. The resulting fire, while not serious, does cause a power loss in Harry's room. Harry oversleeps and misses Julie, leading to a devastating situation for Harry because he answers a ringing phone in the booth outside the diner. The man on the other end is a gibbering wreck, ranting and raving about how "it's started" and we only have about an hour before the retaliatory strike reaches the United States. The guy on the phone thought he called his father, but he made a mistake and dialed the phone booth instead. A sinister incident at the end of the phone call convinces Harry that the warning is the real thing, that the end of the world as we know it is a mere seventy minutes away. What follows is a breakneck race for survival as word spreads about what Harry heard on the phone. Harry decides to find Julie so the two can escape from the city via helicopter and then fly out of the country before the bombs hit. A recent viewing of "Miracle Mile" did turn up a few niggling problems. For one thing, the clothing the characters wear is slightly amusing because it's the late 1980s, when clothing looked stupid. I also found the Landa character, played by Denise Crosby, a bit unrealistic. She just happens to be in the diner when Harry fields the phone call? What's with the Cliff Notes for Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow"? Are we to believe Landa has an inside track to what's going on because she happened to date someone at a big corporation? How does this enable her to find out most of the American leadership fled the country? I laughed out loud when she orders some of the diner's customers, who quickly come to believe in Harry's announcement about impending nuclear attack, to make a list of great minds they should warn about the coming conflict. You have a little over an hour to live! You simply don't have time to contact Linus Pauling or other big shots! At this point, any priorities I would have involve getting out of the city before everyone else discovers a nightmare is mere minutes away. And why should Harry spend so much time finding someone he just met? I'm actually not criticizing the film with these comments; I chuckled over Landa referencing Pynchon's magnum opus and checking it against the stock market. And to be fair, Landa does immediately attempt to set up an escape route from the city. I just thought her pronouncements were slightly off kilter. As for Harry hunting down Julie, who knows what we would do in such a situation? I hope I never find out. As a whole, the movie works because the suspense is absolutely grueling. What will happen to Harry and Julie? Will they make it? Moreover, is the threat of war actually real or has it somehow been averted at the last minute? The conclusion to the film is devastating the first time you watch it, and only loses a bit of its impact the second and third time around. Edwards is totally believable as the energetic Harry who functions even though he suspects the worst. I've never cared for Mare Winningham as an actress, but she does a good job portraying the initially clueless Julie. Look for Mykelti Williamson (Bubba from 'Forest Gump') in a small but effective role. A pox on MGM for releasing this on DVD in full screen with a trailer as the only extra. I think a commentary would have been an excellent addition for this powerful film. At least they did release it, and that's better than nothing. I'd love to watch this again for the first time because "Miracle Mile" is most effective when you have no idea what is going on. If you haven't seen this film, get it now.
Rating:
Summary: Great Thriller
Review: I was astounded to find this on Amazon. I saw it in the early nineties on HBO. I have not seen it since. I was fortunate that I watched it from the beginning one night without knowing anything at all about it, and it was a shocker and a roller coaster ride that kept me on the edge of my seat. Mere Whittingham is beautiful in this. I was thinking of calling HBO and asking them why they never show it any more, but now I do not have to. As many reviewers have stated, it starts out as a love story, so if you have friends and relatives who do not know what it is about, do not tell them and do not let them see the box. Just let them enjoy the surprise of it. You will be laughing to yourself as they suddenly see the plot twists and get caught up in it. Some love story.
Rating:
Summary: "Fullscreen" Give me a break!
Review: I was really looking forward to adding this to my DVD collection, but what is this Fullscreen nonsense? Especially for what is a collector's film?
Rating:
Summary: Surreal and Nightmarish -- a minor classic
Review: I was very surprised at how good this movie was -- and that I'd never heard of it before! With liberal doses of Hitchcockian suspense and surreal nighttown sequences, it changes from a sweet though fluffy romantic comedy (I know, but stick with it!) into a harrowing nightmare, all because the protagonist answers a ringing payphone thinking it's his missed date calling. What he hears is terrifying and incredible -- but is it real? The protagonist is a bit of a nerd, a bit of a geek, but goodhearted and likeable-- and though you often feel frustrated he doesn't just bolt and get the hell out of Dodge, why he doesn't is understandable. From the time the phone rings to the end, the movie is filmed in real time and it's a rollercoaster, edge-of-your-seat, harrowing experience, well directed and acted by the principals and minor players alike. With liberal doses, too, of irony -- it begins and ends in the LaBrea Tar Pits (you'll see!) -- the final twenty minutes is gutwrenching and terrifying -- and the ending is most uncompromising, but logical. All in all, a true sleeper, one both apocalypse fans and suspense fans will be impressed with. An excellent film!
Rating:
Summary: BETTER THAN EXPECTED
Review: I watched this DVD movie last night. I didn't expect the movie to be as good as it was. The story-line is very original and it kept me glued to my seat. I felt the movie was a little drawn out in parts though.
What I did like about this impending "disaster" movie was the fact that it did not concentrate on establishing the background of the characters too much. So many other disaster movies do this to make up for a weak script.
Rating: 
Summary: Black and Intense
Review: I'll preface this by saying it's been ten years at least since I saw this movie, but it stuck with me. Watching it is an intense experience, and I think the more intense because of my youth at the time. I'm not to sure how it might play these days, the cold war being officially "over", but with the current level of anxiety perhaps things are not all that different.
This movies is about sheer panic. It is also blackly humorous -- not in a winking way, but rather in that you, through the eyes of its protagonist, are watching human behavior at its very worst. And it would be funny if you weren't just about to die. And it would be funny if you weren't just as frantic as the next guy to preserve yourself and your future. So give it a shot. Oh yeah. Show it to some people who don't know what they're about to see, and see how they react. I'd be especially curious to know if a younger audience today would be more, or less, blase than I was at 25 in 1990...
Rating:
Summary: A Valentine from Dr. Strangelove
Review: It genuinely hurts not to be able to give this, one of the most perfect films about nuclear apocalypse, only four stars ..... but I am totally in concurrence with the other reviewers who are disappointed that MGM chose to release this title in full frame format, rather than theatrical widescreen. On the other hand, it's just good to see it available again at all. As the film opens, our protagonist Harry practices his trombone into the West L.A. evening skyline and reflects on how he had, earlier that day, finally met Julie, the girl of his dreams. "Where do I begin?" he asks in the voice over ..... then we cut to a video about the beginning of life in the universe he is watching at the Museum of Natural History. What follows is a quirky and genuinely sweet romantic unfolding, starting with a chance meeting at the museum, discovering unique mutual interests, meeting the family at a concert in the park, and ending the date with a rather explicit promise of the passions to come on the next date. But a cruel twist of fate makes Harry late to that next date. When he arrives at the all night cafe where Julie waitresses, he intercepts a call in a phone booth that was intended for someone else, learning that the U.S military has launched a secret preemptive nuclear missile strike on an unnamed nation. The frantic caller barely has time to tell Harry that we would be "getting it back" in just under an hour ..... before he is silenced by the sound of gunfire. Then Harry hears a different voice tell him to forget everything he just heard, and go back to sleep. Once Harry has shared this unpleasant revelation with the other early morning cafe patrons, they throw together whatever they can on the spot, cram into the owner's truck and head to the airport to catch the next plane to Antarctica .... but Harry can't bear the idea of leaving without Julie, and bails out to look for her. What follows is a sometimes comical, other times surreal, accumulative nightmare as Harry desperately tries to reunite with his lady love and escape before the unthinkable happens. As word gets out on the impending disaster, the city of Los Angeles is transformed into a madhouse of terrified mobs, gridlocked autos and others bound to fellow humans they can't leave behind. Sometimes just getting out of town is not as simple as it seems it should be ..... Steve de Jarnatt wrote and directed this seamless thriller in 1988, and it was one of those positively (but somehow not widely) received releases that kind of came and went in the theaters. There is a lot of subtle humor that would probably appeal mostly to Angelenos, but the sweet and ultimately desperate romance at the core of this tailspin tale has a universal appeal, I think even to the not-romantically inclined. There are parts that smack of Hitchcock (the scene in the cafe where Harry agonizes over how to reveal this terrible discovery amidst the mundane goings ons), and de Jarnatt has indeed fashioned a bona fide classic here. It is very timely in light of recent events, weaves a shattering vision of the Powers That Be robbing us of the freedom to just live and love without fear, as well as gives us a cautionary look at how society at large would deal with such an event. At the film's less than optimistic finish, we are left with a sense of how precious life can be, if only in the few final moments. Miracle Mile is one of those thrill rides that will make you think and haunt you when it's over .... and had the company that released it given the title the treatment it deserves, this reviewer would have awarded it six stars. It will no doubt find a higher place of honor once our nation adopts a somewhat more responsible stance on military aggression. Until that time, I suppose a good smart adrenaline rush is sufficient. * solo * aug 2003 *
Rating: 
Summary: Time has not done this film well
Review: It was an enjoyable movie, but in many ways really of its time. Its outdated.
Rating:
Summary: One of my top 10
Review: It's always a treat to watch a movie and notice that the director is not afraid of what "they" think of him or her. This film is an eye opener. Please watch with an open mind and remember that it is only a movie.
|
