Film Review: MIRACLE MILE (1988, Steve De Jarnatt)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 87 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Anthony Edwards (ER, REVENGE OF THE NERDS), Mare Winningham (ST. ELMO'S FIRE, TURNER & HOOCH), Kurt Fuller (GHOSTBUSTERS II, Russell Finely in WAYNE'S WORLD), Eddie Bunker (RESERVOIR DOGS, RUNAWAY TRAIN), Robert DoQui (ROBOCOP, King George the Pimp in COFFY), O-Lan Jones (THE RIGHT STUFF, MARS ATTACKS!), John Agar (NIGHTBREED, CHISUM). Music by Tangerine Dream.
Tag-line: "You just found out that you have 24 hours to live. What are YOU going to do?" Hey, what is this, a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure?
Best one-liner: "There's lots of good actors in this town with insomnia and nothing better to do than stupid things like that..."

MIRACLE MILE, directed by Steve de Jarnatt (CHERRY 2000), is an exceptional example of the slow build. Obviously it helps that there's music by Tangerine Dream, whose 80's film work was typified by relentless, dark arpeggios hammering toward cathartic, explosive crescendos. This thunderous, soaring repetition was well-used in these scores: the rising tension as a 'Nam vet seizes Central Park in THE PARK IS MINE!, the mounting supernatural doom in THE KEEP, the countdown to the face-off with the school's biggest bully in THREE O'CLOCK HIGH- and it's perfect for MIRACLE MILE, a film built around the premise of (possibly) impending nuclear holocaust.

A chance phone call leads to a world spiraling out of control, and the result is somehow the exact median between AFTER HOURS (1985) and PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! (1962). Beautifully photographed by the often misused Dutch cinematographer Theo van de Sande (BODY PARTS, WAYNE'S WORLD), it's full of glossy colors that pop, striking visuals, and disorienting modern edifices: kind of Scorsese by way of Tati.



Anthony Edwards brings the proper sense of bookish urgency, but Mare Winningham just barely pulls off what she has to. There's excellent bit parts by Robert DoQui (COFFY, THE MAN) as an irascible, survivalist diner cook:

and Eddie Bunker (STRAIGHT TIME, RUNAWAY TRAIN) as a crabby nightwatchman (who even gets in an in-joke about his real-life prison time). (Side note: the Bunker role was evidently meant to be played by Jack 'ERASERHEAD' Nance, but he either couldn't or wouldn't get the time off from his own rent-a-cop gig!)

The film doesn't try to get political: we have no idea who, or what, is behind the supposedly imminent attack- instead, our enemy is the whirling, spinning clock; our struggle the one between sheer, sociopathic survival and being hellbent on saving the ones you love. An excellent film, and one that packs an unexpected punch. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: COFFY (1973, Jack Hill)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 91 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Pam Grier, Robert DoQui (ROBOCOP), Sid Haig, Alan Arbus, Brooker Bradshaw.
Tag-lines: "The Baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town!"
Best one-liner(s): "I go away for half an hour for you to turn a trick... and I come back and find you ballin' some niggah bitch! You WHITE TRAMP!"

A car door opens. A man emerges. He's wearing a goldenrod one-piece jumpsuit, revealing most of his chest. He has a ridiculous silver belt buckle, a gold-encrusted cane, a maroon felt fedora, a pointy collar, gold chains, a cape, ginormous sunglasses, and a 'stache.

No one has EVER looked more like a pimp. Suddenly, a song: "King George! He's a pimp!" It's perhaps the most blatant case of 'stating the obvious' in film history. And Jack Hill's COFFY manages to do it with a completely straight face. With no irony, no 'wink and a nod.' And THAT is why COFFY works, in a nutshell. Pam Grier is a force of nature, and she gives this film its ferocious, untamable energy. COFFY is one wild sprint through L.A.'s underworld with beatings, verbal barbs, catfights, and "B*tch, I'll cut you's." COFFY's got it all: ridiculous tag-lines ("Coffy- she'll cream you!," "No one sleeps when they mess with Coffy!"), broken-bottle fights, lesbian prostitutes, one-eyed villains (see also: Hill's SWITCHBLADE SISTERS), over-the-top racists (who get theirs, of course), completely low-rent sets, Sid Haig as a vicious hoodlum, and Pam Grier doing a laughable Jamaican accent (while undercover). It's got all this, and then it's got a serious social message, too.

The revenge-seeking Coffy is forced to confront a crooked black congressional candidate who makes an impassioned plea to save his life- "Black people want dope, and brown people want dope, and as long as there people are deprived of a decent life, they'll settle for anything to just plain feel good with." He argues that his nefarious doings are part of a larger, positive social agenda. But is he to be believed? That's up to Coffy. And because the filmmakers were earnest (see also: the blaxploitation scene in Hill's SWINGING CHEERLEADERS), COFFY actually carries some weight. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

COMING SOON: Reviews of Jack Hill's SWITCHBLADE SISTERS and THE SWINGING CHEERLEADERS.