Bring Forth August 23rd, 2017!

Welcome to the first day of the regular format of this blog.   Hope you find it 10% informative, 20% fun, 8% nutritious, and well I lost count of all those percentages.

I SAW IT

MIRACLE MILE (1988)

What do you do if you think you've finally found the love of your life, but a random phone call may be telling you that your life only has about 80 minutes left?   That is the concept behind Steve De Jarnatt's at times lovely, at times utterly harrowing film, MIRACLE MILE.  

Anthony Edwards has finally found his soul mate in waitress Mare Winningham.  He promises to pick her up at work one night, but he oversleeps.  When he finally wakes up and arrives at her diner, she is already gone but the pay phone outside is ringing.   With no one else around, Harry (Edwards) answers it.   It may be a practical joke, or it may be a soldier calling from a missile silo that the nuclear warheads have been launched, and that the retaliation is on the way from our enemy.

Harry then must find his girl, Julie (Winningham), convince her and others that their lives might very well be on the verge of ending, and then try to figure out a way to escape before the bombs actually hit them in Los Angeles.  The meat of the story takes place fully during the darkest of night and the very edges of dawn, when all but a few odd characters are deep in slumber.  The plot almost unravels in real time, and you never know until the last five to ten minutes whether the bombs are actually on the way or not.   Do Harry and Julie have a chance, or are all of their machinations truly futile.

MIRACLE MILE is still a very beautifully made, very haunting, and at times, very sad, film.  It keeps you guessing, and throws enough interesting, eccentric characters to make the journey to resolution ever enjoyable.   

Cool fun cast in support of Edwards and Winningham, too!   You've got John Agar, Myketi Williamson, Robert DoQui, Denise Crosby, Kelly Jo Minter, Jenette Goldstein, and, in a small but rare good guy part, Brian Thompson.  It's a cast made specifically for genre lovers.  This was Steven De Jarnatt's second film (after 1987's CHERRY 2000) and although this film is wholly succesful, De Jarnatt spent the rest of his directorial career in television.   Truly a shame, because he had a nice eye and could have found a sweet niche in science fiction-type films.

Oh, yeah.... TANGERINE DREAM!   Another great 80's score from them.  I'll hopefully touch on them a lot here.

Sadly, with our current political climate and talk of skirmishes with North Korea, the plot of MIRACLE MILE has taken on some unwanted relevance.   If you've spent anytime worrying about a nuclear holocaust in the last few weeks, this miiiiight not be the film to make you feel better.

I HAD IT ON MY WALL

Oh, Joe Dante.... you hold a place in my heart with your fun creature movies and your tongue deep in cheek.










CRUSH OF THE DAY

TOM SKERRITT

Can't lead off any better with a bio of Tom Skerritt than what is at the top of his IMDb page.  "Lean, ruggedly handsome leading man and supporting actor whose "outdoor" looks have improved with age."   He's also an actor who for the longest time looked quite a bit YOUNGER than his actual age.   When he looked to be in his early to mid 40's, he was pushing 60.   He's starting to look a little more like his 84 (84!!!) year old self now, but the dude always has been, and still is, totally badass.

An actor with over 150 credits to his name, Skerritt started his career doing the usual weave between telvision roles and smaller film ones.   He had M*A*S*H, THIEVES LIKE US and THE TURNING POINT on his resume, but Tom always had the time to show up in great genre films like BIG BAD MAMA and THE DEVIL'S RAIN or make people laugh in UP IN SMOKE.  

Skerritt's peak years start with playing "Dallas" in the iconic sci-fi/horror film ALIEN in 1979 and run for about 15 years.  He gets leads in films such as SILENCE OF THE NORTH, OPPOSING FORCE and FIGHTING BACK (more on that below), as well as snaring key supporting roles in huge hits like TOP GUN.   Skerritt moved into a television lead in 1992 with the offbeat and wonderful PICKET FENCES (which I was obsessed with during its run and severely need to purchase and rewatch), which ran for four seasons.

Skerritt still puts in solid work on a couple of projects a year, including TED, WHITEOUT, A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING, and this year he still has LUCKY with fellow ALIEN alum Harry Dean Stanton on tap.

Skerritt is a man's man, a versatile actor, and has his fingerprints on so many iconic and important films of the last five decades.  How can you NOT crush on him?

TOP 5 OF THE DAY

Let's stay on topic.


MY TOP 5 TOM SKERRITT PERFORMANCES:

5. M*A*S*H - Skerritt is good in an early performance, but if the Duke character he played wasn't good enough for the television remake, how much higher could I rank it?

4. UP IN SMOKE - Skerritt plays funny.  Skerritt plays a character named Strawberry.  Skerritt gets this film ranked #4.

3. ALIEN - Yes, he's great as Dallas, but points off for not being smart enough to know DON'T STICK YOUR HEAD UP THERE!!!!

2.  PICKET FENCES - I'm cheating with a television show, but you'll soon learn I cheat a lot, so get over it right now.

And for my top Skerritt film, we shall tie in with a segment I like to call:






I NEED IT!!!


1.  FIGHTING BACK (1982)

True Story-- Just as I was really starting to geek out on movies, my dad let me buy a blank video tape that I could use to tape movies whenever he wasn't already recording something.   FIGHTING BACK is the first film I ever taped in the wee hours of the morning.  I got up and watched it at 6:15am.   I was such a movie geek as a 15 year old.

This film ain't quite DEATH WISH.  Let's call it INJURY WISH.  Skerritt plays John D'Angelo, a Philadelphia store owner who gets fed up with the local crime element.   When the street violence hits WAY too close to home, D'Angelo decides to organize a neighborhood watch to protect all of the local stores and homeowners.

Get used to hearing this a lot from me.... this film isn't exactly great, but I love it.  It's got great local flavor for this fella who lives 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.  It's got great supporting work from Yaphet Kotto, Patti Lupone, and Michael Sarrazin (who gets to be killed TWICE in 1982 -- here and THE SEDUCTION, which we will DEFINITELY cover at a later date in an I NEED IT!!! segment)

And anchoring the whole thing is Skerritt, who gives a supercharged lead performance.  He's likable as the store owner who loves his neighborhood and family, but he gets to snarl and yell and do mean things when everything he loves is threatened.  Think Bronson with a lot more dialogue, and you have John D'Angelo.  The film tries to look at what the media and police do when faced with vigilante violence, and that may be the thinnest, least impressive part of the plot.

There's tons of action, however, and the fight scenes and shootouts are well shot and choreographed by director Lewis Teague, who did this right after ALLIGATOR and right before CUJO.   Teague had a really nice 80's run (JEWEL OF THE NILE, too!).   The bad guys glare at and threaten Skerritt and family, and Skerritt glares at everyone.   There's a great fight in a fast food chicken restaurant, and there is fantastic use of a balloon in the film's conclusion. It's ninety minutes of B-movie badassery, and it is a glaring hole in my collection.  Paramount seems to be reissuing a lot of their films in new Blu-ray packaging, and if that is successful, I sincerely hope that they drop FIGHTING BACK in my lap very, very soon.

Okay that's it for day one.  If you read this far, I'd appreciate any constructive criticism you have.   Some days will be shorter than this, and if I get the time or the motivation, I will go longer on other days.

I'll also be dropping an I HEARD THAT section each day, which will be separate and will highlight a selection from a movie soundtrack.  Hopefully there will be some music that you have never heard before, or possibly there will be tracks you remember from scenes but hadn't heard in a while.

THANKS FOR READING!