Los Angeles, California. Anthony Edwards is suppose to pick up his
waitress girlfriend, Mare Winningham, after she gets off work at the diner at
midnight. The power goes out, so he oversleeps and by the time he gets to the
diner she's long gone. He calls her from a payphone and leaves a message. The
phone rings and he answers it, except it's not his gf, but instead some dude
who's raving like a maniac and screaming in code about nuclear war. Anthony is
really disturbed by the phone call and goes back inside the diner. As fate would
have it, a government worker is inside and when she hears about the phone call
she freaks out and starts making
frantic phone calls on her gigantic mobile phone. Is it just a prank call or is
it real? Either way, it sets off a snowballing chain of events that's fairly
exciting.
The story idea is fantastic, but unfortunately the budget looked to be
pretty low, the 1980's special effects are extremely dated, the casting was
weak, there's hardly any violence and the tension was zero. Interesting
movie that's still worth watching if you've into nuclear war stories. I
think with a bigger budget, the right director and a much darker script MIRACLE
MILE could be remade into a blockbuster thriller or a limited series on HBO.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981)
The filmmakers should thank the person who came up with that poster concept/art
for every dollar this film made.
The coolest kids at school, "The Top Ten", are disappearing one-by-one. What could it be? Aliens? Wookalars? Zombie hummingbirds pecked out their eyes and now they can't find their way to school? Maybe they're just falling asleep due to the boring script? Nope, it's some butthole killing them because of some dumb reason. Honestly, it doesn't matter, because by the time you get to the end you'll be 99 and 44/100% asleep. Not because it's a horrible movie, just a long-winded one that has zero idea what a slasher movie audience wants. A slasher audience wants insane violence, hot nudity, blood, gore, a fun story and a badass killer. HBTM has none of those things. There's very little violence, the killer is weak, zero nudity, only a handful of blood, weak gore and the story is overly complicated.
Not a bad watch, but nothing to get excited about either. As far as early 80's slashers go, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME is watchable and fun to laugh at, but average.
The coolest kids at school, "The Top Ten", are disappearing one-by-one. What could it be? Aliens? Wookalars? Zombie hummingbirds pecked out their eyes and now they can't find their way to school? Maybe they're just falling asleep due to the boring script? Nope, it's some butthole killing them because of some dumb reason. Honestly, it doesn't matter, because by the time you get to the end you'll be 99 and 44/100% asleep. Not because it's a horrible movie, just a long-winded one that has zero idea what a slasher movie audience wants. A slasher audience wants insane violence, hot nudity, blood, gore, a fun story and a badass killer. HBTM has none of those things. There's very little violence, the killer is weak, zero nudity, only a handful of blood, weak gore and the story is overly complicated.
Not a bad watch, but nothing to get excited about either. As far as early 80's slashers go, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME is watchable and fun to laugh at, but average.
He bet somebody $20 he could make that jump. Totally worth it.
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