Welcome back to More of a Comment, Really…, a weekly interview podcast hosted by Clint Worthington! Every episode will feature interviews with actors, filmmakers, producers, and more, giving you the skinny on the latest films and TV.

In an age where most major films are spoiled months before they come out, and even trailers have their own trailers, it’s refreshing to get the occasional reminder that films can still surprise you. That’s certainly the case with 1989’s Miracle Mile, which turned 30 this month. The brainchild of filmmaker Steve De Jarnatt (Cherry 2000), Miracle Mile took nearly a decade to come to the screen, surviving years of studio notes and casting calls and rejected pleas for De Jarnatt to direct his own script.

Eventually, he got it made and released in ’89, and Miracle Mile is all the better for it – a twisty genre blend of romantic comedy, Cold War paranoia and apocalyptic chaos starring Anthony Edwards as a hapless trombone player who picks the wrong day to find the love of his life (a charming Mare Winningham) in the Los Angeles of the ’80s. To say more would be to spoil the mid-film twist that turns Miracle Mile from a dreamlike tale of budding infatuation to a treatise on man’s insignificance in the lifespan of the universe, but suffice to say it’s well worth the ride – especially when you know as little as possible going in.

That said, if you’ve already seen Miracle Mile, or you want to learn a bit more about it going in, De Jarnatt was generous enough to sit down with me to talk about the long road to the film’s creation, the casting of Edwards and the creation of his iconic outfit, and how it holds up in an era of resurgent nuclear fears.

(More of a Comment, Really… is a proud member of the Chicago Podcast Coop. Thanks to Lagunitas for sponsoring this episode!)

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