bavatuesdays

Can’t stop, won’t stop! MBS and I are back for yet another episode of the Family Pictures Podcast—mark it 4, dude! This time we’re exploring the theme of sisterhood at the edge of forever in the 1984 b-movie cult classic Night of the Comet. A box office hit made by the same producers as the surprise sensation Valley Girl (1983) released the previous year. Night of the Comet was made for $700,000 and raked in over $14,000,000. Beyond it’s financial success in theatres, the film has continued to build a cult following over the past 40 years in large part because the aforementioned sisters are bonafide badasses. It’s a pretty easy case to make for this being a family picture—not to mention a holiday movie!—but more than that is the way it continually subverts expectations. The film’s goofy characters deliver ridiculous lines with dead-pan sincerity which normalizes the absurdity of their plight. The subtlety of the sisters’ camp, if that’s even possible, makes for a tongue-in-cheek satire right up their with Repo Man (1984). It’s not camp to them!

Badass Sisters at the end of the world prefer Uzis

Beyond the details of the film which we take you through over the course of the episode—replete with fits of laughter—are the personal memories linked to this film for me. This was one of my very first date films. What I mean by that is that as an eighth grader I asked a girl out on a date to see this film with me. Her parents dropped her off at the single-house theatre on Sunrise Highway in Rockville Center (and would likewise pick her up promptly when it was over). I like to imagine I gallantly offered some Twizzlers or Dots, but then think that I probably secretly resented every one I had to part with. Anyway, so I’m seeing this teenage comet zombie film as a 13 year old—one of the oldest recordable date movies I have on file—with a girl of interest and Sam (Kelli Maroney) starts in on her heartfelt monologue about how she’ll never have the opportunity to date her high school love interest. I could literally feel the pathos as I was greedily chomping my Twizzlers.

See the monologue where Sam talks about the boy at school she’ll never date

A month later I would go on another date film with a different teenager of interest, this time to see the lowly Runaway that brought in a fraction of Night of the Comet with 10x the budget. What does Tom Selleck have on Kelly Maroney besides a moustache?

Another story I told during this podcast that’s a favorite of mine has to do with a similar young love, end-of-the-world apocalypse film, namely Miracle Mile (1988). Towards the end of the podcast I was talking about the beautiful art deco El Rey Theatre where Night of the Comet begins, and noted it’s quite close to where I once lived on Cloverdale and 6th Street in the Miracle Mile district of LA. I saw the movie Miracle Mile while in high school, and I was a huge fan. I loved the way it started off a bit goofy, like Night of the Comet, but unlike it’s apocalyptic cousin it turns into one of Dante’s darkest visions of hell.

Chaos in Miracle Mile

It’s total whiplash in terms of the film’s tone, and unlike Night of the Comet which ends with the attempt to re-create an updated vision of the 1950s nuclear family, Miracle Mile ends with the two protagonists trapped in a helicopter sinking into the La Brea Tar Pits trying to find re-assurance that they’ll one day be transformed into diamonds. It’s as dark as dark can be when it comes to nuclear annihilation films, and the claustrophobic shot of them gasping for breath and making sense of their untimely demise is enough to haunt someone smarter than I was at 17.

But that’s not the story, that’s just prologue, here’s the story. So in 1990 I move out to Long Beach, California to stay with my brother after my dad breaks the news to me that there’s no more money for college. I had finished one year at George Mason University, but truth be told I was not too sad to move on. What’s more, I always wanted to visit California, it was the fabled land of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) —what’s not to love? Anyway, I got a job, began the residency process for low tuition at Long Beach City College, and generally started my acculturation process to the inimitable Southern California—a most wonderful part of the world for an 18 year old.

I also was running jogging a lot at this point, and while in Ralph’s Supermarket one evening, a bag boy must have deciphered by my pasta-filled diet and broken down sneakers that I run (maybe my once svelt frame also was a clue?). He asked as much, to which I replied in the affirmative (in fact I was training for the San Diego marathon), and then he quite nicely asked if I’d like to go out for a run with him and a few friends. I was thrilled given I had zero friends in Long Beach, so gladly accepted. I went on my first run with them overly confident and they absolutely destroyed me given I was just doing it as a hobbyist (story of my life), while they were actually on the track team at Cal State Long Beach.

Nonetheless, I was invited back a second time, and for the third get together they invited me to their apartment (they were roommates) to watch a film. “What film?” I asked. To which they emphatically responded “Miracle Mile!” I was like “Fuck yeah!” Not only were they excellent runners, but they also liked cool, independent films like Miracle Mile—I was starting to think we had a future. I showed up promptly and they wasted no time. They immediately dropped the VHS tape into the VCR; they were all business. I had seen the movie several times before, and was commenting excitedly throughout, but they just offered a stray smile and then returned to staring straight ahead at the screen, all business. Odd.

By the time we get to the final scene where the couple is imagining their future as diamonds in the La Brea Tarpit the entire group of runners loudly exclaimed “THANK GOD I’M SAVED!” I was ambushed by a bunch of fleet footed bible thumpers, and it occurred to me just how differently we read that film 🙂 The cultish vibes were on full display after that, and they even busted out the fire and brimstone literature and invited me to their store front church, but I was too Catholic to fall for their penny ante cult. Anyway, end-of-world films have all kinds of uses I guess, but Night of the Comet is definitely not in danger of pushing anyone to join a religious cult—to its defense.