Desert Blue
Once You Get There, You'll Never Want To Leave
An academic obsessed with roadside attractions and his tv-star daughter stop at a small desert town to see the world's largest ice cream cone, where, because of an accident that spilled an unknown substance all over the highway, they are forced to spend a few days with the towns eccentric residents.
Comedy
Drama
5.7
42 reviewsRuntime: 90 min.
Budget: $2,000,000
Revenue: $100,590
Release Date: 1999-06-04
Director(s): Morgan J. Freeman
Production: HSX Films, Ignite Entertainment
Languages: English
IMDB: tt0126261
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Wuchak★ 6/109/7/2025
**_Long stop at a desolate settlement in the Southwest and the peculiar people thereof_** A TV actress and her professor father (Kate Hudson and John Heard) stop at a dying mining town in the desert to see a roadside attraction and inadvertently become stuck there for a few days. The eccentric citizens include a young man preoccupied with his late father’s dream (Brendan Sexton III), a girl obsessed with pipe bombs (Christina Ricci), an ATV racer (Casey Affleck) and a woman who runs a diner (Lucinda Jenney). “Desert Blue” (1998) is a quirky indie drama influenced by TV’s Northern Exposure. It’s comparable to Australia’s "Rikky and Pete" from ten years prior and a little “Gas Food Lodging,” as well as later movies like "3 Nights in the Desert” and a bit o’ “Don’t Come Knocking.” There’s an air of emptiness and the story is kind of boring, throwing in a curious subplot about an ominous cola factory. Still, the flick has its points of interest, like finding inspiration in the least likely places. You’ll see some snow here and there, which, by happenstance, was the most snow the isolated town had seen in three decades during shooting. It runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in Goldfield in southwest Nevada with the Los Angeles Aqueduct scenes done in Jawbone Canyon, which is almost a 4-hour drive southwest of Goldfield and a 2-hour drive north of Los Angeles. GRADE: B-/C+