Miller's Crossing

About two years ago, I went to my local Best Buy superstore (sic) and noticed a copy of Miller's Crossing for sale on videocassette. I think it was $12.95. So I bought it.

I took it home, popped it in my VHS player/recorder, and press the "PLAY" button just like the manual said to do. I hadn't gotten much further than Jon Polito's opening "ethics" speech when the VCR began to make funny noises and static began to run up and down my screen. "Must be defective," I don't think I said outloud.

I returned it and got a new one.

This time, I threw it in the player and I got as far as the opening credits until the same problem began to occur. "Maybe there's something wrong with the VCR," I still didn't say outloud. So I took it upstairs to my room where I have ANOTHER videocassete recorder and the SAME THING happened. I returned to Best Buy.

Copy #3 in hand, I returned to my home to once again try to view Miller's Crossing. This time, the problem resurfaced way, way, WAY into the movie, where Johnny Casper (Jon Polito) whacks Eddie Dane (J.E. Freeman) in the face with a fireplace shovel. "I think this is another defective one," I did not say aloud.

I snagged Best Buy's last copy.

"THIS STUPID THING IS NOT WORKING CORRECTLY," I blurted throughout the house.

I returned it to Best Buy and got a copy of Jaws instead.

A few months later, I saw Miller's Crossing on sale at Tower Records. I took it home.

It was defective.

I said to the guy at Tower "I will NOT play this game with YOU, too!" He had no idea what I was talking about, but I walked out with a CD instead.

Last week, for the first time ever, Miller's Crossing was released on laserdisc, letterboxed. I went to Tower and picked it up. Since my buddy Tom has my laserdisc player, I went to Brian's house to watch it on his.

It was skipping around in the first five minutes.

I journeyed back to Tower, where they had one copy left. I made the exchange, this time taking the disc to Tom's house to watch it on my player.

If somebody out there has a copy of Miller's Crossing I can have, please e-mail me at carbonboy@aol.com. Thank you.

© 1997 kyle t.