A television performer and her academic father—played by Kate Hudson and John Heard—make an unplanned stop at a fading desert mining town to check out a roadside curiosity, only to discover they’re unable to leave for several days. The unusual locals include a young man fixated on his deceased parent's ambitions, a girl with a fascination for explosives, a vehicle racer, and the proprietor of a local eatery. “Desert Blue” (1998) feels like an independent production that draws inspiration from shows such as Northern Exposure. It shares similarities with Australia’s "Rikky and Pete" from a decade earlier, along with “Gas Food Lodging,” later films like "3 Nights in the Desert,” and touches of “Don’t Come Knocking.” The movie has an overall sense of listlessness, and the plot can feel somewhat tedious, incorporating a strange side story involving a mysterious soda bottling plant. Nevertheless, there are moments that hold some appeal, such as discovering unexpected sources of interest. Notably, snow appears intermittently in the film—an unusual occurrence, as it was the most snowfall the remote town had experienced in thirty years during filming. The movie’s length is 1 hour and 27 minutes. It was filmed in Goldfield, Nevada, with scenes featuring the Los Angeles Aqueduct shot in Jawbone Canyon, which sits roughly four hours southwest of Goldfield and two hours north of Los Angeles. GRADE: B-/C+

Source on TMDB