Movie Review - Two-Lane Blacktop
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
directed by Monte Hellman
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from As Seen On TV
In the end, I think I prefer Vanishing Point, for what's probably a pit-stop reason. When the young woman who's sat in the backseat of James Taylor's Chevy roadster for most of the width of America finally leaves her bag in a diner parking lot and rides off on a stranger's motorcycle, the race sours, it ends, and the protagonist men seem lost without her. In her absence, the film stock physically dissolves, Oates fades away, and Mr. Fire and Rain apparently kills himself.
The hero of "Vanishing Point" dies, too, but on his way to save a girl. Death is a choice, boldly made. But let's not bury them in small talk. Even outside the ol' "existential open-road" genre, both movies are two of the best I've had the pleasure to watch, as American as the jean-jacket on Peter Bogdanovich's narrow shoulders (which, come to think of it, is probably French).
directed by Monte Hellman
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from As Seen On TV
In the end, I think I prefer Vanishing Point, for what's probably a pit-stop reason. When the young woman who's sat in the backseat of James Taylor's Chevy roadster for most of the width of America finally leaves her bag in a diner parking lot and rides off on a stranger's motorcycle, the race sours, it ends, and the protagonist men seem lost without her. In her absence, the film stock physically dissolves, Oates fades away, and Mr. Fire and Rain apparently kills himself.
The hero of "Vanishing Point" dies, too, but on his way to save a girl. Death is a choice, boldly made. But let's not bury them in small talk. Even outside the ol' "existential open-road" genre, both movies are two of the best I've had the pleasure to watch, as American as the jean-jacket on Peter Bogdanovich's narrow shoulders (which, come to think of it, is probably French).
posted by NPK at 2:25 PM
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