Two-Lane Blacktop

Rating:
Summary: ALONG THE WINDING ROAD
Review: When I decided to purchase this DVD, I was just attracted by the name of the director of TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, Monte Hellman, who directed two excellent westerns in the sixties. I didn't know at all this movie and expected the worse. God ! How was I wrong ! TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is a divine surprise for those who, like me, long for titles of the quality of the american movies of the 70's.

Two pop stars of that period, James Taylor and Dennis Wilson (Brian's brother), as the driver and the mechanic, race against Warren Oates in a journey through the heart of America. While Taylor and Wilson hardly speak, Warren Oates has a convulsive need to talk to the numerous hitch-hikers he accepts to take for a ride in his GTO.

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP is a road movie, in the tradition of EASY RIDER and THE VANISHING POINT, but the characters don't have to prove anything, they don't even care if they make it to their final destination, Washington D.C. They cannot either be considered as rebels because they don't have an ideal to defend or an authority to face. They are tragic figures without any ideals.

The DVD presented by Anchor BAY is sumptuous with top-notch images and sound ( vraoum, vraoum...). A trailer, a commentary and a very informative featurette about Monte Hellman directed by George Hickenlooper.

A DVD for the road.

Rating:
Summary: Nostalgic Flick
Review: This film brings back good memories of my days in High School in the early '70's. I had a '67 Goat and my best friend and his brother both had hopped up '55 Chevy's. It seems a bit odd that the "Driver" had little if any interest in his vehicle. He was too busy being laid-back. When asked what type of tranny he had, he said "a four speed" rather than "Borg Warner T-10 Rock Crusher", or such. As far as racing cross country, his engine would be screaming at 70mph as the rear end would be 4:11's or so. Plus, I kept thinking that he should put air filters on the dual quadrajets, especially when spinning around in the dirt. Fun movie though. It kept my interest. Warren Oates played his part well. A real dweeb. Never really figured him out, or the other characters for that matter. If you like this type of movie you must also check out "Vanishing Point".

Rating:
Summary: Two Lane Dead End
Review: I watched the movie after purchasing it for a freind who is a big James Taylor music fan. I was disapointed in the character writing, as J.T. (The Driver)and Dennis Wilson (The Mechanic) both play the "straight" role, and it causes the scenes to drag. Upon more in depth analysis, Wilson's character is supposed to be aloof, and J.T.'s intense. Unfortunately, bad acting and poor character developement defused this combination.
Warren Oates does contribute to some of the best scenes in the film, as the mixed-up "GTO". A chameleon-like persona, ever-changing to adapt to and impress each hitch-hiker he picks up.
The scene with Harry Dean Stanton is particularly amusing in its context.
In all, "Two Lane Blacktop" was interesting, easy to watch, but the ending, if you can call it that (I find it hard to believe that the original theatrical ending is what I viewed on DVD) left me cold and wanting.

Rating:
Summary: Street Racer Cult Movie
Review: James Taylor and Dennis Wilson star in an interesting low-budget movie about outlaw drag racers traveling the United States. They scratch out a living and get their thrills suckering local street racers into risky high-stake drag races on backcountry two-lane roads. Taylor is the "Driver" and Wilson is the "Mechanic;" partner owners of a dingy-looking 1955 Chevy coupe packing formidable running gear, capable of blowing the doors off most challengers' hot rods in quarter-mile duels. The Driver and the Mechanic pick up the "Hitchhiker," played by Laurie Bird, and embark on a cross-country race with "GTO," played by Warren Oats, an eccentric adventurer driving a factory Pontiac GTO. While the story is interesting, Taylor's, Wilson's and Bird's performances are stoic to say the least. The late Warren Oates however, turns in an excellent performance as a character going through his mid-life crisis, spinning far fetched tales to hitchers he picks up along the highways. The movie conjures up a parallel to "Easy Rider" with several people traveling across the country and taking each day as it comes with no identifiable goals in their lives. In the end there are no surprises, the story portrays a unique event in the lives of four people for a short period of several days. Car enthusiasts will appreciate the portrayal of outlaw drag racing in this movie with no gimmicky tricks or special effects, just good old 1970's muscle car madness with huge V8 engines and gutsy driving.

Since the late 1970's, this movie could only be caught on late-night TV broadcasts if a viewer paid close attention to program guides. Two Lane Blacktop recently gained cult status with its outlaw drag racing story and the fact that this is the only movie featuring singer-composer James Taylor and the late "Beach Boys" Dennis Wilson, as well as the remarkable performance by Warren Oates. Another interesting tidbit is the 1955 Chevrolet sedan in this movie that also served as Harrison Ford's ride in "American Graffiti." The DVD edition is a treat with the imagery, screen format and several deleted scenes restored to original 1971 specifications.

Rating:
Summary: Waiting for Godot....with Burning Rubber
Review: Great exploration of American angst....and American existentialist non-answers. Rudy Wurlitzer's script is a gem. Here's a clue for you Beach Boys fans out there. It ain't supposed to be fun fun fun 'til her daddy takes the T-Bird away. The acting is supposed to be "flat," emotionless (with the exception of Warren Oates' role as "GTO" and Laurie Bird's role as "The Girl"). The characters are supposed to be from nowhere and going nowhere. They are characters who have stripped away all "extraneous" elements from their lives. Hellman, given big-studio backing for the first and ultimately only time in his career thus far, was an exceeding brave man to make this film. Read some Camus and some Sartre and some Beckett, then talk to some serious gearheads for a while, then take a long road trip on some two-lane highways in my home turf, the American Southwest. Then watch this movie. You'll appreciate just what Hellman and company accomplished. By the way, James Taylor is the only leading actor in the film still living, and he made it while he was in the throes of a serious battle with heroin. Who would have thought he would have been the last left standing?

Rating:
Summary: A RESPONSE TO REVIEWER "CORREIA"
Review: Hey Correia,
Everyone's entitled to their opinions, but you're in the minority here. Two-Lane Blacktop is worshipped by film-lovers around the world and is regularly cited as one of the best pop-art flicks of the 70's, one of the most exciting periods in American cinema.

The reviewer's two complaints (little dialogue, couldn't understand what it was about) reveal the shortcomings of the reviewer, not the film. I mean really: "no dialogue?" Is he serious? Has he never seen a Western? A film noir? Charlie Chaplin? Keaton? Bresson? Wong Kar Wai?

In order to get Reservoir Dogs made, Quentin Tarantino got Two-Lane Blacktop director Monte Hellman to co-produce. I'm not a big Tarantino fan, but he DOES have great taste in other people's movies [his film company A Band Aparte is named after a Jean-Luc Godard film (paucity of dialogue, anyone?), he helped get Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express distributed, and idolizes Monte Hellman as one of the great American directors].

Based on the fact that Correia would critique a movie because it has little dialogue, it is no surprise that he "had absolutely no idea what the movie is about." Surely he can't mean the plot? Two muscle-car drivers race across country for their cars' pink slips? Most Schwarzenegger movies are less "high concept" (i.e. easy to sum up in a sentence).

Or is Correia admitting that he couldn't identify any Grand Themes or Social Issues? It's true, Hellman doesn't hit his viewers over the head with Deep Meanings. Like most of the greatest works of art, Hellman allows the meaning to be porous, letting each viewer read a certain amount of their own lives and themes into the characters.

TLB bears analysis, and is in fact deeply philosophical, but it is first a riveting aesthetic and emotional experience. Like a great landscape painting (or a David Lynch film?), it is primarily meditative, spiritual, and even deeply religious, rather than intellectual.

While watching it one re-experiences and understands many of the best things 'about' America-- the Road, movement, freedom-- and some of the worst-- rootlessness, restlessness, alienation. It can be read as a portrait of the modern, secularist, existential journey through life; in the lack of dialogue one could feel alienation and aloneness, or a comfortable silence expressing the deep bond between the driver and mechanic (we never hear the character's names, nor do the credits give them any).

TLB traffics in pop iconography, in quintessentially American images. We travel with the perfect embodiment of the Self-Reliant American Male, through rugged, iconic American landscapes, until the landscape and the travellers (and the audience?) become one.

Have these two men achieved a level of self-reliance that has freed them from the constraints of civilization? Or has their laconic independence imprisoned them, dooming them to ride alone, ala John Wayne in The Searchers? Hurtling through a Godless universe with only the most ill-defined of goals to guide them, and so on? Undergrad term paper, anyone?

The value of any creative expression is in the effort you expend, the distance you travel, to explore its meaning. Movies and books should pull us out of what we know, force us to expand to incorporate new ways of seeing and thinking. It ain't always easy but it's almost always rewarding. I applaud Correia for trying, but just because TLB isn't immediately easy to 'get' doesn't mean it isn't a great work of art.

Rating:
Summary: DENNIS WILSON IN HIS ONE AND ONLY
Review: THE REASON I GOT THIS MOVIE WAS BECAUSE OF DENNIS IT DID NOT HAVE A BIG BUGET BUT IT HAD FAST CARS AND THE ACTING WAS COOL PLUS THEY HAD A DOORS SONG IN IT SO YOU CANT GO WRONG WITH THAT SO FOR ALL THAT STUFF I GIVE IT 5 STARS BUY WHY YOU STILL CAN.

Rating:
Summary: i love JT, but this movie sucks
Review: James Taylor is my favorite artist of all time. I have all his albums and love every song on every one. But, there is a reason he is not a successful actor. The evidence: Two-Lane Blacktop. This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen, and I have seen some bad movies (e.g.--Bubble Boy). I bought this DVD because JT was in it, thinking it couldn't be too bad. I have never watched it all the way through. I can't. Can't stomach it. There is virtually no dialogue, and I have absolutely no idea what the movie is about. This could have been called "Chronicles of the Mute Drifters". Now, I have this movie in my DVD collection and people ask me, "What is that?" And, I say, "Oh, That's a movie James Taylor was in back in the day." And, then they say, "Oh . . . Well, Should we . . ." And, I say, "No. NO! Don't ever watch this movie. Ever. You would be better served picking lint out of your bellybutton or watching paint dry, because this movie is like that, with worse dialogue and less vivid color." But, that is probably the same reaction JT has now, when some random fan mentions this movie and he cringes, before putting his head in his hands, and saying "What was I thinking . . ."

Rating:
Summary: The essential road movie!!! A seventies classic!!!
Review: This classic road movie finally gets the the royal treatment with this DVD!!!Where else can you find James Taylor,Dennis Wilson and Warren Oates in the same movie? A true piece of seventies nostalgia!!! It's from Anchor Bay so you know you're getting quality!!! It's in its original widescreen format and it looks and sounds great!!! The extras are top notch too!!! And to top it off it comes in a cool collector's tin!!! AN AWESOME DVD!!! Five Stars!!! A+

Rating:
Summary: All cars and no dialogue make these jacks dull boys
Review: After the opening legal boilerplate flashed by, I sat in vain waiting for the movie to start. What I got was adolescent boys of all ages revving their engines and conversing at a prepubescent level. I tried hard to find a theme -- disaffected youth? looking for America in the 1970's? car culture's impact on American culture? -- but to identify a theme in this movie would be grossly unfair to the thousands of movies that have one. Finally, I rescued the evening by playing a comedy from the golden age of Hollywood so I could be reminded that there was a time when acting ability was a requirement of being an actor. Two-lane Blacktop is the movie of choice when you just came home from oral surgery and want to be lulled into distraction and, finally, sleep. For all others, get a lobotomy or get something else.