Wow, I came across Kim Morgan's blog, Sunset Gun, via James Wolcott from Vanity Fair. Movies, music melodrama. Indeed. She's definitely got something going on there.
Anyway, I love her list of top ten car movies. And yes, I can heartily agree that "Two Lane Blacktop" is a masterpiece. I just recently saw it on a fresh new DVD.* Anything with Warren Oates and Harry Dean Stanton is gonna be up high on the list. But Monte Hellman pushed the car movie to the absolute brink. The best ending ever!
And who else could drive like Steve McQueen except Steve McQueen?
Of course, I'm thinking Warren Oates' other great starring vehicle should be on the list, even though, it's not primarily a car movie, but still - there's nothing like the mad fever dream brilliance of Sam Peckinpah's "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia." Warren has a great scene in a car talking to a severed head. Now that's entertainment - and so much more! And what about "Repo Man!?" I mean it's got Harry Dean, and it's about repossessing cars and the ending is one of the great car rides of all time!
* I originally saw Two Lane as a teen on a rare trip to the cinema with my father. That was when he was a high-energy, bundle of nerves kind of guy - I can't imagine now how he was able to sit in a dark movie house for 90 minutes without jumping out of his skin. Still, my dad was a total movie freak, he connected me to stuff from the 40's and 50's - On the Waterfront, The Westerner, Treasure of Sierra Madre, Gunga Din, Beau Geste, Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, Shane, and then opened me to the edgy stuff in the 70's that made such an amazing first impression on me - Mean Streets, Two Lane Blacktop, The Long Goodbye, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, The Wild Bunch, The Getaway, Junior Bonner, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, The Godfather. When I see a movie now, I see things through his eyes too...