Two-Lane Blacktop # 88 of 101 Great Films

#88

1971

Two-Lane Black Top

Directed by Monte Hellman

Two- Lane blacktop

“The whole idea of the road, of going from one place to another, is essentially American.”

*–Two-Lane Blacktop Screenwriter, Rudy Wurlitzer

Either I’m an idiot – no comments!

GTO, The Mechanic, the Driver, The Girl

Or Two-lane Black Top is a masterpiece, a 100% American masterpiece,
a western epic with 400 horses and minimum dialog.

Monte Hellman a east coast kid and a west coast college graduate got his real world degree from
The Roger Corman College of Exploitation,
with a minor in fast & cheap.

Two of his best Corman projects were in partnership with Jack Nicholson;
Ride in the Whirlwind and The Shooting,
both westerns, both shot in 18 days and with pennies for a budgets.









Then in 1971 with Hollywood backing Hellman made Two Lane Black Top.
His cast 2 musicians, who had never acted before or since, an 18 year old newcomer, and a 20 year veteran of the small and big screen Warren Oates,
Oates, like the 18 year old newbie, Laurie Bird, left us way to early.


Both were shining stars. 

 
      Monte got help with the script from Rudy Wurlitzer and a first rate camera crew, Jack Deerson, Gregory Sandor & Ken Swor.  

The 30 member crew and actors traveled across the southeast and southwest, finishing principal filming in just 6 weeks, and for under a million.






         Some folks have mistaken the lack of conversation among the driver (James Taylor) and the mechanic (Dennis Wilson) as an obsession about a race that never ends, Critics have commented that the film transcends a road movie, its about 60’s America, a America in bad shape, maybe even dying, but I think the film is much simpler, Two Lane is an existential truth; it’s what men do. Not all men, GTO talks enough for both as does the girl.


But the Driver and the Mechanic don’t need monologues,

- Which by the way is the genius of the casting- 2 guys who make a decent living with their words, having them barely speaking- freakin genius! –




They are happy with the road, they will race, but it ain’t the race that fuels them it’s the road, it’s the music of the engine, it’s the open space,
the American landscape that fuels it all.


       Filmed in 1971, it gets lumped with Easy Rider as another “Counter Culture” movie a “Hippie” diatribe about the problems of American

but I think this movie doesn’t give a shit about hippies or counter culture.
If Easy Rider was a statement about the 60s, it was thru the eyes of Hollywood,
I don’t care, people can call Rider counter culture all they want, but it was made by veterans of the Hollywood system, and produced and starred the son of a Hollywood legend,

It was more about spoiled kids rebelling then America and its problems. 

Two Lane, is a working class statement, it’s about making things work, not grand ideas,
just machines, with tools they know how to use.
There are no mean as hell rednecks waiting to kill them on the road.
Around the turn in Two- Lane Black Top are people some like the Driver and the Mechanic, and some that aren’t, just regular working folks, and if they ask real nice, they just might get a hardboiled egg from the Mechanic.


Btw: the hardboiled egg, has a long tradition of being  traveling food, a treat that can be picked out of a jar, on the counter, all across the country in gas stations and small neighborhood grocery/butcher stores, at least when we had two lane black tops.

Please visit your local Revival Theatre, not sure about one in your area

For a Revial theatre in your area click here

101 Great Films video exhibit of Two-lane Blacktop

101 Great Films:

101 One False Move

100 Friends of Eddie Coyle

99 Tampopo

98 The Thing

97 Nanook of the North

96 The Battle of Algiers

95  The Third Man

94 Au Revoir Les Enfants

93 Meshes of the Afternoon

92 Alien

91 Young Frankenstein

90  Bull Durham

89 Los Olvidados

101 Great Films- # 89 Los Olvidados

#89

1950

Los Olvidados  “The young and the Damned”

Directed by Luis Bunuel

Los Olvidados, is a tough film to watch. 

Critics have called it callous, cold, & sadistic. 

The producers of the movie, were so unhappy with the end of the film they re-shot a alternate happier ending, 

Thankfully Luis Bunuel’s original version is still intact, and the alternate version has been discarded.  

Luis Bunuel

Bunuel’s 1950 masterpiece is not a Hollywood movie, 

IT does not have a sentimental ending; the film  does not have any answers. I’m not sure the film has any compassion at all,

A scene from Los Olvidados

so maybe it is cold, certainly Bunuel gives no help to his audience, he gives very little breathing room.

 Luis Bunuel is an artist, and this is a tough masterpiece

Los Olvidados, loosely translated meaning- The young and the damned,   is a film that I have only watched 

once,some films are just too painful, but don't mistake that comment as bad, this film has some amazing 

images, including one character’s dying vision of Death- as a mangy mutt, leading the dying boy down a long 

dark road, that image will stay with you a long time, maybe those critics are right.

This is what "Precious" could have been if it had been made by a master filmmaker.

Cast and crew of Los Olvidados

 101 Great Films: Los Olvidados

101 Great Films:

101 One False Move

100 Friends of Eddie Coyle

99 Tampopo

98 The Thing

97 Nanook of the North

96 The Battle of Algiers

95  The Third Man

94 Au Revoir Les Enfants

93 Meshes of the Afternoon

92 Alien

91 Young Frankenstein

90  Bull Durham

Bull Durham- # 90 of 101 Great Films

1988          Bull Durham     Directed by Ron Shelton

There are only a few genres that are uniquely American; one of them is the Sport’s movie.

A good sports film has an undercurrent, which has little to do with the sport;

A man’s fight for redemption,  

protect the family,

proving one is worthy, 

overcoming tragedy,

looking for acceptance,

Tim Robbins & Kevin Costner

In the case of Bull Durham, it has some of these themes but the main theme that drives this film:

 It doesn’t matter how hard you work, practice,

no matter what you do,

unless you have that gift- call it god given or whatever,

you are not going to be an elite artist,

thousands try their dream, and some are even good enough to make some noise, but like Crash Davis,  no matter how long they or Crash  works at their/his art, they/he ain’t got “it” 

                 Crash knows the game better that most, but he just will never make it, he knows this, but he keeps playing. LaLoosh is a young cocky flamethrower who doesn’t respect the game, partly cause he is young, but mainly cause he has the gift- he has the “it”

The question with  Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh is will "it" be enough.

Ron Shelton

          

 Former minor league player turned writer/director Ron Shelton understand this as much as anyone, it was in his blood too.

What Shelton does in Bull Durham that is truly amazing, is he brings in a character which in standard romantic films, would just be the standard by the numbers female lead,



But with Annie Savoy, we have another version of Crash,

a female that loves the game as much as anyone playing,

but cause of who she is; she can’t get to the top.  

She loves the game, understands the game as well as anyone.

Susan Sarandon

                                   She is not baseball “groupie”

if that were the case, then this wouldn’t be a great film, hell it might  not be a good film, but cause she is the Chorus of this Diamond Play Bull Durham is damn good

Trey Wilson & Robert Whul

Another reason for this making 101 Great Films, is the spot on performances by the supporting cast through the film. Trey Wilson, who we lost way to early, is a force that steals every scene he is in, as he did in another film on this list.

The whole cast and crew were a winning combo that hit Bull Durham out of the park! And place it on the top 101

 Don’t you just love sports metaphors.

Video exhibit of Bull Durham

MGM's Bull Durham is on Blueray and standard dvd now.

101 Great Films:

101 One False Move

100 Friends of Eddie Coyle

99 Tampopo

98 The Thing

97 Nanook of the North

96 The Battle of Algiers

95  The Third Man

94 Au Revoir Les Enfants

93 Meshes of the Afternoon

92Alien

91 Young Frankenstein

101 Great Films- # 91 Young Frankenstein

# 91

1974

Young Frankenstein

Directed by Mel Brooks

Made right after Brook’s  over the top in every way including the box office- and future entry on the top 101, “Blazing Saddles”,

Mel Brooks was almost understated in his direction, and vision for “Young Frankenstein”,

Mel Brooks and Marty Feldman

                                                

I said Almost!!

Brooks, maybe the best slapstick, campy, réalisateur in film history, started off as a writer for TV, including the “Dick Van Dyke show”, & “Your Show of Shows”

Teaming with Carl Reiner, the duo worked  together for  years in the  TV industry, then they released several comedy lps, that were hits, and included the routine the 2000 year old man.  

1974 Young Frankenstein

 

Young Frankenstein parodies the old school horror films

and the gothic novels of Shelley and company

Co-written with Gene Wilder, the film was shoot in wonderful black & white 

and uses some of the same sets used in the 1931 James Whale classic film  “Frankenstein”.

                                          With a great cast, including the already on this list, Peter Doyle,

Young Frankenstein is still laugh out loud funny, 

even during the silly dance numbers, which may include the best monster- doctor dance routine in the history of Cinema.

101 Great Films- # 91 Young Frankenstein video exhibit

101 Great Films:

101 One False Move

100 Friends of Eddie Coyle

99 Tampopo

98 The Thing

97 Nanook of the North

96 The Battle of Algiers

95  The Third Man

94 Au Revoir Les Enfants

93 Meshes of the Afternoon

92Alien

 

Alien # 92 of 101 Great Films

# 92
1979
Alien
Directed by Ridley Scott
USA

I like horror movies.
I like Science Fiction films and I dig monster movies.
I enjoy the great ones, the good ones, the bad ones, and the silly ones.
I don’t like the mean spirited ones, which seems to be all they make nowadays, but Alien isn’t that; It’s a damn good monster film.
A damn good SiFi, and one of a few first-class horror films.

“In space no one can hear you scream.”

Dan  O'Bannon

Written by Dan O’Bannon,

Ridley Scott

produced by action director Walter Hill, and directed by Ridley Scott, add to those 3 creative giants one really disturbed artist, H.R. Giger and you have a totally unique film in a very structure genre;

1st: the cast is older than most for films like this, this is not a teen movie.

Two- Alien is atmospheric, nerve wracking, with a great pace, not the 100 mile an hour quick edit flicks,
but a slow boiling creepy and very scaring film.


Three-, it has a feeling of class, which horror films never do, the protagonist are normal everyday workers just trying to survive, not super heroes that defy logic to defeat the beast, which also makes the horror more intense and real. The sense of class has been seen in European films, but not in but a few America films and certainly not in horror films, at its core Alien is a story about the ruling class-via the company- exploiting the workers.

Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton

But maybe the biggest ploy in the film
is the fact that the hero is a woman,
the last “man” standing,
and not the helpless victim that usually saturate this genre.






Having just given you 4 reason why this is a unique adventure, at its heart it is an Agatha Christie spooky manor who done it.
However you want to diagnose this film, it is one damn fine piece of work.

and everyone heard me scream. 

this video exhibit, is a combo of several works,
The making of Alien, a bonus feature on the Dvd release of Alien.
And excerpts were used from the American Film Institute’s interviews with key players from the film.

Video exhibit for # 92 of 100 Great films: Alien
Remember Alien is available on DvD & Blue ray
Also if you have an independent movie house near you suggest to them to bring Alien back to the big screen.

No. 93 of 101 Great films: Meshes of the Afternoon

1943

Meshes of the Afternoon

Directed by Maya Deren

USA

The first time I saw Meshes of the Afternoon was an accident. I was hanging out in the A/V department of University of Alabama’s main Library,  looking for another film which someone was already watching so I started to brose the listings, and I ran across this 1943 18 minute  avant- garde/independent silent film. I remember thinking at the time, ok that’s way over my head, but it’s kind of cool.  Over the years, when I first saw Goddard’s Alphaville I thought of Maya’s first film, or anytime I’ve watched a David Lynch film, I always think of Meshes of the afternoon.                                                                        

Maya Deren

            This is a true independent film, not a big star making a “little” picture for 10 million instead of 100 million, this is the real thing, well at least real in the sense of making it on your boot straps, as far as the film itself, it’s about as real as surrealist can get! 

Maya does in 18 minutes what Christopher Nolen tried to do with 100 million bucks, and 3 hours worth of stock, but he still doesn’t come.

            The force behind this film is an Ukrainian named Eleanora Dernkowsky, whose family moved to America to avoid the growing anti-Semitism spreading across Europe and Russia  Unlike most immigrants, they had the means to move about and they  settled in Syracuse and they had the means to send Eleanora to college, & grad school. The family changed their UIkrainian name to Deren, and when Eleanora started making films, she started using the name Maya.  

            This is one of several selections for this list that I’ve struggled with. Not because it’s so out of the main stream, in fact, that may be the reason it makes this list; that and its poetic  and rhythmic story narrative. It has a great look for 1943, if you didn’t know any better you would think it was filmed in the 60s not the 40s. It is a poem on film. No the reason I struggled with this selection it’s another feminist narrative that conveys the struggles of the middle class woman, the woman caught in the confinement of her role, I understand that is important, but I want to see the story of my mother and my grandmothers, who worked just as hard as their husbands, then came home and took care of kids, then worked at home, I would like to see the struggles of the working class, and after reading about Maya, I am disappointed that a Trotskyite would define her career about the bourgeoisie,  instead of the workers, but that may be much more about my face in the mirror than her work.

But it is a wonderful piece of film making, and you can watch it the whole film plus a nice audi interview with Maya, and you can thank the wonderful World Wide Web!

Meshes of the Afternoon 

No. 94 of 101 Great Films- Au Revoir les Enfants

Au Revoir Les Enfants

101 Great films Au Revoir Les Enfants video

          I’ve always wonder how autobiographical “Au Revoir Les Enfants” is for New Wave pioneer  Louis Malle?   We know that Malle spent time at a Catholic boarding school in France during the German occupation. According to interviews with the director, he witnessed a Gestapo raid on the school, in which 3 students and a teacher were captured and sent to their deaths at Auschwitz.

These students and the teacher were Jewish. The school’s headmaster Pere Jacques de Jesus, was also arrested and sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, were he died right after the liberation by the Allied troops.



Louis Malle



            In the film one of the Jewish boys and another student, Julien strike up a friendship, Julien and the other students realize very early that the new kids are Jewish. Headmaster Pere and the other teachers have taken these boys in to try and shelter them from the Germans. The school kids are at first standoffish but after time warm to the new kids, of course something happens which Julien unfortunately & accidently is the cause of that outs the kids, leading to the horrible outcome.  



Add caption



 I’m not an expert on Louis Malle, so I do not  know the answer, and I have to take him at his word, in  2 interviews I read, he says he just witnessed the events. Now just witnessing these horrible events would be bad enough, but what if he were friends with  kids that the Nazis killed I’m not sure that’s something you can get over, and Malle made a lot of films about the loss of innocence, and as he said about this event; ”may well have determined my vocation as a filmmaker”

Malle’s true gift here is how he keeps this bleak and tragic subject matter from being hopeless.

.

A nice montage: Au Revoir Les Enfants

     by Paisley Muffin Productions

101 Great Films # 95 The Third Man

# 95

  The Third Man,  1949  Directed by Carol Reed

 

  What a cool theme song!

You would think a movie set in Vienna; a movie where the city is not only a character in the movie, but a very important one would use the music of the area – say a Vienna waltz? Nope Carol Reed picks a strange instrument, the zither, think hammered dulcimer, and like the city,  it to is a character in one of the best thrillers in cinema history.



Carol Reed and Anton Karas



            This Graham Greene/Carol Reed  collaboration was one of the 1^st post WWII thrillers to use a  war-torn, bombed our  city, as part of the action and in some instances the reason for  the action. Greene a great novelist wrote the third man strictly for the screen with Carol Reed, but after its box office success, he turned it into a best selling novel.

Carol Reed and Graham Greene

 Reed/Greene worked only on one other project, 1948’s Fallen Idol. To bad they didn’t try another cause The Third Man is one of the best atmospheric films, with great pacing and just too damn cool photography.

Plus it has maybe the best cameo in all of movies.

People love to compare it to Hitchcock but I think with its seedy tones, and really creepy characters and a less than brilliant hero, that the Third man is as good as anything of Hitchcocks’. 

And just think David O Selznick who helped finance the movie wanted Noel Coward to play the part of Harry Lime- geez!!

What a bone head

You should buy you a copy today cause your watch it at least 5 times before your cuckoo clock strikes five.

Enjoy this BBC documentary on the third man Part 1 of 7

101 Great Films:

One False Move

Friends of Eddie Coyle

Tampopo

The Thing

Nanook of the North

The Battle of Algiers