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BookPrices.net - Two Lane Blacktop
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $35.00
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Starring: James Taylor, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird, Dennis Wilson, David Drake
Directed By: Monte Hellman
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 0013131088434
Format: Color
Label: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Manufacturer: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Release Date: 1999-10-19
Running Time: 103
Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: 1971
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating: 
Summary: two lane blacktop
Comment: i bought this dvd for my boyfriend. we sat and watched it and was very satisfied with the condition the movie was in. there was no skips or scratches on it at all which is surprising for a used dvd..i would definitely order again
Customer Rating:
Summary: CRITERION DOES IT AGAIN !
Comment: The new transfer is crystal clear, the colors are bright, I can even see during the night scenes now ! The extras are all entertaining, and informative, just so worth the few extra bucks Criterion demands for taking our finest films and preserving them for my Grandson. If ONLY they would give " Easy Rider " the Criterion treatment now...
Customer Rating:
Summary: "Those Satisfactions Are Permanent"
Comment: This movie is the ultimate existential road trip.
Although I wouldn't normally say this when describing how I feel about a film but I love the way the movie distances the characters from the audience. Dennis Wilson and James Taylor's lack of acting experience actually adds to the films atmosphere. As true existential characters, they are too focused on 'the road' to worry about anything else. They only show true emotion when the Girl comes between them, making those scenes even more potent.
Everyone here is essentially an archetype with the exception of the Warren Oates character, who is a contradictory, chameleon-like personality, the one character searching not for a destination but an identity. In the midst of the aptly named Driver, Mechanic and Girl, GTO (Warren Oates) best defines the circular themes of the narrative, forever reinventing himself as if he has no true identity. Each character is an existential beast but the Oates character is the most human(or humble) in this sense. As an audience member, he was my entry point into accessing the meanings of the story.
This is one of my favorite American road movies. Highly recommended, worth every penny.
Customer Rating:
Summary: great 70's movie
Comment: a must see, not just for car fans,it is more about the people, places and an era in america.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Lonesome Highway
Comment: This movie grew on me. At first, the nonacting and dirt-cheap just-shoot-the-movie production values annoyed me but then I got into it. Two-Lane Blacktop has a sort of grubby charm to it. A very idiosyncratic road movie. For actors, James Taylor and Dennis Wilson make great musicians and Laurie Bird, as the girl, seems to exist as little more than a sketched plot device. Someone for the guys to interact with and fight over. Warren Oates seems to be the "talent" here. Most road movies are freespirited romps populated by horny teens and/or besotted, drugged out freaks. Here, the characters are decidedly dour. They eat, sleep and drive, drive, and drive. They don't explain themselves, they just are, man. The quiet side of the late 60's early 70's cultural revolution. We've got our freedom but now what? Still need money, still need to eat, sleep and interact with the world in some way. You escape just to fall into the same traps. The point of the movie seems to be: freedom takes it's toll just as much as any suburban 9-5 existence.
Yes, that's Harry Dean Stanton in the cowboy hat on his way to Oklahoma City.
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Editorial Reviews:
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James Taylor is The Driver, a car-obsessed racer with stringy hair and a concentration that precludes conversation. He travels the backroads of rural America with his buddy, The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys), an equally obsessed lost soul at home only in the car or under the hood. They have no names, only designations, and no life outside of their gypsy existence, riding the unending highway in their souped-up '55 Chevy from race to race. After picking up a hitchhiking Girl (Laurie Bird), whose presence breaks the tunnel-vision focus of the two men, they challenge a middle-aged hotshot, the garrulous G.T.O. (Warren Oates) to a cross-country race. Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop is the most alienated evocation of modern America ever made, an almost abstract study in dislocation and obsession set against a vague landscape of roadside diners and rest stops. Taylor and Wilson deliver appropriately blank performances, only expressing emotion when The Girl sparks jealousy between them. Oates is a glib dynamo constructing a new persona in every scene, as if trying on characters to play as he ping-pongs between the coasts. "How fast does it go?" asks The Driver, admiring G.T.O.'s car. "Fast enough," he answers. The Driver snaps, "You can never go fast enough." These are characters on the road to nowhere who can't work up enough speed to escape themselves. --Sean Axmaker
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