Reminder! HTMLGIANT Meetup: “Two-Lane Blacktop” (Chicago)
Warren Oates, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, and James Taylor in "Two-Lane Blacktop."
This weekend (October 8th & 9th), Chicago’s Music Box Theatre is screening Monte Hellman and Rudy Wurlitzer‘s 1971 masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop. Long overlooked, Two-Lane has for the past five years or so been enjoying a critical renaissance, and is increasingly regarded as one of the greatest films of the ’70s. (Click here to read some of my own thoughts on it.) And right now is an especially opportune time to see it, what with its grandchild Drive currently killing things in theaters.
There are two screenings, one Saturday, one Sunday, each at 11:30 AM. I’ll be attending the Saturday 11:30 AM show. Anyone care to join me? The movie is 102 minutes long and I was thinking we could grab a coffee afterward, before peeling out onto our nation’s highways.
(Yes, Two-Lane Blacktop really does star James Taylor and Dennis Wilson—in their only film roles! No, they don’t sing, nor is any of their music used in the movie. Yes, they’re both incredible—though it’s Oates who really steals the show.)
… And here’s Chicago Reader contributor Ben Sachs’s Cine-File write-up:
HTMLGIANT Meetup: “Two-Lane Blacktop” (Chicago)
Warren Oates, Dennis Wilson, Laurie Bird, and James Taylor in "Two-Lane Blacktop."
This coming weekend (October 8th & 9th), Chicago’s Music Box Theatre is screening Monte Hellman and Rudy Wurlitzer‘s 1971 masterpiece Two-Lane Blacktop. Long overlooked, Two-Lane has for the past five years or so been enjoying a critical renaissance, and is increasingly regarded as one of the greatest films of the ’70s. (Click here to read some of my own thoughts on it.) And right now is an especially opportune time to see it, what with its grandchild Drive currently killing things in theaters.
There are two screenings, one Saturday, one Sunday, each at 11:30 AM. I’ll be attending the Saturday 11:30 AM show. Anyone care to join me? The movie is 102 minutes long and I was thinking we could grab a coffee afterward, before peeling off onto our nation’s highways.
(Yes, Two-Lane Blacktop really does star James Taylor and Dennis Wilson—in their only film roles! No, they don’t sing, nor is any of their music used in the movie. Yes, they’re both incredible—though it’s Oates who really steals the show.)
DRIVE
You’ve probably heard by now that Drive is very, very good. That’s because Drive is very, very good. Indeed, it’s about as good as a Hollywood film can be these days—it even bears comparison with the great B-movies of the late ’70s / early ’80s, which supposedly went extinct when Hollywood transformed itself into a industry of nothing but A-movies. (Box Office Mojo lists Drive’s production budget as $15 million, which is half as much as Woody Allen’s most recent film.)
After the jump is a spoiler-free list of ten things that I loved about the film.
Gary Indiana, Rudy Wurlitzer and YOU!
On May 28, worlds will collide as Gary Indiana and Rudy Wurlitzer converge on 192 Books in Chelsea, just south of my office. Two Dollar Radio has just put out Indiana’s The Shanghai Gesture, and is about to rerelease Wurlitzer’s Nog—a fevered dream which threatens to split our world in twain, if ever there was one (to paraphrase Scruffy). Now, I have not yet read either of these, but I have read books by these gentlemen (I use the term loosely. HEYOOOO!) before. Wurlitzer’s The Drop Edge of Yonder, which Two Dollar Radio put out last year, was rad. BMX rad, even (fist pound for the 1980s). And Indiana is a baaaddd man (to paraphrase Ali [or is it Mr. T?]). The upshot is, I suppose, that this will be a strange and surprising event the likes of which we haven’t seen since the Tunguska incident (nod to Pynchon).
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May 20th, 2009 / 7:59 am
May 20th, 2009 / 7:59 am