Capital Celluloid - Day 335: Sunday Dec 4

Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971):  Ritzy Cinema, Brixton, 1.40pm

A rare screening of Monte Hellman's seminal road movie and without a doubt the highlight of the week. Has one of the great endings in cinema.

Here's the Chicago Reader review that will only make you want to see it all the more: 

'This exciting existentialist road movie by Monte Hellman, with a swell script by Rudolph Wurlitzer and Will Corry and my favorite Warren Oates performance, looks even better now than it did in 1971, although it was pretty interesting back then as well. James Taylor and Dennis Wilson are the drivers of a supercharged '55 Chevy, and Oates is the owner of a new GTO (these nameless characters are in fact identified only by the cars they drive); they meet and agree to race from New Mexico to the east coast, though an assortment of side interests periodically distracts them, including various hitchhikers (among them Laurie Bird). (GTO hilariously assumes a new persona every time he picks up a new passenger, rather like the amorphous narrator in Wurlitzer's novel Nog.) The movie starts off as a narrative but gradually grows into something much more abstract—it's unsettling but also beautiful.'
Jonathan Rosenbaum


Here is the trailer.


Here is an interview Matthew Thrift conducted with the director about the movie.