The Smiley Smile Message Board

Just finished watching, pretty slick film I liked it. Anyways did any of the Boys ever see it? Ever comment on it?

Mike doesn't have anything to say about Denny's acting skills compared to his legendary Full House appearance?

Hey man.

Tanner Lane Baseball Cap On Top rules, too.

Have mercy.

Actually saw this last week for the first time.  I thought it was pretty good too.  Funnily enough I was wondering the same thing while watching it...  What did the other guys think of it, did they even bother seeing it?  Or was Brian still recovering from his unhappy cinematic experience with the film "Seconds" a number of years earlier? 

I, of course, only tracked down a copy many, many years ago because of Dennis. I had no idea how much I was going to love it. Who ever thought of making an art road movie?! Gosh Darn brilliant film and one of my favourites of all time.

It was touted in a cover article in Esquire upon release as being the movie of the year.  It wasn't.

I found it fairly tedious, but worthwhile enough for the rock star ogling it provided.  Oates was good as usual, but Laurie couldn't carry a tune in a bucket.

A friend got a book which was basically the movie script and we quoted lines from the movie for years.

Them cicadies is freaky man.

The greatest American Existentialist movie ever made. Seriously.

http://selvedgeyard.com/2010/06/30/two-lane-blacktop-under-the-hood-of-the-epic-1971-road-flick/

Article about the film that has an interesting quote from director Monte Hellman. The Mechanic was the very last role cast, just days before the cameras started rolling. Before the film's casting director Fred Roos, a friend of Dennis', thought of asking him, the following people had been approached or read for the role: James Caan, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and....wait for it....Randy Newman.

Of these, Caan had a mainstream Hollywood rep - and had never done a film as "underground" as this. De Niro had done a few films in NYC and one Hollywood picture, Bloody Mama, and Pacino had done only one film, a small role in Me Nathalie, and their credits were mainly off-Broadway theater; stardom was a ways in the future.

 I suppose Randy was approached because he was a friend of the film's producer Michael Laughlin. Insofar as Randy's only acting roles to date have been in a couple of brief parts as a piano player, and once as the voice of a talking cactus in Three Amigos, this sounds pretty weird. His demeanor in the TV interviews I've seen sort of reminds me of the late Steve Landesberg, but this is certainly not the kind of role Landesberg used to play.