Lions downloaded 2 lane blacktop in continuation of the 70's car movie series, only to discover it was Warren Oates's magnum opus.

12 years before he managed astro division, coining the phrase "when you're walking on eggs, don't hop".  

 

 

10 years before he was sergeant Hulka.

 

 

There were higher rated Oat movies: The Wild Bunch, In the heat of the night, Badlands.

 

 2 lane blacktop was rather aimless, shot during a real road trip with no script.  Gathered Warren was driving aimlessly, telling hitchhikers imaginary stories.  He was the only professional actor.  The cops were real. No-one wore makeup.

 The director reminded us the imaginary stories were based on what Warren saw in the hitchhikers.  The cemetery scene reminded lions of the trophy wife, dealing with the death of a parent at age 18.  Going to a cemetery despite the rain heightened the sadness for lions.

 

 

There was some kind of race across the country which was abandoned but served a purpose of joining the characters. 

 

The encounters with death reminded lions of Kowalski's final encounter with death.

 These 70's car movies were all based on the easy rider formula.  In this case, death symbolized our merry band breaking up.   

If there was any plot, it was the imaginary competition between the 3 dudes for the 1 little girl who they could never really have.  She was 18 while the other characters were 23, 28, & 43.

 

 

 They fed her with their racing income, but it looked like she just played with her food & left.  Then she didn't eat anything in the last scene.

The troubled teenager character wasn't just a skit.  She killed herself at age 25, probably from depression.

 

 

Reviewing the heroine's introduction, she really did just hop in the car & the guys acted like nothing happened.  It was easily missed at 2x.  Maybe that was normal in the days of hitchhiking.

Lions gathered they were the equivalent of the modern homeless & in those days, getting around took a much smaller part of an average income.  Travel by road is much more expensive than it was while travel by air is probably cheaper.

The road trip adventures in these movies remind lions of their aimless career in broke startup after broke startup, their daily running adventures.  There must be some kind of hunger for the hustle, when making every dollar took an adventure.  Lions could easily go back to the days of spending all day at a desk & driving to go across the street.  That was all of the 80's & the early 2000's.