For this experiment to work we all have to watch it somewhat simultaneously, so don't start the film until about 9:30 pm EST (8:30 PM CST) and then start your commenting engines. Comment on the awesomeness of a particular chase, comment on how hot Katarina Witt still is, and call out all the cars you can identify.

We're having some problems with the embedded movies so you may have to type "Ronin" into the search box or else you'll be watching Alfred Hitchcock.

It appears that the guy in the 5, finding himself behind the CX, takes a "short cut" across the countryside in order to reappear… still behind the CX. Some pretty good Franco-hoonage here, and that's what counts!

After storyboards are done, VFX artists move to a stage called pre-visualization — a crude version of the action. [PopMech]

Director Roland Emmerich shoots the limo — a Lincoln Town Car L — against a massive blue screen in Vancouver, Canada. [PopMech]

Next step? Rendering! [PopMech]

Better than the takes-a-couple-hours-per-frame renders is this. It's called a doughboy render that takes just a few minutes per frame. [PopMech]

The final result? Well, simply put, it's epic disaster porn. Want to know the rest? Head on over to Popular Mechanics.

In honor of the American Medical Association changing its policy on medical marijuana Tuesday, we bring you this list of five pot-friendly car flicks—and one bonus flick to sober up to. Were you the type of person to partake (and don't worry, we know you're not), this is what you would watch.

La Carrera Panamericana With Music by Pink Floyd

Year Debuted: 1992, VHS/DVD only
Director: Ian McArthur
Length: 65 minutes

Why Get Baked? Two decades ago, David Gilmour and Nick Mason of Pink Floyd ran La Carrera in a Jaguar C-Type replica while a friend filmed the competition. They then came home, set the whole thing to music, and packaged it for sale. The footage is often cheesy, the sound mix isn't always that great, and you have to be able to tolerate (or preferably enjoy) Pink Floyd, but under the right circumstances, it's the ultimate car-freak chill film. The 65-minute video works best when set on an endless loop in the garage while you're...er...fixing stuff. Yeah—that's all you do out there. Fix stuff.

C'était un Rendezvous

Year Debuted: 1976
Director: Claude Lelouch
Length: 9 minutes

Why Get Baked? Because it's short, romantic, and set to the yowl of a Ferrari 275 GTB. Because it's gloriously detailed—See the pigeons? See the fleeing pedestrians? See the mother on the sidewalk yanking her kid out out of the way?—and rewards repeat viewing. Because it's so multi-layered, it may as well be a cake. And because it's French. And the French always crack your mind open.

The Blues Brothers

Year Debuted: 1980
Director: John Landis
Length: 133 minutes

Why Get Baked? One word: Stax. The car chases are fantastic, the jokes are timeless, and the look on Dan Aykroyd's face—ever solemn, ever grave—is worth the price of admission. But the music is what keeps you coming back. Aykroyd and Belushi's sidemen were little more than the house band from legendary Memphis soul shop Stax Records, and every note they play drips with the hard-earned funk of an all-night tracking session. Few things drop you into a groove like watching a Dodge Monaco take over the world. Fewer still can claim to have an eight-track full of Sam and Dave.

Ronin

Year Debuted: 1998
Director: John Frankenheimer
Length: 122 minutes

Why Get Baked? It's probably safe to say this is the only movie that combines the ear-melting howl of an E34 BMW M5 with the iron-jawed mugging of a middle-aged Robert Deniro. John Frankenheimer—the same man responsible for the epic Grand Prix—directed this one, and it's home to three of the best chase scenes ever filmed. The near-psychotic attention to detail (e.g., the M5 in question is a European-spec car and actually sounds like one) will likely freak you out, but even if you don't know how to spell your own name, the caper plot is easy to keep up with.

Corvette Summer

Year Debuted: 1978
Director: Matthew Robbins
Length: 105 minutes

Why Get Baked? Ingredients: One stolen Corvette. One post-Star-Wars Mark Hamill, deep in the throes of "Hey! I can be more than Luke!" typecasting paranoia. One road trip to get said 'Vette back. And a director who loves his four-wheeled cast so much that the main character comes across as little more than a background prop. Yes, it's cheesy. Yes, it's kitschy. And yes, you might fall asleep. But hell, this thing only makes sense when you're high.

Sober-up Special: Fifty Years of Formula 1 On Board

Year Debuted: 2004, DVD only
Length: 60 minutes
Director: N/A

Why Get Baked? In a word, don't. This is for when you really, really need to sober up. At $34.95 for an hour-long DVD, it's by no means cheap, but it's also more effective than mainlining an oil drum full of Red Bull. Play the clips chronologically, and you'll get a gentle wake-up call that transitions into a full-on, goes-to-eleven smackdown. Stirling Moss testing at Goodwood? Relaxing. Patrick Depallier doing an entire lap of Long Beach sideways? Attention-getting. Ayrton Senna going absolutely batshit during qualifying at Suzuka? Welcome to the world of the coherent. Now put some Visine in your eyes and try not to empty the fridge.

Yes, that's Quinton "Rampage" Jackson playing Mr. T playing B.A. Baracus. Bradley Cooper is Face. Sharlto Copley from District 9 is playing Murdoch while Liam Neeson will lead the new A-Team as Hannibal. And yes, that is the GMC van behind them. All is right in the world.

[via ETOnline]

The Mad Max series exists in the rarefied air of stories wherein the sequels added to the brilliance of the mythos rather than subjected moviegoers to gut-churning train wrecks of unintelligible post-apocalyptic dystopian futurescapes which could be blasted apart by armchair screenwriters (we're looking at you Terminator). Since Hollywood has officially run out of original ideas, and the last possible pennies haven't been squeezed from the Mad Max franchise, producer George Miller has formally announced production plans for Mad Mad 4: Fury Road. The latest installment of the post-apocalyptic series is so-far pegged for a 2011 release and Charlize Therone and Sam Worthington are prime suspects for the lead roles, but it's far enough out that those two picks could mean nothing. The current budget is said to be in the neighborhood of $100 million, but with no production house backing the film yet, that might change.

Most important about the news is to know is that Miller is planning to take as long as a year to build the badass vehicles, sets and crazy gizmos (or should we say gyros) which will serve as the films backdrop. [First Showing]

While you're here, you might as well enjoy a bit of one of Newman's later roles. Sure, sure!

And we really can't talk about Newman's career without an excerpt from this Malaise Era classic:

Oktapodi was created in 2007 as a graduate project by a team of French students at the Gobelins L’Ecole de L’Image, a Parisian film school. It has gone on to win a number of awards and was even nominated this year for an Oscar in the animated short film category.

What makes the short such a treat even if you’re not a particular fan of cephalopods is the choice of vehicle to depict breakneck speed: the Vespa-based Piaggio Ape minitruck, featured here on Jalopnik a short while ago. In a genre where V8’s never hurt and tractor trailers can come in very handy, the truck in Oktapodi is equipped in real life with three to fifteen cubic inches of single cylinder power.

But Oktapodi shows that when it comes to flinging vehicles about with reckless abandon, it’s not the size of your engine that counts.

Source: Oktapodi.com

We see Keitel behind the wheel of a '72 Imperial LeBaron and Proval piloting a '72 Dodge Coronet sedan… and the streets of Brooklyn don't have room for both cars!
Spoiler Alert! Don't watch this scene if you haven't already seen Mean Streets all the way through; it would be a shame to give away the ending of this all-time great Scorcese film to those who haven't yet experienced it.

Before we get to the interview, let's jump over to Mr. Cox's site and read what he has to say about the central theme of Repo Man:

Nuclear War. Of course. What else could it be about? And the demented society that contemplated the possibility thereof. Repoing people's cars and hating alien ideologies were only the tip of the iceberg. The iceberg itself was the maniac culture which had elected so-called "leaders" named Reagan and Thatcher, who were prepared to sacrifice everything — all life on earth — to a gamble based on the longevity of the Soviet military, and the whims of their corporate masters. J. Frank Parnell - the fictitious inventor of the Neutron Bomb - was the central character for me.

Yes, the Greatest Car Movie Of All Time wasn't even about cars! As a nuclear-war-obsessed 18-year-old gearhead equipped with a fleet of wretched hoopties rattling with Suicidal Tendencies and Stooges cassettes Repo Man was a Tzar Bomba dropped right into my skull. Lately, what with all the rumblings about Cox's recently-finished non-sequel, Repo Chick, I was inspired to email Mr. Cox and ask him the Repo Man car questions I've had for him all along. Even though he's swamped with Repo Chick-related work these days, he got back to me right away and was kind enough to provide detailed answers to my ranting, obsessive queries. Here we go:


MM: Let's get to the most obvious one first: why a '64 Chevelle Malibu sedan for J. Frank Parnell? One can easily imagine him coming home after a long day designing enhanced-radiation physics packages, easing the car into the garage attached to a wholesome Los Alamos ranch-style house, etc., and a Chevelle 4-door would have been just about right for a successful young bomb designer in the mid-to-late 1960s; unpretentious and practical, yet with a certain amount of sportiness not found in the lower-end Chevelle models. He's still driving it in the early 1980s (or he's just obtained it), and that must mean something. I've always imagined his family leaving him in '69 or so, as he proceeds with his downward spiral, with the house and car kept unchanged as a creepy shrine to happier suburban times, but some of my car-geek friends feel that J. Frank just stole the car at random (due to its easily hot-wired pre-steering-column-lock ignition) when he grabbed whatever the hell is in the car's trunk and fled New Mexico.

AC: I think you answered that one very well. I just liked the boxy aspect of the '64 Malibu: it seemed very sinister to me. What I didn't realise was how similar it was to the Impala, which the Repo Man drove. So maybe they are two sides of the same coin, too.

MM: Every time I watch Repo Man, I'm amazed by the excellent vehicular casting of the film, and the fact that most of the cars actually used in the film are as specified in the screenplay shows that vehicle selection was very important to you. How is it that an Englishman, living in Los Angeles for just a few years, could have developed such an eye for the nuances of American cars and their cultural overtones? Most Americans, even serious car freaks, would be at a total loss if they tried to do the same with British cars; you'd probably get 1979 London heroin kingpins driving Humber Sceptres, or worse. What was your crash course in American cars?

AC: I knew people who owned those cars. My motorcycle mechanic had the Malibu; our casting director drove the '73 Impala: we bought it from her for the film, then I drove it around for a couple of years until it passed away.

MM: That leads straight to the next one: What kind of car did you drive while shooting the film? For that matter, what did you drive while you were studying at UCLA?

AC: I wasn't a car person at that time. I had motorcycles: Hondas, old BMWs, and a 750 Norton Commando which was the coolest of them all, on the rare occasions when it ran.

My first four-wheeled vehicle was a Toyota pickup which I bought to transport the motorcycles when they broke down. Then came a beloved 68 Chevy Impala convertible (305 cu in) which I bought in Tucson Arizona and drove for many years until an actor borrowed it and wrecked it. For many years I had a 1986 Isuzu Trooper and my current, and I hope final, ride is a 96 Trooper. It is a fine vehicle as long as you don't drive at more than 70 or turn too many corners.

MM: The mirror-shade-wearing government agents drive AMC Matadors, at a time when most cop types would have had Ford LTDs and Chevy Caprices. The inept-yet-sinister effect comes through nicely with the off-brandedness of AMC products, but at the risk of overemphasizing the inept side. Were you influenced by the Matador driven by Stacy Keach's Sergeant Stedenko character in Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke when you selected the Matador as the agents' car?

AC: No, I liked the Matador for its weird shape and for its name. But even it pales into insignificance beside the AMC Gremlin, perhaps the ugliest motor vehicle ever, prior to the Hummer at least.

MM: It's impossible to imagine Harry Dean in anything other than a '71 Impala sedan, of course, but did you consider other cars for the Bud character when getting vehicles for the production? If so, what cars?

AC: Wasn't it a '73? Anyway, it was always his ride.

MM: That Impala sure looks like a '71 to me (the '73 didn't have the turn-signal lights on the fender leading edges, and US government regulations mandated monstrous 5 MPH crash bumpers on '72 and later models, while the car in the movie has the pre-72 bumpers). Of course, the full-sized Chevrolets of that era were pretty much all the same under the skin, so it could have been a '73 that got wrecked and had '71 body parts bolted on; that way all the registration paperwork would have had "1973" all over it.

AC: I bet you're right about that Chevy. I never even looked at the paperwork, just thought of it as the '73'.

MM: How much thought did you put into choosing the cars that got repo'd during the film? Did you agonize over the cars with less screen time, such as the '78 Cutlass Salon Coupe ripped by Otto in his first-ever repo? Or were those cars selected more on the basis of what was easily available within budget?

AC: Those were based on what was hanging around the set. I think the Cutlass belonged to one of the Teamsters.

MM: I've had a nice PR lady from the Car-Freshner Corporation, maker of the "Little Tree" air fresheners, send me vast quantities of free trees to give away at races and so on, because of the exposure they got from my series of "you'll find one in every car" junykard-photography posts. Apparently the employees of Car-Freshner were totally unaware of their products' role in your film.

AC: Nonsense! They have forgotten now, or perhaps your contact wasn't there then, but Car-Freshner sent us a whole bunch of air fresheners WITHOUT the scent, which is too horrible for anyone, even an actor, to endure for long. This, plus the generic goods from Ralph's Supermarket, was the extent of product placement in the film.

And, of course, that got me to thinking: what about all the other cars driven by movie bad guys? We've seen some excellent bad-guy movie cars over the years, and today I'm honoring fifteen of them. Those of you who were outraged by what I missed in the last list (yeah, I got all your venomous emails about the exclusion of Vanishing Point Challenger- a movie car I love dearly, believe it or not- last time around), prepare for further jaw-droppingly egregious omissions!

Here we go, in no particular order of preference, the Jalopnik Sinister Fifteen Movie Cars! Thanks to the Internet Movie Car Database for most of these images.

Bill Duke's 1990 Chevrolet Caprice
Payback, 1999. Crazy Mel Gibson has been in quite a few good car movies, in between drinking shots of holy water and shaking his fist at the Vatican, and this minor neo-noir masterpiece has plenty of Jalopnik-Grade™ rides. For corrupt cops, you just can't beat the good ol' Caprice.
Albert Popwell's 1973 Cadillac Eldorado
Magnum Force, 1973. After Popwell's character Drāno-izes a ho who holds out on his money (this execution method inspires the line "That shows a certain sense of style" from Clint Eastwood), he meets his doom in this gorgeous pimpmobile at the hands of vigilante motorcycle cops.
Bob Skokes' 1968 Chevrolet El Camino
Suburbia, 1984. I totally spaced on the punked-out Ford LTD from this classic film in my last list, but the El Camino driven by the bitter dog-slaughtering laid-off autoworkers can make this one!
Paul Newman's 1958 Cadillac Sixty-Two Convertible
Hud, 1963. Newman's character of Texas rancher's son Hud Bannon stands as one of the meanest amoral bastids in motion picture history, and his (pink, according to the dialogue in this black-and-white film) '58 Cadillac suits that character perfectly, given the landscape of pickup-drivin' good country people.
Conrad Veidt's 1926 Mercedes-Benz Modell K
Casablanca, 1942. Nazis in movies are always sinister and/or evil (unless you're Leni Riefenstahl), and there's only one vehicular choice for them in Vichy-governed Morocco: Mercedes-Benz!
Lord Humungus Motor Pool 1973 Chrysler Valiant VH
The Road Warrior, 1984. With all the outstanding baddiemobiles in this movie, how do you choose one car? In the end, the quad-pneumatic-arrow-gun turret gave this Valiant the edge.
Drive-By Shooters' 1986 Hyundai Excel
Boys N The Hood, 1991. It's hard to imagine an '86 Excel even running, much less holding together long enough to facilitate a drive-by, but sometimes the cinema viewer needs to break out the ol' suspension-of-disbelief thing.
Emmett Walsh's 1966 Volkswagen Beetle
Blood Simple, 1985. I can't make any movie list without something from Los Hermanos Coen, and it's hard to come up with an ickier bad guy than the unnamed VW-driving detective in their first film.
Dennis Hopper's 1968 Dodge Charger
Blue Velvet, 1986. It's hard to imagine a scarier bad guy than Hopper's Frank Booth, who huffs from a mysterious can of compressed gas, beats women, and hits the road in a completely evil beater Charger.
Emile Meyer's 1956 Ford Fairlane
Sweet Smell Of Success, 1957. This incredibly dark movie- which pretty much bombed when released, but is now regarded as one of the all-time greats- wouldn't have been complete without the corrupt Fairlane-driving cop doing dirty work for the Walter Winchell-based Burt Lancaster character.
Larry J. Blake's 1948 DeSoto Custom
Sunset Boulevard, 1950. What do the burly and ominous repo men coming after William Holden's Plymouth drive, as they attempt to de-wheel (and maybe de-kneecap) him in the City Where Only A Nobody Walks? Yessir, a stolid DeSoto.
Ann Blyth's 1942 Pontac DeLuxe
Mildred Pierce, 1945. Dan Savage says it's the greatest film ever made, and he may be onto something. Based on a novel by master crime writer James M. Cain, this film features a sporty little Pontiac convertible driven by the thoroughly evil- yet utterly shallow- character of Veda Pierce.
David Patrick Kelly's 1955 Cadillac Hearse
The Warriors, 1979. The gang costumes alone make The Warriors worth watching, but the supremely evil '55 Caddy hearse driven by the Rogues vaults it into all-time Bad Guy Movie Car greatness. "War-ri-yers… come out to play-ee-yay!"
Robert Mitchum's Model T Ford
Night Of The Hunter, 1955. I really wanted to use a car driven by Mitchum in Cape Fear, because his character in that film is so terrifying as to make De Niro's version in the Scorcese remake seem like Mr. Rogers by comparison, but Max Cady takes the Shoe Leather Express instead of getting wheels. No problem, though, because Mitchum's character in Charles Laughton's directorial masterpiece is damn near as menacing (and even slimier), and he does drive.
Robin Williams' 2002 Toyota Echo
One Hour Photo, 2002. Williams' creepy, obsessive character managed to purge all the happy from the image of the cute lil' Echo.

This is open to debate, of course, and there are films we deplore that didn't make this list. Agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments and feel free to add some YouTube clips to support your choices. In the meantime, click next to see what we're talking about.

12.) Gone In 60 Seconds (Remake)
Director: Dominic Sena
Year Debuted: 2000
Why It's Awful: It's not as if the original Gone In 60 Seconds is the best example of cinema ever, it just features great cars. Unfortunately, the remake manages to lose some of the verve and spark of the first film and replaces it with Jerry Bruckhiemer-induced stunts and a truly awful performance from Angeline Jolie. Oh well, it's always fun to watch Nick Cage.

11.) Herbie: Fully Loaded
Director: Angle Robinson
Year Debuted: 2005
Why It's Awful: As cute as the original Herbie movies are, this remake smacks of Disney-fied unoriginality and features Herbie racing in a NASCAR race. It also features Lindsay Lohan's rise into womanhood (which involved, allegedly, a digital breast reduction) and her decline into substance abuse. We're going to show you the blooper real, because it's actually more entertaining than the film itself.

10.) Black Moon Rising
Director: Harvey Cokliss
Year Debuted: 1986
Why It's Awful: Other than the general 1980s-ness, as exemplified by the appearance of both a big-haired Linda Hamilton and Bubba Smith, the production value of the film isn't as bad as some of the others here. Written by John Carpenter and directed with a touch of science fiction noir (hey, everyone loves Blade Runner!) the worst part of the film is that the titular Black Moon concept cars is based on the hideous Wingho Concordia II. It's a bad Canadian, Bertone-rejected wedge unimpressive even by 1980s standards.

9.) Race The Sun
Director: Charles T. Kanganis
Year Debuted: 1996
Why It's Awful: Wait? A movie with both Halle Berry and Jim Belushi? About a high school solar racing team that came in 18th place? Oh man, nothing beats bratty teenagers (played by pre-fame Casey Affleck and Eliza Dushku) and alternative energy. It's like October Sky... in Hawaii! We couldn't actually find a youtube video of this, but the photo above and your imagination should do the trick.

8.) The Wraith
Year Debuted: 1986
Director: Mike Marvin
Why It's Awful: It's like the original Fast And The Furious with a street-racing gang. But instead of Vin Diesel you have a cosmically resurrected teenager. And instead of driving around in a souped-up DSM he has a Dodge prototype. Oh, and rather than Jordana Brewster to stare at you have Clint Howard.

<7.) The Dukes Of Hazzard
Year Debuted: 2005
Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Why It's Awful: It's not as if The Dukes of Hazzard was a particularly great television show, but it had its moments. Other than Willie Nelson, the movie had almost nothing worth salvaging. We even like the director, Chandrasekhar, who directed some of the funniest episodes of Arrested Development. Extra points for being yet another film on this list featuring Burt Reynolds.

6.) Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Year Debuted: 2009
Director: Michael Bay
Why It's Awful: As you can read here and here, the genius of Michael Bay is making lots of money by getting people to watch a movie mostly unwatchable. There's no car pr0n in this one, like the original. It's mostly just a bunch of nearly identical robots tearing pieces of metal off of each other for reasons unclear to anyone who doesn't follow the intricacies of the Transformers canon.

5.) Smokey And The Bandit III
Year Debuted: 1983
Director: Dick Lowry
Why It's Awful: A movie so bad Burt Reynolds wouldn't appear it, the plot of Smokey And The Bandit 3 includes Jerry Reed as the Bandit and Jackie Gleason betting away his badge. Rumor has it that Jackie Gleason originally played the Bandit but test audiences didn't get it. Either way, nothing really explains why certain scenes exist or what happens. And to top it all off, there's a sex scene with Jackie Gleason. The-Watercooler.com explains the rest above.

4.) RPM
Year Debuted: 1998
Director: Ian Sharp
Why It's Awful: We were surprised to discover, in doing our background research for why RPM is so awful, that there's no Wikipedia entry for RPM. There's a wikipedia page for The Alarmist and for the made-for-tv-movie with David Arquette The Webbers. Why no page for RPM? We think it's a vast conspiracy perperated by Courtney Cox to make us forget the film. Great cars, bad acting, and David Arquette. Need we say more?

3.) 2 Fast, 2 Furious
Year Debuted: 2003
Director: John Singleton
Why It's Awful: Lacking almost any of the charm, or the cast, of the original, 2 Fast 2 Furious matches the acting skills of Ludacris with dialogue that goes from campy and technically dubious to downright awful. The film is dreadfully slow for an action movie and the concept of Paul Walker earning his way back in to the government's good graces is tired and predictable. The whole film has the value of a set of neon green JC Whitney pedal covers.

2.) Driven
Year Debuted: 2001
Director: Renny Harlin
Why It's Awful: Driven is maybe the worst film directed by Renny Harlin, the genius behind such films as the second worst Die Hard flick, Wal-Mart $5 DVD bin staple The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (to be fair, Wert really likes this one), and massive flop Cutthroat Island. A mixture of convoluted plot, poor acting, and crappy CG combines for a movie so bad we unfairly blame it for killing off the CART series.

1.) Redline
Year Debuted: 2007
Director: Andy Cheng
Why It's Awful: Literally part of the reason why the subprime market crashed (the film was produced with subprime loans) and the economy is in the crapper; the film Redline is a tour de force of awful. The questionable plotline, the gratuitous destruction of exotics, the Eddie Griffin factor, and the awful acting all combine to create a film that makes The Fast And The Furious seem like Citizen Kane. It's so bad, the car gods took the producer's Enzo.

You might notice that there's no Vanishing Point Challenger, no Two Lane Blacktop '55 Chevy or GTO, no Road Warrior Falcon, no French Connection Pontiac LeMans, and so on; you can go anywhere to find those admittedly deserving machines in a Top Movie Cars list… but you're in for something a little different when your Rambler clanks into my drive-in!

Fee Waybill's 1968 Plymouth Sport Satellite
Ladies And Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains, 1981. Just look at this evil '68 Satellite, driven by the character played by Tubes mastermind Fee Waybill in the nearly-forgotten punk classic starring Diane Lane.
Stacey Keach's 1972 AMC Matador
Up In Smoke, 1978. Some folks might try to tell you that Cheech's '64 Impala is the automotive star of this all-time Malaise Era classic, but those same guys will sell you a bag of "Acapulco Gold" that turns out to be oregano. Sergeant Stedenko's unmarked Kenosha sedan, take a bow!
Isaac Hayes' Cadillac Fleetwood
Escape From New York, 1981. An apocalyptic Caddy with chandeliers on the fenders, in jail, being driven across a mine-studded bridge by Isaac Hayes? Why the hell didn't Cadillac issue a chandelier-equipped Escape From New York Edition Cadillac?
Barbara Stanwyck's 1937 LaSalle
Double Indemnity, 1944. It's taking all my willpower to avoid stacking this list with nothing but film noir cars- for example, the cop '49 Ford stalking Sterling Hayden in the opening sequence of Asphalt Jungle- but there's no way we can neglect this LaSalle, which features in the greatest post-murder-victim-body-dump 'car won't start' sequence in cinema history.
Robert Mitchum's 1950 Ford
Thunder Road, 1958. That ol' dope-smoking Bob Mitchum won't let the '57 Chevy-drivin' revenoors catch his triple-carbed Ford, no way! You'll get some nice closeup shots of the triple-carbed overhead-valve Ford V8 in this excellent car movie.
All 250 Vehicles In The Final Sequence Of Used Cars
Used Cars, 1980. The greatest Malaise Era movie of all time! You'll see everything from an early Bronco to a Fiat 128 burning rubber in the final ten minutes of this Kurt Russell classic.
Mel Gibson's 1994 Chevrolet Caprice
Conspiracy Theory, 1997. A movie in which Crazy Mel delivers the line "It's time someone lifted the festering scab that is the Vatican" is already starting off on the right foot, but his awesomely evil Caprice cab sets a new standard for scary movie taxis.
Harvey Keitel's 1972 Imperial LeBaron
Mean Streets, 1973. What do low-level mob associates drive in Early Malaise New York City? Exactly. Spoiler: this car doesn't get a happy ending.
Reese Witherspoon's 1967 Dodge Coronet Wagon
Freeway, 1996. This movie features cynicism galore, a nightmarish Danny Elfman soundtrack, Brooke Shields sticking a gun in her mouth and pulling the trigger… and this beautifully wretched Coronet wagon, the crapping out of which starts Witherspoon's character on her Red Riding Hood-esque adventures. Murilee says check it out!
Bette Davis' 1947 Lincoln
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane, 1962. Yeah, so I like my movies dark and cynical- you got a problem with that? Davis' character, Baby Jane Hudson, uses this reminder-of-past-glory luxury machine to haul her crippled sister to her death on the Santa Monica beach.
Ronald Reagan's 1959 Ford
The Killers, 1964. Man, imagine having an actor become governor of California! Watching The Great Communicator- in this case, playing a criminal mastermind plotting a mail-truck heist- hoon this gigantic boxy Ford down a dirt road while wearing the same exact suit he wore as President… well, I'm shopping for '59 Fords now!
Dick Rude's 1976 Toyota Corolla
Repo Man, 1984. I'm going to go on record stating that Repo Man is the Greatest Car Movie Of All Time, and that choosing one car to honor in this list was quite difficult. I've read the screenplay many times, and it's telling that Alex Cox specified the exact year, make, and model of every car to be used in the film (and, in most cases, those are the cars that were used during the production). The red Eldorado? The Government Agents' Matador? The Malibu? I'm going to give the honor to the "get sushi and not pay" gang's very punk Toyota… and that reminds me that I've committed a grievous mistake by omitting the Torino from Suburbia in this list. Well, next one!
John Lurie's 1965 Dodge Coronet 440
Stranger Than Paradise, 1984. What's the best possible car for a pair of small-time gamblers to drive from New York to Cleveland to Florida during the winter in 1984? Jim Jarmusch knows!
Rodney Dangerfield's 1966 Mulliner Park Ward Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud III
Caddyshack, 1980. What car best epitomizes bad taste and conspicuous consumption, Middle Malaise Era style? Sure, a Zimmer might have worked just as well, but a Mulliner Park Ward Silver Cloud is just as horrifying and ten times as expensive!
Matt Dillon's 1965 Cadillac Fleetwood
Drugstore Cowboy, 1990. When you're ripping off drugstores for that good pharmaceutical-grade junk during the Nixon Era in the Pacific Northwest, there's no better ride.
Billy Bob Thornton's 1940 Dodge Coupe
The Man Who Wasn't There, 2001. Of all the Coen Brothers' films- which show excellent taste in vehicular selection- I settled on this one as my favorite. Tough choice, and I almost went with the '85 Cutlass Ciera in Fargo, or the detective's Beetle in Blood Simple.
Roger Sloman's Morris Minor 1000 Convertible
Nuts In May, 1976. This annoying little car is so perfectly suited to Sloman's fingernails-on-chalkboard character that it's impossible to imagine him driving anything else.
Gloria Swanson's Isotta-Fraschini
Sunset Boulevard, 1950. Wicker bodywork. Leopard skin upholstery. 800 feet total length. Best of all, a golden telephone to speak to the driver!
Burt Reynolds' 1972 Citroën SM
The Longest Yard, 1974. A drunk-driven SM being chased by Malaise Era Mopars, with Burt Reynolds at the wheel and Lynyrd Skynyrd on the radio. Enough said!
Ömer Simsek's Opel Manta
Manta, Manta, 1991. As any longtime Jalopnik reader knows, we have a sick love for the Opel Manta, otherwise known as "the German Camaro." Here's one of the many, many gorgeous Mantas from the German film Manta, Manta.
Image source: Automobilsport

From the guys who brought us Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, comes this newest flick about a professional team of contract car salesmen that can move any car, no matter how long it's been sitting unsold, with such immediacy and force that you won't know what hit you. Expect all the profanity of a Judd Apatow film without the redeeming emotional qualities. The Goods: Live Hard. Sell Hard, starring Jeremy Piven and featuring Ving Rhames, James Brolin and David Koechner, hits theaters August 14. Warning, trailer is NSFW.
[LiveHardSellHard.com]

Citroën Mehari-driving Project Car Hell Poster Child Franzouse stumbled across this fine 1968 motion picture and was kind enough to send in a tip. After seeing the sad Olds Vista Cruiser earlier, I thought it would be nice for us to see a GM Skywagon while it's still young and healthy. Here's what Franzouse has to say:

Just came back from a business day-trip to Brussels (hooray for Thalys): they make the best French fries there, amazing. Anyways, I'm watching a 30 year old French movie right now titled "l'Homme à la Buick" (the man with the buick). Pretty cool story, and ok film about a provincial dandy who is actually a smuggler and drives around in a big buick station wagon often being chased by cops in DS's and 404's.

Hung is all about former high school sports legend Ray Drecker's become a middle-aged high school basketball coach in metro Detroit and his finding a way to benefit from his biggest asset — his penis. Doesn't sound like the story of Jalopnik to you? Bear with us. It'll all make sense.

1.) The name of Hung's main character is Ray and he grew up in metro Detroit. The name of Jalopnik's editor is Ray and he grew up in metro Detroit.

2.) Hung's story is set in Detroit. Many of Jalopnik's stories are set in Detroit.

3.) Hung uses the Packard plant and the old Michigan Central train station to set the scene of Detroit's economic decline. Jalopnik uses the Packard plant and the old Michigan Central train station to set the scene of Detroit's economic decline. Well, until it caught fire last week.

4.) Hung's Ray gets admiring looks outside of Hamtramck's Burk's Igloo ice cream shop because of his equipment. Jalopnik's Ray gets admiring looks outside of Hamtramck's Burk's Igloo ice cream shop because of his equipment.

5.) Hung uses Detroit's Renaissance Center as a visual phallus jutting from the groin of the Detroit River. Jalopnik uses Detroit's Renaissance Center as a verbal phallus jutting from the groin of the Detroit River.

6.) Hung's Ray gives love to various ladies for a fee. Jalopnik's Ray gives love to various cars for free.

7.) Hung's Ray is...well...hung like a horse. Jalopnik's Ray is...well..hung up on horsepower.

See — it makes perfect sense to us. Hey HBO, where's our royalties?

Okay, we can buy the notion of robotic geishas with katanas coming out of interesting and uncomfortable places, and the "bust gun" is pretty funny, but things start going off the tracks with the chainsaw head thing. Then a geisha transforms into a freeway tank. And then "fried shrimp." What in the hell is going on here? This is one very over-the-top concept and thoroughly insane, but from the preview, it's making more sense than Transformers 2.

[Fliqz]