Friday's Old Fashioned: Drivetime Opening Credits Edition

Driving. It's quintessentially American. That’s why it was the focal point of “American Graffiti.” Well, driving and music. But to “American Graffiti” driving & music was a communal activity, a way for friends (and sometimes enemies) to mingle across armrests and seat dividers. They could even mingle across lanes, shouting at one another from opposing rolled down windows. They could meet one place and drive somewhere else. They could drive aimlessly, scoop loops, here, there, everywhere, killing time because when you’re young you have all the time in the world.

That time, however, can also feel like a burden. Sometimes there’s no one to meet, no one to accompany you. Sometimes you just want to be alone anyway. Solitary moments in cars are just as frequent and romantic and worthy of cinematic documentation too. 1986's “At Close Range” has just such a sequence. In fact, it's the film's first sequence. If you've ever been a Midwestern kid on a lonely summer night itching for something to do or any other place in the world to be and therefore set sail in your automobile to just, like, get good and lost in the spaces between the road's white lines, well, this one's for you.