"'It's Anti-War, and It'll Have a Big Effect on the War'"

"It was obvious that someone at Columbia felt Head had box office potential, because roughly a month out from the premiere, large, mysterious ads began appearing in the pages of the Voice. A thick-lipped young man sporting a dark comb-over and glasses gazes at the reader; in the first two ads to run, the only copy acts as a textual dopplegänger to the half-tone image. Other movies advertised on those same pages give a sense of the era's cultural tumult: Andy Warhol's Flesh, Jane Fonda exposing much of her own skin in Barbarella, Godard's visceral Weekend, Steve McQueen's careening Mustang in Bullitt arriving for an engagement at Radio City Music Hall."

R. C. Baker at The Village Voice looks back at the Monkees' movie, upon its fiftieth anniversary.

Bullitt Time

Using Google Maps, follow Steve McQueen through the streets of San Francisco in the chase scene from Bullitt.

There Are Bad Cops and There Are Good Cops

"To say I wanted to despise this car is putting it mildly. For starters, it's just another, not very imaginative riff on the Ford Mustang GT, aimed at goobers who've got it so bad for Steve they can't help themselves. It seems exploitative, in other words. Also, Ford has a bad habit of promising that a Mustang special edition--GT500, Cobra, Shelby, whatever--will be a limited run and then making more if the orders come in. Ford actually already made a Bullitt Mustang in 2001. The press release for the 2008 Bullitt has weaselly language in it: 'A limited production run of 7,700 units is planned.' Uh-oh.
"So I was pleasantly surprised when I drove the car and found that I really, really liked it. Stunned, actually."

In the Los Angeles Times, Dan Neil reviews Ford's 2008 Mustang Bullitt.

The Conquest of Cool

"As the descriptive term for an existential condition, 'cool' has been around for a long time, and it seems to be permanently fixed in American speech. Its various essences seem to be walking slowly; speaking in a measured, unexcited manner, and usually in a deep voice; treating people who have greater power or authority somewhat haughtily, not to say insolently, while treating people with less power or authority as equals; refusing to act the way other people tell you to act; living unaffected by external forces or circumstances; preferring to be solitary rather than joining the chorus of other people; and speaking in your own original idiom, to the point of even seeming to have your very own vocabulary."

Lee Siegel in The New Republic discusses the persona of actor Steve McQueen.