MEANWHILE, THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A GOOD CAR MOVIE:

The irresistible appeal of the train movie: Slide show: In the wake of "Unstoppable," we look at 10 films that capture the magic and symbolism of rail travel (Matt Zoller Seitz, 11/12/10, Salon)

The release of the new Tony Scott action picture "Unstoppable," which stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pine as railroad employees trying to stop an explosives-laden runaway train that's, well, unstoppable, is but the latest chapter in cinema's long affair with the locomotive and all its forms. (It's an obsession that Scott himself keeps revisiting: Just last year he directed a hyperkinetic remake of one of the great train films ever made, Joseph Sargent's "The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three.") Freight trains, passenger trains, elevated trains, bullet trains, monorails, subways: If it's on rails, you can bet it's been lovingly, often spectacularly photographed, and has served as the location for pretty much any situation you can imagine.