Easy Riders, Raging Bulls

Lots of great anecdotes about the most interesting time in American film history, Easy Rider, Raging Bulls isn't as comprehensive as the book it's adapted from, but it's a fun watch for fans of that era of American filmmaking.The supplements are a list of interviews that didn't make the original cut and they are comprehensive.

"Easy Rider" is the best. Peter Fonda will always be remembered by this project. It is a film that will never be obsolete. I saw this film when it was first released. Watching it again after all these years, seems like yesterday. This film will never grow old.

A surprising number of tomes dealing with Hollywood personalities ultimately fall flat. Not so with Peter Biskind's many chronicles. "East Riders and Raging Bulls" is no exception - a riveting and accessible read. Highly recommended.

If you are a fan of Scorcese, Hopper etc etc you will not be able to stop watching this documentary . . . It brings the movies of the 1970's right back into your life and reminds us that there were and for some part still are wonderful movies out there. This doc will quickly send you to Amazon or Netflix to watch and rewatch these fabulously directed movies.

If you have an interest in the old & "new" (changes of the 70's) Hollywood, you will love this book. Very informative.

If you like movies (and who doesn't) you'll enjoy this book. It's not always an easy read because it's so dense with information, but it's always interesting and Biskind has an engaging writing style. Will dull the luster of some of your favorite directors!

This doc leads to a really enjoyable, entertaining and informative evening. You get a really clear look between the lines as to what was going on during this renaissance of the movie business. Great memories of great nights at the flix.

Ist copy was out of synch. They replaced with no hassle!

This has to be one of the best books I have ever read. There are so many juicy hollywood inside stories and anecdotes.I have actually brought this book twice, Years ago and just the other day. I am not someone who generally makes a habit of this,but when I moved I couldn't remember which box it was in, but Amazon ever my friend, gave me an opportunity to re-read a book, the memory of which makes me smile even today. When I brought it it had the same front cover but it was in a red and orange theme.I really do recommend this book, though I have read his other book, which didn't do much for me, that one being Down and Dirty Pictures (Softcover)  -A lot of people have really enjoyed it (according to reviews on this here yon Amazon), but having read and really enjoyed this one it left me pretty cold. Which is a shame because he has written other books such as  Gods and Monsters: Thirty Years of Writing on Film and Culture (Softcover)  but I suspect the best of the stories are packed into this wonderful book. Down and Dirty Pictures (Softcover)Gods and Monsters: Thirty Years of Writing on Film and Culture (Softcover)

There is plenty of good stuff in this book but a hell of a lot of clutter to get through to get to it. I really enjoyed getting inside films that I grew up with in the 70s but, for me reading this book as a fan of the films not the background machinations, far too much of the book covered endless squabbles between various players in the industry. This was ok at the start but got tedious as, basically, the same story was repeated throughout the book with different characters, depending on the film being made, fighting (and f*****g) among themselves.If you're into Holywood and like the backstory as much as what goes on the big screen, you could well love this book. Just not for me.

Anyone who has read Peter Biskind's seminal book on what he describes as the 'sex, drugs and rock and roll generation who saved Hollywood,' namely the era which lasted from the late Sixties untill roughly the late Seventies in American film and which is considered to be by many the last golden age of Hollywood, will likely come away from this Documentary film adaptation of the book with mixed feelings.The documentary gives the viewer the bare outline one who has read the book is familiar with:-A) The death of the old studio system sometime in the Sixties whose demise was hastened by such ill-considered mega-flops as Cleopatra, Paint Your Wagon and Hello Dolly.(B) The rise of a burgeoning and untapped youth market eager to see things they could identify with on screen.(C) The Trojan Horse of the 'Roger Corman Film School' i.e 'King of the B-Movies' Producer/Director Roger Corman who firstly tapped into the hitherto untapped youth market, with B-Movies like The Trip and The Wild Angels, and secondly opened the doors to the untried and untested Film school graduates and harbingers of the 'New Hollywood' Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorcese and Peter Bogdanovich amongst many others.D) The rise of the 'movie brats' influenced as they were by the French and Italian 'new wave' brought a much more more realistic approach to story-telling that was evident in European cinema at that time (complete with it's attendant moral and sexual ambiguities) to American film for the very first time.E) The shift in style and in cultural outlook helped to foster a climate of freedom and creativity which allowed the 'New Hollywood' to flourish and produce such great films as The Last Picture Show, The Godfather, Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Mash, Harold and Maude, Network, Deliverance, All the Presidents Men, Dog Day Afternoon and a host of other films which a mere ten years previously would never have been made.F) The Fall. Starting with Jaws and continued by Star Wars in the mid to late Seventies the era of the Blockbuster is shown as destroying this last era of innocence in Hollywood as commerce and the studio exec's reassert creative control.All very well and good you might say but why only the three stars? churlish though it might appear it feels as though something is missing, the story is condensed and in the process something is lost.My recomendation is firstly read the book but secondly watch Ted Demme's excellent documentary 'A Decade under the Influence' which covers this era by primarily focusing on the films rather than (as is the case in this documenary) by focusing too heavily on the personalities involved and their associated drug problems.

I always wonder how this book ever got published, because I don't think there's anything good in it about any of the directors and actors highlighted therein. Not Coppola, not Bogdanovich, not Ashby or Lucas or Spielberg or Scorse. To a man, they are portrayed as selfish, ruthless, megalomaniacal, self-destructive. I almost wonder just how accurate this book - surely they can't all be this nuts?Leaving aside the salacious details, and boy, are there some, this is a quite fascinating look at how the 'New Hollywood' directors set out to overturn the old studio system, to bring back power to the independents, to create their own system; and how they almost all self-destructed or ended up only reinforcing that which they aimed to destroy, largely as a result of their own over-the-top, out-of-control behaviours and attitudes.The studios are even more powerful now than they ever were; there's precious little space in the cinemas these days for indie, independent or arthouse films - and the movies that make big-bucks are all pre-fab, much of a muchness: explosions and sex and violence and plots that can be summed up in ten words or less. Only George Lucas ended up with the financial clout to create his own movie empire, and even he is enslaved to Star Wars.

This is one of the best books about post war cinema. It the font size is a real issue really annoying……..