Easy Rider's Recent Activity - Spout

Film:Easy Rider

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:21:43 GMT

Title: Easy Rider
Year: 1969
Director: Dennis Hopper
Plot: Tossing wristwatches away, two bikers hit the road to find America in Dennis Hopper's anti-establishment classic. After a major cocaine sale to an L.A. connection (Phil Spector), free-wheeling potheads Billy (Hopper) and Wyatt, aka Captain America (Peter Fonda, who also produced), motor eastward to party at Mardi Gras before "retiring" to Florida with the riches concealed in Wyatt's stars-and-stripes gas tank. As they ride through the Southwest, they take a hitchhiker (Luke Askew) to a struggling hippie commune before they get thrown in a small-town jail for "parading without a permit." Their cellmate, drunken ACLU lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson, replacing Rip Torn), does them a "groovy" favor by getting them out of jail and then decides to join them. Babbling about Venusians, George discovers the joys of smoking grass, but an encounter with Southern rednecks soon proves how right he is about the danger posed by Billy's and Wyatt's unfettered life in a country that has lost its ideals. With the straight world closing in, Wyatt and Billy try to revel in New Orleans with some LSD and hookers (Karen Black and Toni Basil), but the acid trip is shot through with morbidity. Once they reach Florida, Billy raves about attaining the American dream; Wyatt, however, knows the truth: "We blew it." Produced and directed by two Hollywood iconoclasts with under a half-million non-studio dollars, Easy Rider shook up the languishing movie industry when it grossed over 19 million dollars in 1969; it captured the spirit of the times as it woke Hollywood up to the power of young audiences and socially relevant movies, along with such other landmarks of the late '60s as Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and 2001. Shot on location by Laszlo Kovacs, Easy Rider eschewed old-fashioned Hollywood polish for documentary-style immediacy, and it enhanced its casual feel with improvised dialogue and realistically "stoned" acting. With a soundtrack of contemporary rock songs by Jimi Hendrix, the Band, and Steppenwolf to complete the atmosphere, Easy Rider was hailed for capturing the increasingly violent Vietnam-era split between the counterculture and the repressive Establishment. Experiencing the "shock of recognition," youth audiences embraced Easy Rider's vision of both the attractions and the limits of dropping out, proving that audience's box-office power and turning Nicholson into a movie star. The momentarily hip Academy nominated Nicholson for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, and Fonda, Hopper, and Terry Southern for their screenplay. Though none of its imitators would match its impact, Easy Rider remains one of the seminal works of late '60s Hollywood both for its trailblazing legacy and its sharply perceptive portrait of its chaotic times. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 14
Number of Lists: 39
Number of blog posts: 7
Number of discussion threads: 3
SpoutRating: 3

Spout Post: Re:Pick a Pair

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:42:12 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: Movie Games
Post Date: 12/2/2008 9:42:12 PM
Body: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Hostel would be a good match as well as The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby ! How about Easy Rider and Pee Wee's Big Adventure ? I have both of those movies together on a VHS tape and I have watched that double feature a couple times ... < GOR >

Spout Post: The anti-Easy Rider?

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:34:24 GMT

Post By: ThomasJeffersonGeronimo
Post To: ThomasJeffersonGeronimo Blog
Post Date: 11/30/2008 1:34:24 PM
Body: I never cared much for Easy Rider . It always seemed so sloppy and self-indulgent: I think it's only inarguable innovation is it's use of "found" music; nothing against it's cast, but they're stoned or high to the point of being boring to watch. It's anti-authoritarian in a loud, drunk, high school kind of way. Electra Glide in Blue gives a direct hint or two that it might agree with this sentiment. It is a much neater and more thought out film, that at one point literally takes a shot at the aforementioned biker film. Robert Blake, who I'd really only known for his Lost Highway and wife-shooting creepiness, is a fairly appealing lead as eager-beaver motorcycle cop Jon Wintergreen; he's a spunky little dude. Unlike the grimy whiny hippies of Easy Rider he seems to know what he wants, a promotion to detective. Thus begins Electra Glide's more reasoned attack on authority via motorcycle picture. That position of authority and system itself don't turn out to be what Wintergreen hoped, but the movie doesn't steep to fuzz-bashing. The hippies are dirty and sinister too. If you only caught ten or fifteen minutes of this one, you might even think it some kind of right-wing corrective to Easy Rider. In it's slow, measured 70s way, the film seems to make an argument that only the individual is true in a not evil, but sadly corrupt world. The pace and style of Electra Glide in Blue are very 70s New Hollywood, and it is recommended for fans of that style or the "dark indy drama" of the 90s through present. While there is some action, including a clumsy and unnecessary but kind of awesome slow-mo chase, there may not be enough cheap thrills for the biker or exploitation flick fan.

Spout Post: Re:Weekly Theme for September 29: Gimme Some Drugs Man!

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:51:24 GMT

Post By: Dr_Gor
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 9/30/2008 10:51:24 PM
Body: Up In Smoke , Nice Dreams and every other movie ever made by Cheech and Chong. Easy Rider and Vanishing Point (!) ... yes, it really IS a 'drug' movie! Pulp Fiction ... probably my favorite of the modern drug movies... < GOR >

Spout Post: Dennis Hopper and the Natural Progression From Hippie to Conservative

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:01:02 GMT

Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 8/20/2008 3:01:02 PM
Body: California may have spent the last five years under the rule of a Republican movie star, but news that major industry players are anything but super-lefty liberals still seems to strike many as a surprise. Responding to a story in which it’s casually mentioned that Dennis Hopper is expected to attend the Republican National Convention, Defamer’s Kyle Buchanan writes, “Did we miss the memo that said the countercultural director of freaking Easy Rider was a Republican? We’d assumed his appearance in the right-wing Zucker film An American Carol was a strict paycheck gig…” I’m not sure when the “memo” first went out, but Hopper has been a registered Republican for over 25 years. This 2005 interview is the most concise story that I could find on Hopper’s “conversion” from, as he puts it, being “probably as Left as you could get without being a Communist,” to believing in “the idea of less government, more individual freedom” and voting “on the straight Republican ticket.” In that story, Hopper mentions palling around with then-Senator John McCain, of whom he said, “That’s the kind of guy I’d like to be president.” (Hopper has since flirted with supporting Obama, but if he’s attending the RNC I imagine that attraction has cooled off.) Hopper is the living embodiment of that old adage about how if you’re not liberal at 20, you don’t have a heart, and if you’re not conservative at 40, you don’t have a brain (and those of us who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative at 28 simply have no candidate). That 2005 interview says Hopper is “still part of the counterculture” because of his political beliefs, and that might be true if you consider him alongside other aging 60s icons. But in terms of that generation as a whole, simply moving from the far left to the middle right with age doesn’t make him much of an anomaly. As far as An American Carol goes, the much fretted-over satire of Michael Moore from newly converted “9/11 conservative” David Zucker, Hopper’s participation might still been motivated more by a paycheck than by politics––after all, Paris Hilton’s in the movie, too––but it might be safe to assume that it was a small paycheck, considering that the independently financed and distributed film has a reportedly low budget, and Hopper is billed pretty far down on the cast list. In terms of finding that perfect storm of the ideologically defensible sell-out, Hopper’s much-mocked side gig as an Amerprise spokesmodel actually makes a kind of sense. In one of these ads, Hopper even ties his former, Easy Rider-associated, counter-cultural hero self to his paycheck-cashing, Republican-voting current incarnation. All of the ads are set to a brightly-orchestrated version of the Steve Winwood-penned hit “Gimme Some Lovin’,” which was a hit for Winwood and the Spencer Davis Group in 1967 (the year Hopper starred in The Trip, the acid-sploitation flick scripted by Jack Nicholson and directed by Roger Corman). In the “Flower Power” ad, Hopper stands in a field of sunflowers in front of a Rider-reminiscent Western backdrop. After telling us that those who say dreams “are like delicate little flowers” are “WRONG!”, there’s a cut to Hopper set far back in the field. “I want to make my own movie!” he says, well, dreamily. The ad closes with Hopper intoning, “Flower power was then. Your dreams are now.” The message: the world in which he made Easy Rider no longer exists. Grow up. Having money is no longer a contemptible spoil of The Man––you ARE The Man. Oh, and start a retirement portfolio with Ameriprise. Hopper is the poster boy for the 60s cultural revolutionary who, when “the drugs that were free suddenly weren’t free anymore [and] the party was over,” put aside their youthful ideals and refocused their big appetites on power, wealth and mainstream commercial consumption. It’s not surprising that this icon of the anti-establishment has come over to the conservative side. What’s surprising is that more stars of his generation haven’t likewise decided that fortunes are more important to protect than hazy memories and followed him over. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth

Spout Post: Dennis Hopper and the Natural Progression From Hippie to Conservative

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 19:00:52 GMT

Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/20/2008 3:00:52 PM
Body: California may have spent the last five years under the rule of a Republican movie star, but news that major industry players are anything but super-lefty liberals still seems to strike many as a surprise. Responding to a story in which it’s casually mentioned that Dennis Hopper is expected to attend the Republican National Convention, Defamer’s Kyle Buchanan writes, “Did we miss the memo that said the countercultural director of freaking Easy Rider was a Republican? We’d assumed his appearance in the right-wing Zucker film An American Carol was a strict paycheck gig…” I’m not sure when the “memo” first went out, but Hopper has been a registered Republican for over 25 years. This 2005 interview is the most concise story that I could find on Hopper’s “conversion” from, as he puts it, being “probably as Left as you could get without being a Communist,” to believing in “the idea of less government, more individual freedom” and voting “on the straight Republican ticket.” In that story, Hopper mentions palling around with then-Senator John McCain, of whom he said, “That’s the kind of guy I’d like to be president.” (Hopper has since flirted with supporting Obama, but if he’s attending the RNC I imagine that attraction has cooled off.) Hopper is the living embodiment of that old adage about how if you’re not liberal at 20, you don’t have a heart, and if you’re not conservative at 40, you don’t have a brain (and those of us who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative at 28 simply have no candidate). That 2005 interview says Hopper is “still part of the counterculture” because of his political beliefs, and that might be true if you consider him alongside other aging 60s icons. But in terms of that generation as a whole, simply moving from the far left to the middle right with age doesn’t make him much of an anomaly. As far as An American Carol goes, the much fretted-over satire of Michael Moore from newly converted “9/11 conservative” David Zucker, Hopper’s participation might still been motivated more by a paycheck than by politics––after all, Paris Hilton’s in the movie, too––but it might be safe to assume that it was a small paycheck, considering that the independently financed and distributed film has a reportedly low budget, and Hopper is billed pretty far down on the cast list. In terms of finding that perfect storm of the ideologically defensible sell-out, Hopper’s much-mocked side gig as an Amerprise spokesmodel actually makes a kind of sense. In one of these ads, Hopper even ties his former, Easy Rider-associated, counter-cultural hero self to his paycheck-cashing, Republican-voting current incarnation. All of the ads are set to a brightly-orchestrated version of the Steve Winwood-penned hit “Gimme Some Lovin’,” which was a hit for Winwood and the Spencer Davis Group in 1967 (the year Hopper starred in The Trip, the acid-sploitation flick scripted by Jack Nicholson and directed by Roger Corman). In the “Flower Power” ad, Hopper stands in a field of sunflowers in front of a Rider-reminiscent Western backdrop. After telling us that those who say dreams “are like delicate little flowers” are “WRONG!”, there’s a cut to Hopper set far back in the field. “I want to make my own movie!” he says, well, dreamily. The ad closes with Hopper intoning, “Flower power was then. Your dreams are now.” The message: the world in which he made Easy Rider no longer exists. Grow up. Having money is no longer a contemptible spoil of The Man––you ARE The Man. Oh, and start a retirement portfolio with Ameriprise. Hopper is the poster boy for the 60s cultural revolutionary who, when “the drugs that were free suddenly weren’t free anymore [and] the party was over,” put aside their youthful ideals and refocused their big appetites on power, wealth and mainstream commercial consumption. It’s not surprising that this icon of the anti-establishment has come over to the conservative side. What’s surprising is that more stars of his generation haven’t likewise decided that fortunes are more important to protect than hazy memories and followed him over. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog

Spout Post: Weekly Theme for July 21: Road Trip!

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:18:16 GMT

Post By: mercurial
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 7/21/2008 2:18:16 PM
Body: With the summer months waning and my own plans for vacation steadily approaching, it seemed apropos to dedicate this week's theme to that equally loved and despised category of film known as the road movie. From the family-friendly RV to the magnificently perverse Natural Born Killers, the road movie appears in countless incarnations and across all genres. Personally, Almost Famous has remained not only my favorite road movie but overall one as well. The aforementioned Natural Born Killers, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, Dogma, Little Miss Sunshine, Boys on the Sideand Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas round off the list. Others include Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation and The Living End; the various Aussie flicks like the Mad Max trilogy and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert; the Indie hits such as Easy Rider and Buffalo '66; and lastly Alexander Payne's About Schmidt and Sideways. So bring out the map and let us in on some your favorite road movies!

Spout Post: Imitation of Angst : Gypsy 83

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 07:09:00 GMT

Post By: jlgdrd
Post To: Wicked Fun
Post Date: 8/14/2007 3:09:00 AM
Body: Often there comes a time when a bad (or inept, or failed) movie will unwittingly tip its hand. It could be a piece of dialogue that encapsulates a central flaw, or it might be a device that functions as damage control. In Gypsy 83, it’s a chapter when Gypsy and Clive, en route to a singing competition in New York, spend an evening with a more or less retired singer, Bambi LeBleau (Karen Black). She is congenial, down-to-earth, unperturbed and dishonest only in the sense that she is trying to put a brave face on adversity. Black has been acting for at least thirty years now (Five Easy Pieces, Nashville, Easy Rider) and her screen presence and skill are so effortless that they too often go unnoticed. Her performance appears to infect Sara Rue (Gypsy) and Kett Turton (Clive) who seem completely different in this sequence, and outshines them in the rest of the film. She’s invested in the role, but experienced enough to trust her intuitions. When they decide to leave Bambi behind as if she were some kind of albatross, the irony could bring down a skyscraper. And you have to wonder if even the director, Todd Stephens, was in on the joke. Twenty minutes into Gypsy 83, watching Clive and Gypsy tape each other in a graveyard, chilling in Clive’s basement and shocking the bourgeoisie bumpkins in Sandusky, Ohio, I wanted to pull out my hair. It’s not that I couldn’t understand why they loved each other, spent all their time together, or sought refuge in Goth regalia. Living in a middle-class, Midwestern wasteland, I’m sure jet-black hair dye and purple eye shadow would provide a great sense of relief. But it all felt so contrived. So lame. When I compare it to other films where we’re asked to sympathize with outcasts and fringe dwellers or at least enjoy their anarchy, it rings hollow. In movies like Rumble Fish , Prey For Rock and Roll , Better Luck Tomorrow, even Rebel Without a Cause, we care about the protagonists, we understand their struggles, but we never feel sorry for them. When the Greasers kicked ass at the end of The Outsiders, you’d better believe I was cheering for them. I was yelling at the screen. Gypsy and Clive don’t even play out as antiheroes, they’re just a little too waiflike. To an excessive degree, Stephens doesn’t trust us to recognize their frailties without having them spelled out in dialogue. To let the camera convey meaning. Sara Rue’s best moments are when she’s singing, though I think making her a Stevie Nicks clone was a mistake. She’s confident and instinctive, and it’s truly pleasurable to listen to her gravelly, magnificent voice. The rest of the time her performance and Kett Turton’s feel just horribly forced. They look really good, but lack conviction. And frankly, I never thought a film of this sort could be so hokey. During their road trip to The Big Apple the two pick up an Amish hitchhiker (Anson Scoville) and he’s so stiff (not because he’s Amish but amateurish) that you get the impression Stephens chose him solely on pretty-boy appeal. In an early scene where Gypsy tells off a dowager, clearly intended to represent Decent Society, the movie just comes to a halt. The old woman’s speech sounds so flat and didactic. This may be in a sense accurate, but it’s bad writing, bad acting. The two women aren’t connecting with each other or the audience. It’s pretty sad when a film can’t incite animosity for a character we’re predisposed to hate. Gypsy 83 has all the earmarks of a project that looked good on paper. And it has the plot elements for good narrative: search for identity, the missing mother, coming clean, owning up, painful truths, escape to the shining Metropolis, the homoeroticism behind fraternities. Though, of course, the problem is less about content than execution. Stephens wastes numerous opportunities to dramatize what he pisses away on text. The film is 92 minutes long, but goes it on and on. There are plausible, impressive episodes like when Gypsy succumbs to fear at a karaoke contest, or Zechariah (Amish boy on the lam) spontaneously kisses Clive on the mouth, but unfortunately, these are rare. It’s unusual, I think, to find a low-budget, Independent film that seems so facile, so self-congratulatory. There’s no tension, no enhancement between the interpretive attitude of the filmmaker and the attitude of the actors. Such as it is. There isn’t a lot of steam behind Rue and Turton’s work. They don’t seem to be tapping into genuine passion or seething with it underneath. In a way it’s inexplicable, we see Clive and Gypsy at times of emotional upheaval; traumatic, humiliating, life-changing moments when we want to empathize, but there’s nothing to engage us. To pull us in. When we care less about the characters than we would for a Smurf.

Spout Post: FIRST OF IT'S KIND!

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 00:34:33 GMT

Post By: era777
Post To: era777 Blog
Post Date: 8/7/2007 8:34:33 PM
Body: Peter Fonda was way out in front with this ground breaking film. I think they made it for about $750,000 to $900,000, and grossed many, many millions of dollars. The music was awesome, and helped keep the flow of the movie. The acting was good, and this will be a real classic for many, many years to come.

Spout Post: Potholes

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:47:00 GMT

Post By: Tenenbaums
Post To: Tenenbaums Blog
Post Date: 7/25/2007 1:47:00 AM
Body: Easy Rider is a much overhyped film. Peter Fonda and especially Dennis Hopper's performances are highly unprofessional and give the impression that they are largely portraying themselves. An interesting drinking game would be to take a shot every time Hopper says "man." Jack Nicholson, however, deserves all the credit that can be bestowed upon him in a performance that helped catapult him into a 3 Oscar career. The film largely consists of Fonda and Hopper cruising on their choppers to a wonderful rock soundtrack shot against beautiful landscape. But this combination is not enough to qualify as a great film, or even a film at all. A more appropriate title would be an "extended music video" courtesy of The Band, Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Harley Davidson, and Laszlo Kovacs' cinematography.Still, the film deserves credit for being groundbreaking. When Easy Rider came out in 1969, no film had attempted to capture the contemporary sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll culture. Instead, light films starring pin-up idols and depicting a fantasy world that no longer existed dominated the cinema. Easy Rider said that it was OK to show people as they really are and changed the content of the films that followed. The flash cuts are also very European and refreshing, signaling the onset of the American Auteur. Despite the film's innovations, should it have been viewed as classic of its time and still be revered today? Perhaps a more relevant question: Have certain films of recent years whipped the masses into a frenzy for their supposed freshness, yet lack basic content that quality films possess?

Spout Post: Classic Movie!

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 19:13:01 GMT

Post By: El_Aaron
Post To: El_Aaron Blog
Post Date: 6/23/2007 3:13:01 PM
Body: This is probably one of the best movies ever made!!!

Spout Tag:the

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:01:38 GMT

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