Exoticalot
People are voting emotionally.
Mischa Redfern
I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Catherina
If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
MisterWhiplash
A documentary like Easy Riders, Raging Bulls should be the kind of documentary I should like more. It is chock full of interviews and choice information about the time period (60's-70's) in American cinema that changed everything, for a lot better and some for not. But there are a couple of problems that become inherent. If you have read the book which spurred on the documentary by Peter Biskind (also author of Down and Dirty Pictures, a book about the 90's independent film movement), it's kind of like reading a masterpiece in the trashiest sense. There is a lot more in-depth information in the book, however much of it at the personal expense of the filmmakers, writers, producers, and others that are written about (a good deal with gossip, interestingly enough on the special features of the DVD some of the interviewees speak out against the falsities in the book, Paul Schrader being one of them). The other problem is that the same year this documentary was released on Spike TV (then later to DVD, which is where I saw it), there was the great documentary in the similar, more satisfying vein, A Decade Under the Influence. It might be unfair to compare the two, however if one were wanting in the first place to get a video history- by way of movie clips and interviews- about the years that changed movies a generation before, I would go for 'Decade' due to it's more obscure film clips, and a few more revealing and insightful interviews.In fact, over half of the people in one documentary are also in the other, like Dennis Hopper, Paul Schrader, Peter Bogdanovich, Ellen Burstyn, Roger Corman, and Monte Hellman among others. It's not that this documentary in and of itself is not insubstantial. On a base level you get the lowdown, about how as Hollywood's studio system was on the decline, filmmakers who were coming up in Corman's enclave (Coppola, Hopper, Bogdanovich, even Scorsese), along with some other key outsiders, infused European ideals into their personal statements, making great art and some money in the process. On the level of just giving forth the information, it's not a bad telling of tales, and has a couple of interviews I wasn't expecting. But, again, my sense of proportion was out of place; I could sense that the doc, much like the book, was more interested in some of the more 'seedy' details (i.e. the stuff about Julia Phillips, or Bogdanovich, which is practically a quarter of the book) than in the actual cinema-contexts of the work. You also don't hear as much about the power of the influence on the filmmakers, which was an appeal of 'Decade'. It's not too tough a call to make, and if you've seen 'Decade' before 'Easy Riders Raging Bulls' you may agree. I liked it, but it's not saying much when the book, which itself was readable mostly for the sake of history (some worthwhile, some not), was better.
evanston_dad
"Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" is an orgy for movie lovers. How can anyone who loves film not be in heaven at the constant parade of landmark films and key industry figures that charges across the screen in this fast-paced documentary? If you've read the book, the movie will feel cursory, and one will find himself wishing for more detail, more insider stories. There are curious omissions here, and wonders if Bowser structured his content based on who he could get to agree to interviews. Altman is hardly mentioned, Scorsese (who shows up everywhere talking about movies) is not interviewed, and Kubrick isn't mentioned at all (save for one shot of the "2001" poster). Still, what's there is great, and if you're like me, you'll be left with a twinge of sadness that such a rich time in film artistry seems to be gone forever.Grade: A-
jerk1483
This docu makes the misguided error of comparing the careers of Hal Ashby and Steven Spielberg. More different film-makers there have never been. However, by sheer virtue of sharing artistic or commercial success in Hollywood in the same decade, these two anomylous inclusions are lumped in together. Peter Bogdanovich regales us simpletons with his self-encyclopedia, as if he were ever more than a journey-man director. It's intriguing to see the commercial success of The Exorcist and the critical success of Mean Streets sharing the same five minute discussion with various Hollywood talking heads all of whom are past their prime.One of the rare gems of the film is the sequence recalling how Martin Scorcese, Paul Schrader, George Lucas, Spielberg and many other prominent male film-makers would hang out in the same beach houses in Malibu, but it's only ten minutes long. This is a film obsessed with the tangential perks of that divine spark that was the 70's renaissance of American movies. Presumably this film is based on a best-selling book of the same name, but all this film can sum up is that a bunch of cool movies came out in the 70's, and that, YES, the men who made those movies hung out from time to time. Honestly, you'd be better off just watching every film by the directors that this film interviews and save yourself the thankless task of listening to too many Hollywood has-beens pine for yesteryear. What really happened to these people's careers? Drugs for some, ego for others. Spotty at best, this film just isn't all it could be. 3/10
apboy2
I read and enjoyed the book, too, but it and the movie make several points I disagree with: _ Almost all of the people mentioned in this film are still around, if you don't count cancer victim Hal Ashby, one-hit wonder Sam Peckinpah and the inconsequential Julia Phillips. The idea that most of them crashed and burned, never to return, is a bit of a stretch, unless you include those whose careers have tanked over the past 20 years, e.g., Coppola. _ The film neglects to mention that the architect of the auteur-smothering blockbuster was/is Steven Spielberg, who never seems to have had a nasty moment with anybody ... not the Easy Riders/Raging Bulls, and not the studios. There was some good dish, though, and on the whole it was worthwhile viewing.