Category: (DVD)
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EASY RIDER (DVD/SPECIAL EDITION/WS 1.85 ANAMORPHIC
This box-office hit from 1969 is an important pioneer of the American independent cinema movement, and a generational touchstone to boot. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper play hippie motorcyclists crossing the Southwest and encountering a crazy quilt of good and bad people. Jack Nicholson turns up in a significant role as an attorney who joins their quest for awhile and articulates society's problem with freedom as Fonda's and Hopper's characters embody it. Hopper directed, essentially bringing the no-frills filmmaking methods of legendary, drive-in movie producer Roger Corman (The Little Shop of Horrors) to a serious feature for the mainstream. The film can't help but look a bit dated now (a psychedelic sequence toward the end particularly doesn't hold up well), but it retains its original power, sense of daring, and epochal impact. --Tom Keogh
Awesome Easy Rider!Reviewed by Sharon Ann Ray, 2010-03-11
I remember seeing this movie when it first came out. I'm an old hippie, so I really enjoyed the crazy memories that this movie evoked. Jack Nickolson is so funny and, of course, Peter Honda and Dennis Hopper are classic! If you want to know what it was really like in the 1960s, this is the movie for you! Warning! There is some bad language. But otherwise a great, classic, and fairly accurate movie about the counterculture and just wanting to be free. Highly recommend this movie. You gotta see it at least once.
GoodReviewed by Jaclyn M. McIntire, 2010-03-04
DVD quality was in good shape, along with the case. No scratches or cracks.
Easy Rider ReviewReviewed by Acacia L. Rank, 2010-02-03
The movie came in very good condition. It is a very great movie to watch. I love the motorcycles and freedom. I want to do that as well!
Great memories brought back with the Blu-Ray 40th East Rider
AnniversaryReviewed by P. C., 2009-12-03
It is great to have the classic Easy Rider now on Blu-Ray. The enhanced picture and sound quality really makes this movie a collector's choice if you are from that era. 40 years ago, I saw the Easy Rider movie in a Drive-In Theater on my Triumph motorcycle ! What a great memory! Now I watch it on our 106" Home Theater, and my Harley is parked in the garage!
ICONIC MESSAGE ABOUT AMERICA'S IDENTITY STILL TRUEReviewed by Robin Simmons, 2009-11-10
Sitting in a USC screening room with Peter Fonda, I remember seeing
this iconic film before it was released. At the time, I was dealing
with my application for Conscientious Objector status with the
draft board. I was also being hassled by the FBI as an outspoken
critic of the Viet Nam war.
The movie poster of Fonda as Captain America with a flag-embossed
jacket riding on a big bike with the caption "A man went looking
for American and couldn't find it anywhere" resonated with me. And
at the end, when the redneck in the pickup with the bulging tumor
shoots "Billy" and "Wyatt (Fonda and Dennis Hopper)" I was
incensed. This was the same world I was in. The same prejudice. The
same hate. Reel life was real life.
This film was the first big "youth movie" that perfectly targeted
its already alienated audience. It was a bulls-eye. For me, it was
a brave movie because I knew that the creative team of writer Terry
Southern, director Dennis Hopper, actors Jack Nicholson and Peter
Fonda truly believed what they put on the screen. This movie
empowered me. I realized I was not alone in how I saw the world,
the war and America.
As a film student, I was not just interested in film as propaganda,
but also in how the film was shot. I knew it was shot for cheap -
less than $500K. And it broke the rules, like the law of
"consistent screen direction" by having the bikes go in all
directions. There was the innovative use of music I actually
listened too. Wow, the Electric Prunes! How did they know?
I wondered if the dope they smoked on screen was real and I asked
Fonda. He smiled and said, "Of course." I liked that. I liked the
stoned "Freedom" speech from Jack Nicholson. I believed what Jack
said. Those were my words too! This movie made Jack Nicholson a
star, and with the perfect audience that identified with him from
the start.
I still love the joyful, free, wide-angle moving shots of the bikes
on the open road with Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" pulsating on
the soundtrack. "Get your motor running..." Oh yeah.
Watching the movie today with the hindsight of alleged maturity(?),
I now see an amateurish film. Indulgent and sloppy. Silly in
places. But the core question of What Is America? rings truer than
ever.
Look for ward-of-the-state, convicted murderer and former record
producer Phil Spector as a dope dealer in the opening scenes. (R,
widescreen, 95 minutes)