Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Red-Barracuda The book 'Easy Riders, Raging Bulls' by Peter Biskind is a highly entertaining and informative account of the period between the late 60's and the early 80's when the big American film studios released a series of quirky, challenging and controversial films made by an assortment of auteurs. This era has since become known as the time of the New Hollywood. It was a glorious epoch for motion picture art; a time when directs such as Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Sam Peckinpah and Roman Polanski – amongst many others – were producing an unprecedented body of personal films. The book details the emergence of the movement from key early films such as Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider to the fall of New Hollywood by way of the emergence of the blockbuster movie typified by Jaws and Star Wars and epic failures like Heaven's Gate. It's a book highly recommended to anyone with a love for American movies from this period.This documentary is an attempt to capture this story, to detail some of the key films and interview a few of the film-makers involved. Of course it can never cover the scope of the book. Nevertheless it remains a useful guide to the films, and it does cover the basic key points that Biskind made about the trajectory of New Hollywood and why it happened in the first place and why it ultimately died. It suffers a little from the people it doesn't speak to such as Scorsese, Coppola, Friedkin and Polanski. And it could maybe have done with more actual clips from these films. But any documentary that covers this golden era of film-making has something going for it straight away. Therefore it comes recommended to IMDb users. Also worth noting is that the DVD contains over an hour and a half of extra material that is just as fascinating and should definitely be viewed. For another view on this subject – and for my money an even better documentary – try A Decade Under the Influence, also released in 2003.

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.

jpschapira There was a great and truly improving decade for Hollywood; the 70's. Many think, and I probably agree, that the best cinematographic decade took place in the nineties, but, even if we want it or not, the directors of the nineties started making films in the 70's. Kenneth Browser's documentary, narrated by William H. Macy, tells how these directors emerged."The secret of making a film is just saying that you'll make it", said in his twenties a director the documentary refers to as "the man who would be king". That's Francis Ford Coppola, who made movies even if the studios didn't want him to. His is one of the many stories we meet, but we doesn't meet him; he doesn't talk in the documentary. We know "The Godfather" was seen by many people, but Coppola doesn't tell us that.Peter Bogdanovich does tell his story. His wife talks, about when they were filming "The last picture show", and about the close relationship he had with Cybill Shepherd, probably an affair. He was one of the various directors who were more important than the studio and producers. When a director could do things right, he got authority. William Friedkin, who made two successes in a row, gained authority too.You can't say much about the documentary. It is good, it tells its story correctly, but the thing is that there are no actors, no choreography; everything is real. And we believe Dennis Hopper when he says he was stoned as he shot "Easy Rider", and we believe Kris Kristofferson when he says Sam Peckinpah went down too many times, we believe Julia Phillips when she says she was bad.I came to find out what they call now B-Movies, like "Jaws", the first movie to make 100 million in the box office. Then a bunch of B-Movies came, just with the objective of winning money. The thing is, they were greatly done in some cases, by A-Directors, if you get what I mean. Steven Spielberg was a kid, and made his TV film "Duel", and started improving technology…You know what came later on. So, when Coppola's apprentice George Lucas showed a raw version of "Star Wars" to the industry, and no one liked it, Spielberg said: "You're going to make millions". You know what happened.We meet many more also. There's Arthur Penn, and therefore how good was Warren Beatty with his money and his way of controlling directors. There's Robert Altman, who could be the only star in one of his films, which caused him many problems, and successful films between 20-years periods. There's Roman Polanski, who's considered a fugitive, but lost his wife in the States, because of his uncontrolled life. She had a baby inside. Then he made, in his own vision, "Chinatown", starred by another influential actor, Jack Nicholson.Richard Dreyfuss talks, so does Peter Fonda. Jonathan Tapin says he got money to produce a film, from a not influential director, which starred his friends and dedicate and passionate actors; Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. This movie was "Mean Streets". During a showing an important producer left his seat and Tapin: "Oh, he doesn't likes it, he's leaving". Then this producer got near Tapin's seat, and said to him: "This is the best film I've seen this year, but I have to go to the bathroom; can you stop it?" Paul Schrader tells the camera about his period of loneliness, when he was going nowhere, and although not as affected by drugs and alcohol as the rest, he took a rest. He was one of the "nerd" guys, as they described them. When everybody when to the Phillips' house to get high, Spielberg, Schrader and Coppola where guys that enjoyed chatting about movies. So it occurred to Schrader the idea about the taxi driver. So when he wrote his next script, he couldn't find a director. "Direct it yourself", his friends told him. But for some reason, that special director of "Mean Streets", who was always willing to do the original, and that actor who had already won an Oscar for "The Godfather", were the people for the project.This is how Robert De Niro and the director I haven't said the name (you know who he is) teamed up again for "Taxi Driver". Coincidentally, after the 70's ended, all the other pioneers were steady and that passionate director Marty Scorsese wanted to quit his career, encouraged by Bob De Niro, he have one last shout. This is when we see one scene from "Raging Bull", and the beginning of another history, that is the 80's.

Duncan Gowers The last golden age of Hollywood film-making is captured in this two hour documentary, based on Peter Biskind's bestselling book of the same name. Director Kenneth Bowser does a commendable job of corralling many of the key names of the period in this light but passable introduction to the topic.Bowser's treatise of 1970s Hollywood is essentially a potted history of the time – many of the key developments and vital films that were made during this period are passed over or given nothing more than a cursory glance. The documentary suffers as a result and added to this, historical inaccuracies are also evident.Film fans will most enjoy the scenes of archival footage – a desperately nerdy George Lucas being introduced as Francis Ford Coppola's 'assistant'; Jack Nicholson, Bob Rafelson, Dennis Hopper and Peter Tork on the set of The Monkees vehicle 'Head'; and the piece de resistance, a home movie with Messrs Spielberg, Lucas, Milius, Coppola, de Palma, Schrader and Scorsese all in the same room. To be a fly on the wall at that party!There are also current interviews with the likes of Peter Bogdanovich, Dennis Hopper, Peter Bart, John Milius, Michael Phillips, Paul Schrader, Peter Fonda, Albert S. Ruddy and many more figures of the time. Bowser's documentary serves as a snapshot of the time – Biskind's novel is a veritable diary. The book is packed with amazing stories that even a 13-part series couldn't document. Watch this documentary, get a taste of the time and then buy the book to immerse yourself in a fantastic period of American filmic creativity.