Amazon.com Essentials:
Two cool guys head out on motorcycles in search of... well,
America, but they'll settle for sex and drugs and rock & roll. There's
plenty of each as Captain America (Peter Fonda) and paranoid Billy
(Dennis Hopper) encounter a commune, convert a small-town drunk (Jack
Nicholson) to the Grin Reefer, pick up two pretty lilies of the alley,
Karen Black and Toni Basil (who hit the pop charts in the '80s--check
out "Mickey"), and get
shot for having long hair. Nicholson won an Oscar nomination and Best
Supporting Actor nods from the National Society of Film Critics and
the New York Film Critics Circle, but his acting was better than they
knew: he had to pretend to be straight and gradually get plastered in
many, many takes using real weed. Find out the far wilder, funnier
story behind the film in the book Easy Riders, Raging
Bulls and Peter Fonda's Don't Tell
Dad. --Tim Appelo
Amazon.com Essentials:
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
