Rating: 
Summary: The Rock and Roll Generation loses the keys to the kingdom.
Review: While quite a readable page-turner, in the final analysis this is a book more for a Access Hollywood type fan than cinema lovers. Surprisingly few reviewers have called Biskind on the carpet for what is essentially a cut and paste job cobbled together from past articles he published in Premiere magazine. It goes a long way in explaining the rather pell-mell, Pulp Fiction-esque chronology (although I did like the breather one gets from the biography for each major player not appearing until he was upon their first significant foray into filmmaking). But in trying desperately for this middle ground he fails on each front. Gossip and tabloid fans will find the scrawny photo section leaves much to be desired with many oft-cited figures without any pics, others too many. The more serious cinemaphile would be at a loss to explain many of the figures' appeal without actually knowing their work or habits. He might tell you , in the case of Hal Ashby, "actors killed to wo! rk with him" but I'd be damned if I could tell you why from reading Easy Riders, Raging Bulls. And the structure must have baffled even the author as dramatic tension is lost as he introduces facts too early. In a prime example, Biskind first introduces us to Melissa Mathison as "[the person] who would go on to marry Harrison Ford and be nominated for an Oscar.." instead showing her "arc" that went from babysitter, to assistant, to writer, to chief mistress before she took up with Harrison Ford which he fails to point out happened on Apocalypse Now. He also entirely skips the drama and the chance to draw meaning out of the release of E.T. The Extraterrestrial (the critical and commercial success, the Oscar race - not to mention Mathison's huge settlement over merchandising rights), possibly due to the fact that would undercut his whole Spielberg-the-destroyer-of-all-things-art theme. Which brings me to what probably what is the book's biggest stumble! , Biskind's muddle-headed attempt to affix blame for the en! d of his beloved New Hollywood. As several other reviews have pointed out, Biskind's roots are showing in his pretty naked adoration for this period. "...rock and roll generation saved Hollywood..." only works if you toss out these inconvenient and rather typical top grossing studio pictures from '68 to '75: Bullitt, Funny Girl, the Odd Couple, Romeo and Juliet, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, Hello, Dolly! The Love Bug, Airport, Love Story, Patton (while written by Coppola, way too straightforward and patriotic. Hell, it even has a neo-upbeat ending), Diamonds Are Forever, Fiddler on the Roof, Summer of '42, The Poseidon Adventure, Papillon, The Way We Were, Blazing Saddles, Earthquake, The Towering Inferno, and Young Frankenstein. He also downplays the fact that while they were made by his New Hollywood group some are not what one would call typical 70's fare like The Sting, What's Up Doc? He undercuts his own arguments by showcasing the out-of-control na! ture he seems to want to blame away on mountains of cocaine, while turning the Studios into the Empire each with a Darth Vader at the helm. If these directors had wanted to remain in positions of power, they should have taken the responsibility they had to the execs that supported them seriously. Also is ignored is the fact that collapse of this generation created a vacuum for films of a serious nature that was supplied by new centers of filmmaking, most notably New York Independent and Great Britain. Think about the significance of 1981's Academy Awards when Beatty won best director for Reds, while best picture went home with the producers of Chariots of Fire which started four straight years of UK nominations or wins for Picture or Director. Considering the dismal output from Hollywood over the last couple of years, those blockbusters and irresponsibility have reached their nadir with the present corporate owners so incapable of producing even decent summer popcorn flicks! that they have snapped up every former independent like cr! eative transplant operations. Instead of establishing a way in once they got their foot in the door so other young American up and comers could get in, they saw to it that way was sealed up but good. Biskind follows the same trajectory, starting off with great promise before losing his way after the decade ends and finds he has only sputtering moments of merit. I found myself rooting for the phlebitis to finish off Ashby, as I had little sympathy for someone who'd rather indulge his passion for drugs than that other bringer of euphoria: art. An editor in fact is what Biskind needed the most, who most certainly would have told him to bring it to a close with Raging Bull and put the rest into an epilogue. "We blew it." Boy, did they ever.
Rating: 
Summary: A great decade of filmmaking, or nasty, spiteful gossip?
Review: I'm very puzzled by the purpose and intent of this book. The author seems to have a genuine appreciation for the revolution in extraordinary, personal filmmaking in American film in the 1970s. Yet the book itself is filled with the nastiest, pettiest, disgusting portrayals of the remarkable filmmakers, writers, actors, and cinematographers who made those films. The basis of the entire book appears to be extensive interviews with hundreds of people in the industry -- all of whom have personal vendettas and scores to settle (because they are all ex-husbands, ex-wives, ex-lovers, or bitter competitors). The result is that the portrayal of every director, producer, filmmaker, and actor is that of a loathsome, arrogant, egotistical, infantile monster. Personally, it was no pleasure for me to see Robert Altman, Warren Beatty, Pauline Kael, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorcese, Terry Malick, and dozens of others presented as inhuman, venal, insane, and vicious. Some of the gossip is no doubt true, and I imagine the world of producing and making movies is quite unpleasant. But there is no balance, or insight, to counter the ugly gossip that Biskind exclusively relies upon. Most surprisingly of all, there is no appreciation of the greatness, the sensitivity, the richness of the films that were made. At the very least, the book would have been much more fascinating if Biskind demonstrated how out of all the Hollywood self-indulgence, back-biting, arrogance, and egotism arose the sensitive, powerful, complex, humane, and moving, and often funny works of art, like The Godfather films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Chinatown, Cabaret, Nashville, Taxi Driver, Days of Heaven, Five Easy Pieces, Bonnie & Clyde, Reds, The Last Picture Show, and The Deer Hunter. There is virtually no discussion about how, despite the ways in which the people who worked on these films appeared to be out of control, half-insane on drugs, climbing over each other's backs, betraying friends, lovers, husbands and wives, the end result was films of great beauty. Nor is there any sense of what any of the subjects of the book brought to the films they made, or what special talents or visions they may have had. The subject matter, and the unrelenting gossip and nasty stories, make for very engaging reading, I'll admit -- but I wanted to take a shower when I had finished the book. This is NOT the book that the filmmakers of the nineteen-seventies deserve.
Rating: 
Summary: Gossipy look at 70's Hollywood
Review: While Easy Riders/Raging Bulls is a very interesting book, and does tend to keep you turning the next page, it may not appeal to everyone. Someone looking for an in-depth analysis of the film industry in the 70`s may be a little disappointed. Biskind`s main point is that a new group of directors temporarily destroyed, or at least disrupted, the Hollywood studio system of the previous decades, and were able to make a handful of classic movies in the process. They then basically handed the power back to the studios in the 80`s due to overblown egos and budgets to match. There does tend to be a lot of gossip-like material in it and the detail sometimes verges on lurid.. So, if you want to know the various girlfriends of some director, look no further. A little more technical information here and there might have been nice to sate the film student readership. However, that`s not what this book is about. It really is a good indication of the atmosphere of Hollywood in the 70`s and does show up some of these big names to be quite un-likeable characters. And that is quite an understatement. You may find yourself never wanting to watch some of these directors' movies again, based only on their personalities.
Rating:
Summary: Like a supermarket tabloid newspaper come to life....
Review: Whether it be scathing or scandalous, Peter Biskind's book is a definitive chronocling of the wild 70's decade, when the importance of the blockbuster finally hit an all time high, and cinema was undergoing a new kind of creativity. Beginning with the culture breaking "Easy Riders" and the power destroying "Heaven's Gate", "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" is a book that documents the sex, drugs, and rock n roll generation under the guise of such famous directors as Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, and Altman amongst the likes of screenwriters and movie stars equally among them. From William Friedken's notoriously bad temper to Peter Bogdanovich's ego defining quote, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" is a look at the Watergate era in the midst of Hollywood handing over the power to it's star directors. Interviewing executives, crew members, writers, actors, call girls, scorned spouses, and the subjects themselves, Biskind's book is something of pure kitsch non-fiction, that will leave you reading from beginning to end. Very much an interesting read that portrays those behind the Hollywood dream machine, like the characters in their own films for the world to see, but with fair treatment by Biskind who gets testimonies from all sides.
Rating:
Summary: Another Indictment of Hollywood
Review: The last golden age of American cinema is certainly a ripe subject for a behind-the-scenes book, and Biskind's interviewed most of the major living players. Sadly, his findings only confirm what those in "the business" already know--the motion picture industry is a hotbed of infidelity, mistrust, substance abuse, self-destruction and disloyalty. It's interesting that so many quality films emerged from such dysfunction (before that word was in common usage). But then as now, the powers-that-be at the studios were pretty clueless, basically playing musical chairs with their jobs and waiting to strike gold (the GODFATHER films) or strike out (HEAVEN'S GATE). Unless prospective readers relish a fantasy that the film artists of the '70s were NOT cutthroat, insecure, power-hungry, mean-spirited junkies, EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS is an enjoyable long, strange trip. (Parenthetically, though, I can't remember the last time I read a book from a major publisher with as many typographical errors.) Caveat: As with Julia Phillips' YOU'LL NEVER EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN, most of the interviewees' remembrances have been filtered through a veil of booze, coke, pot and resentment, but enough truth emerges to make this a reasonably vivid portrait of the era.
Rating:
Summary: We blew it Billy
Review: This appropriately titled expose`places both the praise and blame for the glorious Hollywood renaissance on the brilliant, creative and fearless but ultimately selfish, self absorbed, debauched and decadent 60's generation that burned themselves out before they really could build a lasting empire. To quote Peter Fonda's drug addled psuedo-anti-hero in the beautifully misshapen but stunningly and ironically prophetic "Easy Rider": "We blew it Billy".Biskind does much to certainly promote the cult of the most overrated generation in history. But he does so by articulating and defending his point in a fast paced entertaining manner. Filling his pages with gleefully geeky tidbits of juicy bad behavior, Biskind edifys his position by balancing praise with vicious criticism. He calls the players all on the carpet and takes them to task for burning out in their own pathetic yet arrogant fires of ego-centric excess while managing to celebrate their true works of ground breaking film art. Biskind appropriately bookends his journey with the equally self centered and no less destructive Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's brilliant film "Raging Bull". Biskind makes a fascinating point that Wyatt and Jake form a symbollic summation of a decade that could have been. "Easy Riders and Ragin Bulls" pulls few punches and makes for an excellent summer read for anyone interested in Hollywood History.
Rating: 
Summary: Energizing and Electric View of Film in the '70s and Today
Review: Peter Biskind has created a tell-all of the '70s Hollywood scene that, while certainly not the gospel truth (as most recollections have been dated by time, drugs and venom), is about as juicy a portrait of the "last golden age of film" as we're likely to see. The principal actors, writers, directors, producers and executives are all portrayed, none sainted nor scandalized, but shown as flawed and incomplete people striving to create perfect cinema. Biased as it is in its depiction of the '70s as the last great age of Hollywood before Lucas, Spielberg and the film school whiz kids broke box office records and forced film to become a billion-dollar business, "Easy Riders" is written with passion for its material and conviction in its opinions. While it can be argued that film has always been a business, it's generally noted that the "Jaws" and "Star Wars" blockbuster era has eroded the quality of filmmaking in favor of "high concept," lowbrow films that appeal to the widest demographic and lend themselves easily to sequels, cross-marketing and franchise-building. Gone are the days when the studios seemed to care about the stories they were telling as much as the profits they could see, once those numbers were driven into the heretofore-unseen stratosphere of $100 million and above. For those who long for a day when films seemed to be "about" something, when a band of filmmakers defied the studios to create dark, gritty pictures that hit the audience harder than they'd been hit before; for people who get a kick out of the backstabbing, lies and deceit inherent in any real-life soap opera -- which Hollywood excels at second only to Capitol Hill, but with more attractive people -- or for those who love film in general, this book is a must-read.
Rating:
Summary: I asked Coppola about it
Review: I was at the Niebaum-Coppola winery in Napa, CA in Spring, 2002; and Frances Ford Coppola was there receiving visitors in the wine bar. Most of the people were Midwesterners who wanted to sit on his lap and get a picture, or some similarly innane thing. I know that this would be my chance ot test him on this book. I sauntered up to him and asked him about the book, and asked if it was true. He gasped and said that it was all lies. He said that Biskind was a jerk and he "...merely took the one vice each of us had and blew it out of proportion." Thus, Coppola seemed to affirm the validity of the tales in Biskinds book. I have a tremendous admiration and respect for FFC, but I didn't want to miss the opportunity to rib him a bit.
Rating:
Summary: Just great
Review: This is just the best book I've ever read. It's fast paced,
tremendously entertaining (full of gossip) and, you also learn
(quite) a lot about the american movie industry in the seventies,
a period in Hollywood history considered as the greatest ever, with such films like Easy Rider, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Jaws, Starwars, Raging Bull by the world's now greatest directors like Scorcese, Hopper, Coppola and Spielberg. If you
look for just one summerread, make sure this is it!
Rating:
Summary: Just great
Review: This is just the best book that I've ever read. It's fast paced,
tremendously entertaining (full of gossip), plus, you also learn (quite) a lot about the movie industry in the seventies, a period in moviemaking considered as the best ever. If you want an excellent, entertaining summer read, don't look further, this is it.
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