Rating: 
Summary: Why The Godfather couldn't even get made nowadays.
Review: Although the notion of the degradation of the movies from The Godfather to Star Wars is a familiar one. This book is an absorbing examination of that process. It explains in stark detail the reason for Coppala's recent quote that the Godfather couldn't get made nowadays. The story of any popular art in America is ultimately an indictment of the Capitalist business model. Since creativity is volatile it is always bad for the smooth operation of Business. Thus when business takes hold the race to the bottom takes off. And the 'art' is wrung out of the 'popular'. Although this basic and rather obvious idea is, thankfully, not the focus of the book it invariably seems to me to be the one recurring insight from any story of this type. If you grew up in the late 60s and early 70s and cared about popular music you experienced this phenomena with your own ears, as it were. This process in the case of popular radio of the time is the most obvious. It's vanished! The story of the record business is my favorite example. Once interested in rock 'n roll you quickly learn that it was a 'singles' business and you can obtain all of many a favorite performer's work on one CD. There wasn't enough money in singles to interest Corporate America so the business was left to hustling entrepreneurs. Thus there is a moment for such truly original exotics as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Phil Spector to occur. Social forces not relevant to this discussion undid many of them. But the development of the LP restored the stories thread. I've heard (and believe) its invention is an example of 'technological determinism' in that the LP required a phenomenon like The Beatles. If at the time, it wasn't manifest in the 4 mop tops, another group of young, cheeky white boys would have been conjured by it. Inevitable or not, however 'rock' is born. And as long as it's successes seems the work of 'creative types', that mystery to the MBA, it flourishes creatively. But formulas and pigeonholes are eventually found that work to amass fortunes, and definitely inevitable, scary haphazard creativity is crushed and the predicable rules. Absorbing and fun investigations of this process, using the rather eccentric example of '60s 'soul' music are documented in Making Tracks : The Story of Atlantic Records by Charlie Gillett and Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick. Also fun is Hit Men : Power Brokers & Fast Money Inside the Music Business. - by Fredric Dannen detailing the schemes and scams of the 'singles' hustlers before their inevitable undoing by the Corporate process. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is an excellent addition to the bulk of evidence that Creativity inspires only hatred and aversion in the forces of Corporate Greed. And that they always, always kill it.
Rating: 
Summary: Hmm...
Review: What is it exactly with America and gossip? That was the question I constantly asked while reading this hyped book. The question is though is if this book is good. I guess. It is really informative- yet the problem is that most of the information is the gossip. Will it help anybody interested in film? Well, it might shine new light on the characters of film whom mostly we recall as geniuses. The best parts of the book are the analysis' of the movies and their impact on the industry and culture. And while the gossip is fun to read (Faye Dunaway throwing her bodily fluids on Roman Polanski, Robert De Niro ready to beat up Francois Truffaut, Dennis Hopper constantly on drugs, William Friedkin discussing mastrubation with the 12 year old Linda Flair, etc.) they really don't matter unless you are the kind of film buff who likes to memorize trivia instead of critical thought. I was disappointed in how Biskind avoided European movies completely, but I guess that wasn't the point of the movie. At least the inclusion of Bertolucci's movies would have been nice. An entertaining read, what good it would do for a film student though, I seriously don't know.
Rating:
Summary: Cinephilic Bible of Greatness
Review: This book changed my life! Peter Biskind's unparalleled chronicle revels in joy once forgotten, that of creating movies that were not afraid to change chances, to go the limit to explore, the beautiful, hellish, stark-raving mad being we call man. All this before the High-Concept Thought police swept free thought under the carpet. Coppola, Scorsese, Schrader, Spielberg, even Hopper. These are the men who showed us that cinema is the ultimate form of transcendence. And Biskind's book, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" takes through the heart of darkness to that inner light shining for the lost souls of humanity. Art will save us all....................
Rating: 
Summary: Those Who Do Not Learn From History...
Review: In Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind puts the filmmaking of the 1970s in perspective in a way that wouldn't have been possible in the 1980s (or even early '90s). Aside from all the fascinating stories behind the most significant films of the era like The Last Picture Show or The Exorcist, he sheds light on the state of filmmaking today. The current movie landscape--for better or for worse--wouldn't look the way it does if not for those award-winning blockbusters or for the high profile flops like Daisy Miller and Sorcerer...which just happened to have been made by the same people. Peter Bogdanovich (The Sopranos, The Cat's Meow) and William Friedkin (Rules of Engagement) are only just starting to recover from the turbulent era in which they experienced their greatest triumphs and most resounding defeats. Biskind gives lesser known filmmakers, like the late, great Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Being There), their due, as well. Those looking for the definitive book on the filmmaking of the 1970s should be forewarned that this is mostly an overview of an era and doesn't cover every picture or every director, but it's a compulsively readable account of a time we aren't likely to see again. At his worst--and as many have already noted--Biskind can be more gossipy than necessary, but that may just draw in those movie fans who've never actually picked up a book about filmmaking before. Maybe it could even lead them to pick up Andrew Sarris' classic American Cinema next (or the other side of the coin: Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon series). One way or the other, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a worthy addition to Stephen Bach's Final Cut (about the making of Heaven's Gate...and unmaking of United Artists) and David McClintick's Indecent Exposure (about former Columbia Prexy David Begelman's fall from Hollywood grace) in revealing the human beings--and the human cost--that helped to shape what is now seen as a high water mark in cinema history. Just ask Quentin Tarantino or the Amazing Andersons: PT (Boogie Nights) and Wes (Rushmore).
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating, engrossing, but should you be viewing this.....
Review: Don't quite understand the critics of the gossip in the book. It is obviously salacious and a selling point of the book. One wonders how any movie got finished, financed, much less of any quality, given their self destructve bacchannalia. The book could have been shorter and a better read as he includes many peripheral/or minor people. I don't rally have a great deal of interest in this particular era, but the book engrossed me and increased my curiosity about that period of filmmaking. I was left with a disturbing question of morality about such crazed people forging our cultural stories. Again, it's a marvel they produced works of respected art given their anti-saocial practices. Most drug people with these behaviors end up i prison, dead in the gutter and certainly forgotten even, by their mothers!!!!!!
I was forced to question my interests in these works. Haven't answered them yet.
Rating: 
Summary: Please, for the love of God, read something else...
Review: I hate this book with a passion. Haven't we had enough 'intellectuals' whose only area of expertise seems to be the history of the entertainment industry of the last 50 years? I would venture to say that this is not a very difficult subject to become a 'scholar' in. Couldn't these people study, like... The American Revolution? or the Ottoman Empire? I mean, what is their area of study? Woodstock and it's effects on today's world? There is nothing inherently wrong with nostalgia or a few documentaries on the 60's, 70's, and 80's, but doesn't everyone else agree that many of these programs and books overestimate the importance of say, Janis Joplin? or The Monkees? or the directors and actors so shamelessly gossiped about in this stupid book? I was watching a goddamn documentary on the show Growing Pains the other day... GROWING PAINS!? What does this all have to do with this book? Well, a good portion of this book vastly exaggerates the importance and amount of risk taken in it's subject. At one point he compares the movie Easy Rider as the first shot in a Civil War with the supposed 'pigs'. I mean... the Civil War? They are just movies... It reminds me of when Hollywood studios shut down during the Gulf War for a few days. As if the studios are a strategic target for a deranged leader bent on world domination. OH NO! Hussein bombed Paramount! Now I'll NEVER see another Bond movie! Understand my point? The book is entertaining sometimes, but it's largely a piece of drivel concerning itself mainly with the minute details, bowel movements included, of a few directors who've made some decent pictures. But really, the entertainment industry needs to get over itself, and so do a lot of people who make this their only area of expertise. If you want to read something that might actually enrich your understanding of the world, check out the new book about John Adams by David McCullough. Trust me... it's nowhere near as pretentious as this...
Rating:
Summary: Excellent oral history, great fun, but too gossipy
Review: A fun but dirty read, and not quite as analytical as it should be, with a great deal of gossip. I disagree with an above review which thinks Biskind "hates" his subjects; although I can see where "Reader in Manhattan" is coming from (Marty, is that you?), there doesn't seem to be a great deal of malice in his portrayals of people and events, overblown and excessively negative as they may be. The heavy amount of research--pages and pages listing his various interviews--would seem to indicate his facts check out. The tone is saliciously pulpy as opposed to axe-grindingly hostile.
However, Biskind is so resolute on his highly negative thesis--the chance to make great studio movies died in 1980 with Raging Bull and the disaster which was Heaven's Gate (actually a fascinating, complex film, and not nearly as bad as everyone thought it was then) that he gives short shrift to directors in the 70s who continued to be successful in the 80s (most notably, Woody Allen). There have also been several good, ambitious, studio filmmakers who cut their teeth in the 80s (Oliver Stone, Jim Jarmusch, the Coen Brothers, John Sayles, Spike Lee...)
--another review mentioned how the temporary implosion of ambitious studio films gave rise to the New American Independent cinema, and that reviewer is spot-on. Biskind also has this really annoying stylistic tic--I might be the only person on the planet who's bothered by it--of deleting the word "and" from compound verbs. E.g., "Bob vomited, went home." Or "Jane checked mail, ate cat for dinner." It's precious and forced. Would it really be that hard to say "Bob vomited AND went home"?! Or "Bob vomited, THEN went home"?!? Sorry, random tangent. In conclusion, a fascinating perspective on an era gone by, but take with about a shaker of salt--don't let this be the only book you read about the period. And then check out the more enthusiastic "Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes," by indie guru John Pierson, which picks up in 1984, almost exactly where this book leaves off. Greg typing, signing off. Grrrr.
Rating:
Summary: A 60's and 70's National Enquirer but keeps you hooked....
Review: The most disappointing aspect of this book is that a quarter of the book is dedicated to filmmaking (which is what I wanted) and the other three-fourths is a celebrity gossip fest. The author may include acknowledgments or denials by the celebrity subject involved in the gossip but it always come across as irresponsible journalism. It's almost like the author interviews a janitor on the set of Heaven Can Wait who says, "Yeah, Warren Beatty has green hair," - then proceeds to write, "Various people on the set of Heaven Can Wait talked about Beatty's tendencies to have green hair," - then puts in parentheses next to the paragraph that Beatty denied this rumor. When looking at the author's sources, it's *wink* suprising *wink* that the interviews he cites as a source for his most inflaming material are people you've never heard of. It seems the only rumor in this book that is confirmed by a unanimous consensus is that Dennis Hopper is a jerk. I don't know how the author had such a difficult time figuring out which rumors are nothing more than tabloid .... When you're dealing with scorned lovers, ripped-off business partners and Hollywood envy it's fairly obvious which sources will be the most reliable and doesn't require you to insert every rumor you hear as though it's the hard truth. If you enjoy gossip books or magazines you're going to love this. If you enjoy the art of film you're going to like this book because of it's in-depth analysis of late 60's and early 70's cinema but you'll still be appalled at some of the immature journalism the author submits as history. Ignoring the tabloid feeling from this book, something else that bothered me were the author's conclusions that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg became sell-outs and ruined Hollywood as it is today. After all these centuries, hasn't it become old yet to hear people complain about how things were better in the old days? The author says that while Spielberg has been selling-out with his current movies, auteurs like Peter Bogdonavich, Robert Altman and William Friedkin are waiting for people to come back to their level and appreciate their filmmaking. Spielberg may rely on huge budgets but I'd say that "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan" are better than the previous fifteen years of films made by the aforementioned authors. To give the author credit, Spielberg and Lucas come across as the only people in the era covered that were either genuinely good people, not diluted with huge egos or not drugged out of their minds on a daily basis (as well as Warren Beatty). Is it a coincidence that Spielberg, Lucas and Beatty are some of the few people in this book that can still release decent cinema? The author also cites "Jaws" as the beginning of the end of real cinema. Once again, I feel that the author's bias against Spielberg shines through as "The Exorcist" and "The Godfather" were earlier examples of Hollywood converting to big-budget hyped movies with sequel potential. Hollywood has always made big-budget ... that appeals to the masses and Hollywood has always had some small upstart filmmaker or company change the focus of the big studios with his or her surprise hit. (Recent examples are Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee.) The fact is that no matter how much you or your critics consider your recent film a brilliant piece of work from a cinema auteur, the director won't have many chances if his film doesn't appeal to a semi-large amount of audiences. Can an oil painter that specializes in certain degrees of texture and carries a small following that never increases his painting's price still manage to make a living? No. And neither can a filmmaker. The auteurs of the 60's and 70's still make films - it's not as though they have been shunned by people willing to finance their projects. Poor wealthy filmmakers, I believe I have a kleenex somewhere around here that the auteurs can cry into. The majority of Americans live day-to-day dealing with a dead end job and don't have time to somehow appreciate a certain filmmaker's reflections on ~man's inhumanity to the natural elements~. I apologize if people have yet to realize a hippy generation auteur's brilliance but I don't recall Orson Welles having huge amounts of success in his prime. The author claims that Spielberg took the easy way out and released popcorn movies to enlarge his fame. Look at Brian DePalma. This is another director that helped change the image of Hollywood in the hippy generation and then focused on big budget "popcorn" movies. Have his recent "popcorn" movies even come close to Spielberg's talent? Just as Hollywood runs in cycles, so does the term "sell-out" and what various artists think is "real" art. The only director that the author mentions as an "official" auteur that has still managed to release films in the 90's that were as good as his originals is Martin Scorsese and even then someone could make an argument that Scorsese has taken the easy road by sticking with the mafia genre. I don't agree with the author's conclusions and think the book is too riddled with worthless gossip but it's still a good read for anyone that loves cinema.
Rating:
Summary: If you love movies you'll love this book - true this time.
Review: A fascinating look behind the movie makers and movie making process in the 70's. Show's how the most creative group of movimakers in the history of the US lost their creativity and became slaves to the dollar. Wonderful insights into the egos and personalities of some of the worlds (now) biggest money makers. Layered with quotes and interviews from the people that were there. May leave you with a little bad taste about Spielberg, Scorcese, Coppola, Lucas etc. - not always the Mr. nice guys you see on Entertainment Tonight.
Rating:
Summary: hollywood's golden era
Review: this was one of the best books of it's type. it is a truely fascinating study of hollywood's golden era and it's big players:- warren beatty, coppola, friedkin, altman, scorsese et al. makes you long for those better days of movie making, and makes you realise what crap the theatres are full of now. plus this book helped me discover some excellent movies i had never even considered before. essential reading.
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