Rating: 
Summary: Great subject--too bad about the writer
Review: This book is readable because it has such a rich subject. But Biskind barely acknowledges the greatness of some of the directors he writes about (Altman, Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma) before he starts dishing the dirty (sex, drugs, etc.). It would take a really first-class writer and historian to do justice to both the prodigious talent AND excesses of this era--Biskind is neither. He professes to love the movies he's writing about, but he doesn't write about them with any special skill or insight. And his "behind-the-scenes" anedotes are often very fishy (as well as invariably trashy). You have to do a lot of reading between the lines and picking up on asides to get the real story of what's going on. Still, the book is probably essential because Biskind lays out the transfer of power from the old studio heads to the rebel filmmakers, and how that transformed the industry (which was transformed again when the power center then shifted to the agents, lawyers, and business people). In other words, he attempts to sum up the most important period in American filmmaking history outside of the silent era in a way no one has before. He gets the broad picture right, while botching many of the details.
Rating: 
Summary: A Must For Any Film Lover
Review: This book is amazing. Biskind did a great job of writing about what has to be the most innovative and decadent era in American filmmaking. For someone who came to an understanding of great cinema because of people like Scorsese, Ashby, and Coppola, it was fascinating to read about how these guys began and, with the exception of Scorsese, destroyed their own careers. People often think of these guys as icons, yet they fail to realize that these men were just as screwed up as everyone else was. I think this book is not only a great representation of 70's cinema, but it is also a very vivid portrayal of an entire decade of drugs, sex, and excess of both. It also made me think twice of pursuing a career in the film industry. Two questions: Could Margot Kidder and Amy Irving come off any worse than they do in this book? And, is there anyone Warren Beatty did not conquer?
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful - simply wonderful
Review: I ate this up. Any true film buff will love this. It isn't just gossip. It's the TRUTH about the excessive 70s and the fantastic unforgettable films of that era. They were unaffected by today's studio exec formulas for success. The way the interviews are strung together, with filling provided by Biskind, is nothing short of remarkable. I... want...more.
Rating:
Summary: A sad loss of paradise in Hollywood.
Review: "...But it should have been perfect [but] in the end, we f***ed it all up. It should have been so sweet too, but it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given something that f***in' valuable again".-Nicky Santoro in the film, "Casino". A common thread in some of Martin Scorsese's films is the "loss of paradise" theme. How cool was the gangster world of "Goodfellas" before Henry Hill screwed it up by dealing with drugs? Or how cool was Saul Rothstein's world in Vegas before he screwed it up by marrying a scam artist? In both of these films the chararacters were given the world and in the end the messed it all up. Have you ever wondered why Mr. Scorsese might have gravitated towards these themes? Well, after reading Peter Biskind's "Easy Riders, Raging Bull", I think you might find the answer. It's a fascinating read about how, for a brief moment, Hollywood went loopy and handed over it's power to the street guys, the directors. Scorsese, Hopper, Beatty, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, Friedkin, etc. They became the town's "White Knights" and saved Hollywood from literally going senile. Now, I don't know how many of the book's stories are actually true, but what the hell! It's a fun - lurid read! The only drawback is the depressing ending, which, of course, is how the young innovative directors scewed up and were never given something so valuable, as running Hollywood, again.
Rating:
Summary: dishes the dirt like you wouldn't believe!
Review: A great guilty pleasure - I don't know how Biskind did it, but it's fully of juicy dishing. Very enjoyable summer read, tho' does bog down after about the 1st half.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Fabulous!
Review: Biskind provides one of the most fascinating "tell alls" in recent memory. What makes this book so unforgettable is the "real" truth spilled from the mouths of those actually involved. His insight unlocks the genius (and madness!) of some of the most influential people in Hollywood. Learn how they got their start and how their lives were permanently altered and most importantly how they changed the motion picture business. Not a terribly "easy" read, Biskind tends to jump from subject to subject randomly, however, he has created a "want" in his readers to go on and on. You will have trouble putting it down. Superior!!
Rating:
Summary: As good as sex, drugs, and rock and roll
Review: For some strange reason, I never thought much of the films of the '70s except Star Wars and the Godfather series. I grew up on John Hughes and ET. Biskind's book, shows me just how wrong I was. This extraordinary book is a must read for any film fan. Tons of gossip and some fairly insightful film comments. This book inspired me to dive deep into the films of the period and has expanded my film horizons immensely. While Biskind at times seems to be more in love with his own turn of phrase than his subject, that is a minor quibble. The book is amazing. Read it. Take it as film history and an object lesson. You'll never look at Hollywood the same way again.
Rating:
Summary: be careful
Review: beware of taking this book's anecdotes and details too literally. i know a few of the people biskind discusses in the book, and they all say he gets many things flat-out wrong. my take on the book is: he's generally right (sex, drugs, ego), he's gratuitously nasty (ok, they were all egomaniac jerks, but they did make some good movies), and he could have used a good fact-checker.
Rating:
Summary: "A book you can sink your teeth into!" Bruce, the shark
Review: Biskind presents us, in typical Hollywood fashion, with two, boiled-down, over-the-top stereotypical faces of movie-makers, a fork in the road as it were for the coming years of American cinema: Dennis Hopper, who I'm convinced after reading this book is as a vile a sack of flesh to ever walk the earth--save for Robert Altman--and the Godfearing, uptight, clean-cut, corporate guy like Spielberg. Frankly, neither offer me very much reason to ever want to see a movie again, much less one of theirs. (Anyone who saw "Saving Private Ryan" and didn't think it was as facist, flag-waving, propagandaist a piece of movie-making as there ever was is fooling themselves) Distaste, awe, and feeling like a rubbernecker at a traffic accident is the culmative effect that book creates. Biskind shows the reader warts and all and spends most of the time showing how the warts are some of the most fascinating parts of this rather indistinguishable crew. (All of whom, except for, like, Mr. Love Machine Warren Beatty, come from quite similar backgrounds: outcasts, scrawny, imaginative, no good with women, went to movies a lot, wanted to make their own films, couldn't deal with human beings the way the rest of us Joe Schmoes do, and instead of learning people skills that might make them better humans, they only threw themselves further into the maw of the Hollywood machine.) Why else, then, does Biskind mention, for example, that Polly Platt didn't wear underwear or that Bogdonavich carried reviews of his movies around with him, except to provide the salacious details that together work to tear down the gods of the 70's? That is his intention. And after he's done tearing them down, what's left in their place...what? Some would argue that these people's behavior served a means to an ends. Disgraceful, harmful, destructive behavior should never be rewarded, encouraged, or condoned no matter how much money a movie made or how exciting the car chase in "The French Connection" was. But that is not the case in Hollywood as Biskind's text demonstrates. These people are lauded, and perversely, are still talked about to this day for their over-the-top excesses. In fact their excesses far outshone their talent. (For some reason, Dennis Hopper's name comes to mind.) Tragically, or fortunately, everyone gets his or her comeuppance in some way, thanks by in large to their own breakdowns and to the cut-throat 'win at all costs' world they live in. These men who would be king were just men, who burned bridges and ruined lives and behaved like apes. No, wait, that's an insult to apes. Sadder, still to me, is the success bestowed on the ones sober enough, willing to massage the system enough to turn out the pap the movie machine needs to keep feeding the masses. (See also "The Phantom Menace") As we learn, some of the rebels shot themselves in the foot, (in some of their cases, they should have aimed a lot higher) while the others accumulated power so that the system commodified their talents and made them the bar by which other films are, I think, unfairly judged. (In Hopper's case, he just lived long enough so that everyone forgot what he'd done and by then his whole "crazy guy from the sixties" act was his shtick and landed him "Speed" et al.) What seemed neglected in all of Biskind's wart exploration was the new way the distribution channels and release schedules were discovered with the success of "The Godfather" and "Jaws". Suddenly the studios have a new way of getting more money. That, to me, seems to be as much of the cause for the blockbuster mindset of these men (and, yes, they're mostly men, I'm afraid) that run the movie business. By today, movies, the end product, is basically just product, no more personal than a can of soup. Much the way it was before the 70's began. To those critics of this book who think "Easy Riders'..." is confusing or hard to read, I would say that they should think of this book as a book version of "Nashville"--Lots of different people, all talking at once, all moving in different directions intersecting, occasionally, long enough to hate one another's guts--or make a good movie. Like Altman's movies, this book, then, is the hero, or as Biskind is quick to point out, the director become the star. In this way, Biskind is emulating the form that was to be so popular during this heyday. On a final note, the person whom I was most disappointed in was Pauline Kael. I once thought of her as the be-all end-all, untouchable of critics. Pauline, we learn, is more or less another tool. Pauline, if you're reading this (yeah, right) count one of your fans heartbroken. Read this book and weep.
Rating:
Summary: If You Love Films, You Will Love This Book!
Review: Every page was explosive and full of energy. This man knows how to write about one of the most creative, over the edge times in film history. He doesn't leave anything out! READ IT!
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