Rating: 
Summary: Terrific!
Review: Peter Biskind loves film and thank God he does! This book is chockful of information and tidbits about a subject (films and filmmaking) that are near and dear to my heart. One caveat: Biskind sometimes goes into tedious detail about the making of one film but skimps on others; and I couldn't believe he completely neglected to mention Godfather III after all the words spent on Coppola's Godfathers I and II. It would have made his summation much stronger! But on the whole, a great book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
Rating:
Summary: Sensationalized "New Hollywood"
Review: Whenever author Peter Biskind has a chance to say something negative about the "new" crop of seventies directors, he does. This group of film freaks, eccentrics, drug users, and egomaniacs managed to take over Hollywood in the late '60's and early '70's. But despite the gossip (nude sunbathing at Margot Kidder's for example), Biskind has written a real page-turner. I couldn't put this massive tome down until I had finished it (roughly 4 days). Much of what's included has made it into the pages of the tabloid press. Checking Biskind's reference notes, I observed that many sources are the directors (or ex-wives) talking about each other. Having worked in Hollywood during this period, I noticed a number of omissions as well. However, I highly recommend this book. Just be careful about what you believe!
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Summary: More Myths of the Flower Children
Review: In stereotypical "I am an art movie elitist" fashion, Biskand subscribes to the silly notion that Spielberg and Lucas were the poison apples in the 70s cinematic Garden of Eden. Too bad he failed to notice that at exactly the same time the exact same thing was happening throughout the rest of the entertainment industry. Ever heard of an album called Frampton Comes Alive? The fact that the movie "business" has deteriorated into its current state has more to do with changes in the way movies are financed, marketed, and distributed than Bogdanovich, Coppola, et al. "blowing it". This book made for a fascinating read, but I'm so tired of the premise that The Godfather is vastly superior to Star Wars because of its deeper meaning and tragic ending. Get over your romanticism with gangsters and see it for what it really was, a pretty faithful adaptation of a best selling novel with great casting and cinematography.
Rating: 
Summary: I am a foreign movie buff
Review: I only watch foreign films because I feel it is below me to watch an american made film. I insist on sofistication in my cinema and will always have a devout belief in the positives of intellectual pursuits. This novella undercores in an effective, yet effeminate manner, the decline of modern Hollywood and the subsequent rise of neo-realism in the disguise of pop culture. A subtle retelling of a not so subtle story. We see a landscape of mediocrity superimposed on a screen of perceived greatness. One must wonder what our forefathers are thinking when they witness this degradation in the name of "fine arts." Still this is a book that is worth reading, in part, because it underscores all that is wrong in today's Hollywood, only it is talking about yesterday's Hollywood. This ironic vision makes for some startling revelations yet the overall effect is somewhat tepid. With many extreme antedotes rehashed, only a Fruedianist would not be somewhat intrigued, yet for all it's pompasity, the book ultimately fails in it's primary objective: To educate us.
Rating: 
Summary: FASCINATING READ
Review: I read the book very slowly because I loved re-reading what I'd just read. Painstakingly constructed from hundreds of interviews by the author, this is a fascinating look at the filmmakers behind the films, and a portrait of their lives and times out of which the movies came. Who knows what the truth is -- it's out there somewhere -- but many points of view are presented and the reader can make up his or her own mind. (Just like going to the movies.) Extremely entertaining reading. Perfect gift for the cinematically inclined.
Rating:
Summary: If you care about American movies -- a must read book.
Review: Compulsive reading. The best portrait I have read about why American movies are as uninteresting as they are today. While I don't entirely buy Biskind's conclusion that the director does not matter in the New Hollywood, his book offers important insights into the bland blockbuster mentality that defines movies today. A very thought provoking book that punctures egos and asks readers to reappraise the careers of some of Hollywood's icons. A great work of authorship!
Rating: 
Summary: TABLOID GARBAGE FILLED WITH UNTRUTHS TO SENSATIONIZE SUBJECT
Review: This book is a compendium of old articals, rumors and dubious secret sources. It intends to sensationalize a an era in moviemaking rather than seriously document it. I know many of the people involved and am sure that much of what is in this book is not factual. As a book it is disjointed and clearly a work designed only to make it's author a bundle
Rating:
Summary: Five star accomplishment! A truly superior book!
Review: Peter Biskind's Easy Riders... is about the best Hollywood book I have ever read, vivid and thought-provoking. I intend to feature in my next NYObserver column but think the word should get out now, given the way publishing operates. Quite apart from the indomitable, inimitable reporting that has gone into his book, Biskind's judgments make sense, and help us not only udnerstand the whats, whys and wherefores of a Golden Age of Moviemaking (one of perhaps three) but what the pap we're fed now by the moneymen - and the moneymen people like Spielberg have turned into - stinks to high heaven! Buy it! read it!
Rating:
Summary: The Best Film Book Of The Year
Review: This is a book for movie fans old enough (30 and up) to remember why film was so exciting in the seventies and a poignant document for those may wonder (30 and under) what all the fuss was about. Biskind's astonishingly original research on the New Hollyood includes interviews with Warren Beatty, Arthur Penn, Scorsese, legendary film exec, John Calley, and many others. No stone has been unturned in creating a vivid backstory about the creation (and in some cases undoing) of films like Easy Rider, Shampoo, Star Wars, The Godfather, Heaven's Gate, The Last Movie, etc. Biskind not only tells some hairraising stories about filmmakers on the brink of passion and madness, but also highlights the thematic and formal richness of films from that period (roughly 1967 to 1983). This is a must read for anyone concerned about the dismal state of American film now and who wants to know more about the last great golden age of Hollywood. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
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Summary: SHOW BIZ IS NOT BUSINESS
Review: Like Bob Evans' "The Kid Stars In the Picture", "Swimming With Sharks", and Bob Altman's "The Player", Peter Biskind's book is one of the best and most exemplary works describing this crazy "business" called Hollywood. It is very, very engaging and informative. What the book centers on are two things, mainly, which is the growth of new talent coming out of the four big film schools of the 1960s (USC, UCLA, NYU, Columbia) and the development of the blockbuster, which eventually degraded character development as the staple of winning screen formula. Descriptions of parties at Margo Kidder's Malibu beach pad are awesome. Here all the young Turks gathered - Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Paul Schraeder, Francis Ford Coppola, Marty Scorsese, etc. These SC, UCLA and NYU minds formulated "The Godfather", "Star Wars", "Apocalypse", "Taxi Driver", "Jaws" and so many others. While the sex and drugs got out of hand at Margo's, John Milius would repair to the beach and fire his weapon. Considered the best and the brightest of all of them coming out of SC, Milius was the lone conservative, who tried to stay clean. He would write great movies like "Dirty Harry" and "Apocalypse", and direct "Red Dawn" and "The Wind and the Lion". His stuff is just fantastic, but he never went on to the fame of his contemporaries. Eventually, blockbusters like "Jaws" and "Star Wars" contributed to the so-called "cartoonization" of Hollywood. The comparison of psychology, dialogue, structure and symbolism as seen in "Marathon Man" and "Chinatown" are replaced by graphics, as seen in "Star Wars", or by a giant mechanized shark. The end of the era is the failure of "Heaven's Gate", which brings down its studio and leads eventually to the rise of independent films. This book tells the story of the integral American art form in all its glory and ugliness.
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