A Not So Easy Ride

The Netflix slip for Easy Rider has words like "counterculture" and "antiestablishment" on it, which emblazons "hippie" onto my brain. The thing that stands out to me so much is that very little actually stands out. Except maybe some of the scenery, which is really beautiful as they ride through the Southwest. The scenery and the fact that two of the songs are now car commercial standards: "Born to Be Wild" and "The Weight" (the one with that 'pulled in to Nazareth, was feelin' bout half past dead' line). Easy Rider slides in at #88 on the AFI list.

Actors you'll recognize: Peter Fonda (the son of the Man Himself). Dennis Hopper, who directed and co-wrote it with Fonda. Jack Nicholson, who earned the first of his twelve Oscar nominations for this one. I haven't seen all the movies from that year, but it surprises me that a guy who's on screen for maybe twenty minutes of a 95-minute movie got a nomination. He's good, though. People you've heard of but may not recognize: Phil Spector, who I've heard of AND don't recognize. He's the "Connection" at the beginning of the movie.

The movie cost $340,000 to make and grossed over $60m in three years. Not too shabby.

Hopper and Fonda don't do too much talking about being hippies, so we have to piece together what they're like from how they carry themselves and the people they hang around with. Fonda is more laid-back, while Hopper is a bit more uptight. Hopper's itching to get to Mardi Gras, while Fonda wants to enjoy the ride. Something tells me that he wasn't keen on going to see Barkus. Whatever their attitude, they should both stay away from small-town Southerners. Not a good mix with those guys.

This is a tough movie for me to evaluate. The story itself and the acting performances are really secondary to the overall experience, it seems. That makes Nicholson's nomination all the stranger, I think. I may have been more affected if I'd been alive and watching it in 1969, the same year that gave us Midnight Cowboy and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

(Yowza! Ian McShane was in Agent Cody Banks? How did that happen? This is the guy who plays Al Swearengen on "Deadwood", the foulest man on the foulest and most vulgar show on TV! Rivaled only by Calamity Jane's character. Click here to see a site that keeps track of the cursing statistics in the show. Well, one curse in particular. Agent Cody Banks? Yumping Yiminy)

The best thing about Easy Rider from a personal standpoint is the fact that they shot a scene in one of the cemeteries in New Orleans, aka the Cities of the Dead. I'm all for any movie that has that, even though the scene itself wasn't too good, in my opinion. Probably because I've never seen a tripping out scene that I thought was any good.

I don't see any real reason to recommend Easy Rider, unless you want to see a famous movie or Jack Nicholson just before he got really big. I'm probably unfairly maligning Peter Fonda for not being Henry Fonda. Because nobody is Henry Fonda, boys and girls.