FEATURED MOVIES

Easy Rider (1969) is the late 1960s "road film" tale of a search for freedom (or the illusion of freedom) in a conformist and corrupt America in the midst of paranoia bigotry and violence. Made in the year of the Woodstock concert the tone of the film is remarkably downbeat and bleak reflecting the collapse of the idealistic 60s. The iconographic 'buddy' film is both memorialized as an image of the popular and historical culture of the time and a story of a contemporary but apocalyptic journey by two self-righteous drug-fueled anti-hero bikers eastward through the American Southwest. Their trip to New Orleans takes them through limitless untouched landscapes various towns and a hippie commune but also through areas where local residents are increasingly narrow-minded and hateful of their long-haired freedom and use of drugs. The film's title refers to their rootlessness and ride to make "easy" money; it is also slang for a pimp who makes his livelihood off the earnings of a prostitute.