To compare today's turbulent times unfavorably to the wonderful "Easy Rider" era is patently absurd. If the author of the film's synopsis had bothered to actually watch that movie, it should have been clear that the good old days were actually pretty crappy: Easy Rider ends with a couple of hippie-hating rural types (not all that much different from today's Trump worshippers) slaughtering the two free-spirited motorcyclists played by Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda. It wasn't much of a movie in the first place, but it sure didn't depict a world of peace, harmony and good will toward men. In fact, it more or less seems like that era -- including the right-wing "America Love It or Leave It" nastiness that dogged protestors of the Vietnam War in the 70s -- was setting the stage for the hot mess we're in today. So if the premise of the film is that things used to be great but they suddenly went bad, this "documentary" can't be worth watching. If you take your patriotic blinders off, America has a pretty dark history which continues to haunt its citizens to this day. I sure hope we can move past our troubles into brighter days. But creating a not-very-persuasive film that essentially reminisces about good times that were actually not good at all is not the way to accomplish that.
Plot summary
How did America change from Easy Rider into Donald Trump? What became of the dreams and utopias of the 1960's and 1970's? What do the people who lived in that golden age think about it today? Did they really blow it? Shot in Cinemascope - from New Jersey to California - this melancholic and elegiac road-movie draws upon the portrait of a confused, complex and incandescent America one year after the start of the electoral campaign. That golden age has become its last romantic border and an inconsolable America is about to pull on a trigger called Trump.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Movie Reviews
Did the author of the film's description even watch Easy Rider?
Not what I expected
I love informative documentaries and noticed this one referencing Active Measure which is one everyone should see.
Gave it a shot but the focus was purely on 1960s and 1970s and the influence it had on the US culture from the point of few of local communities and personalities with some celebrity interviews providing their own commentary.
Interesting to watch but it was underwhelming to me. Might as well spent my time watching Youtube videos.
I did like the segment about Route 66 and the statements made in that piece about the role of government although some might question if it was needed in that instance but it also showed how there is a role as well.
Nice Try, but Boring
I appreciate what the Director/Producer was trying to do, but it made the movie boring. I didn't even watch the whole thing because it's a bunch of old people, my age, whining that today is not what they expected it to be. I'm sure my parents didn't think their future was what they had planned, but WWII happened anyway. The story tellers keep reminiscing about the past, how today's generation are wanna be's, and that the Government will make things better. Nice try, but I don't need the propaganda in my life.