LSD sequence in Easy Rider: Classic or Dud?

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Dennis Hopper wants people to glow.
Peter Fonda hates his mother.
Karen Black can feel the outside, but she can't feel the inside.
Toni Basil didn't do "Mickey" yet.

Joe (Joe), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 02:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh man.....completely classic.

Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 02:04 (twenty-two years ago)

classic the first time, the least rewatchable part of the movie though

Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 02:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Godawful dud action all over the place. WUGH.

Millar (Millar), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Classic. I like the noise in the scene. I only tried LSD once, but it was kind of corny (in a good way though). In the 60's volume of the Time-Life series This Fabulous Century, there's a silly picture of the Doors sitting in a hallway looking very psychedelicized. That's exactly what it was like much of the time.

Rockist Scientist, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 03:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Complete guff. Poor section of a horribly dated movie.

Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 03:55 (twenty-two years ago)

More classic: The Chile Freakout from The Simpsons.

Gabba Gabba Hey.

jm (jtm), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 05:33 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought this said knight rider

gareth (gareth), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 07:32 (twenty-two years ago)

jm is so on the mark. Best on screen trip ever.

Chris Barrus (xibalba), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 08:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I read a review of a recent movie (18 months old at best)
that featured, according to the reviewer, "the trippiest,
most visually stunning acid trip yet filmed." Does
anyone have any clues as to what this movie was?
I vaguely remember that it may have been about
professional/yuppie types.

Squirrel_Police (Squirrel_Police), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 09:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Aged 11, watching it with your dad as the first film he'd got out for you and your brother to watch: Classic!

Simeon (Simeon), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 10:00 (twenty-two years ago)

five years pass...

so so so so so classic
recently watched this french film called La Haine and noticed its plot followed an eerily similar narrative to Eas Rider. anyone else pick up on this? some kind of homage? thought it was really good btw

Kevin Keller, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 00:12 (sixteen years ago)

Easy Rider, that is

Kevin Keller, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 00:32 (sixteen years ago)

Um, no, I didn't pick up on that at all with La Haine. I know both the films fairly well and still can't see it now you've mentioned it. Elaboration?

emil.y, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 00:51 (sixteen years ago)

okay, (lol i watched this in a college class and missed the first part of the movie) let's start with

-characters are on a mission to get money (this is rather loose, but a similar plot device)

-death of the friend of vinz/hubert/said who was in jail (in LH)
-death of nicholson character (in ER

-scene toward the end where they get high on the roof
-this thread's titular scene

-encounter with skinheads
-encounter with those rednecks who hate hippies etc who eventually kill nicholson

-the endings where the main characters die suddenly

ugh, i feel like i'm forgetting something, and it seemed a lot more obvious when i was thinking about earlier today :(

Kevin Keller, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 01:16 (sixteen years ago)

missed the first part of LH that is

Kevin Keller, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 01:17 (sixteen years ago)

I haven't seen this in probably 12 years, but I remember Peter Fonda's thouroughly silly performance pretty much ruining the whole movie for me.

flyover statesman (will), Wednesday, 19 November 2008 02:05 (sixteen years ago)

it's neat but hasn't aged very well (assuming it was better to begin with)

sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 03:17 (sixteen years ago)

so for the lsd sequence I say classic

sonderangerbot, Wednesday, 19 November 2008 03:18 (sixteen years ago)

nine years pass...

Classic. the movie isn't dated, the 60s archetypes hold up (commune, republican rednecks, square smoking grass for the first time) as both documentation and condemnation, or at least evidence that the dream would soon be over, if it wasn't already. I never liked acid (and doubt I ever had anything close to actual LSD-25), but the acid sequence actually does capture the experience like so few films do. Noticing a trend of new movies with "character eats an edible" - unwittingly and/or underestimating the strength - and they're all horrible, resembling equally bad acid sequences. the scene in Easy Rider rings true.

The Last Movie on the other hand... good lord... forgotten for a reason...

flappy bird, Thursday, 6 September 2018 17:21 (seven years ago)

prefer Lost in America

a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 6 September 2018 18:02 (seven years ago)

i'll add it to my watch list !

flappy bird, Thursday, 6 September 2018 18:18 (seven years ago)

four years pass...

The Dennis Hopper/Brooke Hayward book led me to watching this for the first time in probably 40 years. I think I saw it twice before: once on TV, and probably a scratchy rep house print (maybe at the old Roxy, for Toronto people).

Watching a clean DVD transfer (not the Criterion), it really is beautiful to look at--stunning sometimes. László Kovács: he'd done Targets the year before, but this is at a whole other level. The Mardi Gras/acid footage was shot by Hopper himself just as they started, I believe the book said. Which is actually the subject of this thread. I thought that sequence holds up well, even though it probably steals from every underground film Hopper had ever seen.

The script...isn't always terrible. When it is, it's not merely dated; surely some sympathetic viewers must have found it silly at the time. "We blew it" struck me as especially empty. But Nicholson's character is written well, and there's interesting stuff here and there.

I don't know if the soundtrack is overrated--it's not like I routinely see it high on lists of great pop movies--but a lot of it is flat. "Wasn't Born to Follow" is great twice, though, and it also occurred to me that when "It's Alright Ma" was so great in The Sopranos (sung by Roger McGuinn here), and ditto "If Six Was Nine" in Mad Men, those shows were simultaneously referencing Easy Rider. Which went right past me because I hadn't seen Easy Rider in such a long time.

clemenza, Saturday, 28 January 2023 03:36 (two years ago)

I recently revisited a song from a film that ended up in a Sopranos episode here

The Big Candy-O (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 28 January 2023 03:48 (two years ago)

Billy: You're gettin' a little distance tonight, man!
Wyatt: Yeah, I'm just gettin' my thing together.

Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 29 January 2023 00:03 (two years ago)

That exchange was a major offender.

clemenza, Sunday, 29 January 2023 00:57 (two years ago)

I only tried LSD once, but it was kind of corny (in a good way though).

what an ilx ca 2003 thing to say

ꙮ (map), Sunday, 29 January 2023 02:10 (two years ago)


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