EASY RIDER Screens on 16mm October 5th at Schlafly Bottleworks

“You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”

EASY RIDER screens in 16mm at 7:30pm Monday October 5th at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood

EASY RIDER (1969) is much more than a 60s relic – it’s still a great movie even today. I find it fascinating that Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda took Roger Corman material and gave it an European- influenced arthouse approach. Combined with breathtaking visuals, a well-chosen rock soundtrack and some classic, stoned, improvised dialogue EASY RIDER is still an impressive movie all these years later. Fonda had recently made THE WILD ANGELS, Hopper the less remembered THE GLORY STOMPERS, and Jack Nicholson HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS, but EASY RIDER reinvented the biker movie (or technically created a new subgenre: the “hippy” Biker Film), and things were never quite the same in Hollywood for the rest of the Seventies. The supporting cast is interesting and includes a great role for the fantastically underrated Luke Askew as the “Stranger on Highway”, and cameos from the star’s buddies Robert Walker Jr, Luana Anders and Sabrina Scharf, as well Karen Black and Toni Basil’s New Orleans hookers, Look for Phil Spector’s coke snorting bit part, and a fleeting glimpse of young Grizzly Adams Dan Haggerty. You either love EASY RIDER or you don’t, and I’m most definitely in the former camp. A 1960s generation-defining counter-culture classic!

If you haven’t seen EASY RIDER on the big screen (and I confess I have not except for one time at a Drive-in on the 4^th of July in 1979 when patrons were shooting bottle rockets at the screen), you’ll have your chance Monday September 14th when it screens (on 16mm film) at Schlafly Bottleworks beginning at 7:30 as part of Schlafly’s monthly Vintage Bike Night.

So ride over to Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood for a great night of vintage and classic motorcycles, scooters, mopeds – all while sipping our favorite local beer and watching EASY RIDER. Get to know other movie buffs, gear heads, hang with custom builders and shop owners. If you don’t have a vintage bike to show off, come learn about what kind of ride might be right for you. Did we mention the great beer? And the Bottleworks is open for dinner til 10.

Biker night starts at 6 – EASY RIDER begins unspooling at 7:30. Admission to the film is free but there will be a donations jar accepting donations for the National Childern’s Cancer Society.

A facebook invite for the event can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1645874218989829/

Hope to see you there!