If you’ve read Peter Biskind’s book you’ve probably got a pretty good idea what this movie is about – people doing more cocaine than Scarface, and being wildly successful while doing it. There’s a bit more to it than that of course, the big studios let their guard down. But like Jake Lamotta, they never got knocked down, and ultimately took back control from their misbehaving children. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorcese: consummate film geeks. Of course when playing in the drug crazy social scene, producers Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson were swept up in the insanity. Raybert Productions ultimately changed the way movies were seen – as big money.
The documentary is pretty much by the numbers. My favorite parts were the old movie posters, and the few behind the scenes shots from movies like “The Last Movie.” There are also the talking head interviews, like Richard Dreyfuss going on about how crazy they all were. I’m sure it was “crazy” and all, but short of stories about Sam Peckinpah, everyone seems pretty shy about details. A soundtrack complimentary of the BBC lends great rock-and-roll, but it plays more as an educational movie. The spirit of rock just doesn’t seem to carry through. That being said, it is a fun cautionary tale, and Trio (yeah the cable network) has big balls to try an adaptation of a book that received such criticism from its subjects. Too bad these poor sports (Altman, Lucas, Spielberg) still can’t get over their egos, and contribute to this doc.
