Director: Dennis Hopper
Cast includes: Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson
Fat Tuesday Celebration
95 Mins / 1969 / USA

Nobody watches "Easy Rider" only once. Seeing the movie years later is like opening a time capsule. It provides little shocks of recognition, as when you realize they aren't playing "Don't Bogart That Joint" for laughs. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper play Captain America and Billy, journeying cross-country on their motorcycles, using a drug deal in Los Angeles to finance a trip to Mardi Gras. The film comes alive with the electrifying entry of the Jack Nicholson character, a lawyer named George Hanson whom they meet in a jail cell.

Fifty years later this remains one of the last great movies of its decade, and one that changed independent film-making forever.