>Leningrad Cowboys Go AmericaFun little Finnish road-trip flick about a band of hopeless Siberian folk musicians with matching wacky hairstyles and pointy shoes trying to make it big in the U.S. The premise was inspired by a lack of Soviet soft power and waning cultural relevance in the latter days of the USSR, but it's definitely not overtly political or anything past that.
There's also a cameo appearance by Jim Jarmusch.
>Magical Mystery TourIt felt like The Beatles were just throwing crap at the wall with this one. I liked some of the music video sequences, but I don't think I'd recommend the movie for anyone but Beatles diehards. It's mercifully short, so at least it has that going for it.
>Easy RiderIt's easy to make fun of, but I think in some ways it works as a cultural time capsule of its era. In some ways it's actually evenhanded. It portrays the aimlessness of many involved in the '60s counterculture and shows how poorly prepared they tended to be for the trials of communal off-grid living. The protagonists are involved in a drug deal and as such aren't particularly sympathetic. I particularly disliked Dennis Hopper's character, maaan. The most likable character is the drunken, eccentric square lawyer played by Jack Nicholson, who only shows up in the second half of the film or so.
I thought the stuff with the vicious hick townsfolk having such a strong grudge against the characters was corny at first, but I wonder if there wasn't some truth to that sort of thing back then. Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper apparently knew a shit-stirring "civil rights" agitator who had been shot at while riding him motorcycle around in the South in the earlier part of the decade. Jim Varney also once threatened to take a long-haired colleague to Hazard, Kentucky, where he claimed that he wouldn't make it down the street without locals giving him a forcible haircut. Still, that's a trope I really hate when it appears in other movies that don't really have any excuse for it. Even in the context of Easy Rider it feels a bit cartoonish. There's one in a restaurant who brings up his lack of respect for negro women, which is just the movie's way of telling you he's not a heckin' good person, and the casting of the one at the end of the movie with the strange growth on his face.
I don't know that I'd recommend it if the '60s hippie theme or its h
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