Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
The chronicle of the mind-blowing journey that was Hollywood during the seventies; the true and gripping story of the last golden age of American cinema, an exalted celebration of creativity and experimentation; but also of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll: a turbulent and dark tale of ambition, envy, betrayal, hatred and self-destruction.
A solid talking-heads documentary covering the New Hollywood era with enthusiasm and good access to key figures, but it largely follows a conventional rise-and-fall narrative structure borrowed from Peter Biskind's book of the same name. The archival footage and interview subjects (Bogdanovich, Milius, etc.) are compelling, but the cinematography is functional rather than distinctive — standard documentary fare. Novelty is moderate: the subject matter is rich and the era genuinely fascinating, but the filmmaking approach is fairly by-the-numbers for a music/film history doc. The ending feels somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic, wrapping up the collapse of the movement without the depth or resonance the subject deserves.