I don't think I had seen <a title="Easy Rider" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/" target="_self">"Easy Rider"</a> for at least 35 years when I picked it up on Blu-Ray DVD the other day.

It fascinates me that so many of the influential movies of my youth (and before) are showing up in 40th anniversary editions, or 45th, or 50th ... or even in the cases of "Gone With the Wind" and "The Wizard of Oz," 70th.

"Easy Rider" was different, though. It was the film that actually changed Hollywood for a while, until Steven Spielberg and George Lucas changed it back. For five or six years after its 1969 release, there were all sorts of fascinating films that were never going to make a lot of money, but that definitely added to the pantheon of great American cinema.

<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/images.jpg"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-582" title="images" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/images.jpg" alt="" width="268" height="188" /></a>There are no heroes in "Easy Rider;" its two main characters -- Wyatt and Billy -- make the money for their cross-country journey by selling drugs. Other than their desire to be free, neither of them has any particular goal in life.

Most people remember the movie for Jack Nicholson's supporting role. This was the part that made Nicholson a star, and he stepped into leading roles shortly after that with "Five Easy Pieces." He definitely has the most memorable line in the movie.

<em>"You know, this used to be a helluva good country."</em>

It's the shocking ending -- which I will not reveal here -- that sticks in most people's memory.

But it's that line that stays with me in these days of tea parties and anti-government rhetoric.

<em>"This used to be a helluva good country."</em>