American Pop

Rating:
Summary: Close to excellent...
Review: This film is very close to being excellent, but in a lot of ways it's still very far away. No one will argue that Bakshi's work is not without its flaws, but I'm willing to concede a bit to Bakshi for essentially carrying the torch for animation through very difficult times. Really, during the late-70's and early-80's, animation in the US was at an extreme low point econcomically (Disney was a hair's breadth from bankruptcy, supposedly, at its worst point). Also, this is many years before films like "Akira" came to this country and proved that animation was viable as a filmmaking medium for adult audiences. Considering that animated feature films were considered an all-but-dead children's novelty, it's a wonder Bakshi was able to make any films at all, particularly that they were very seldom appealing to children's audiences. This is particularly true with "American Pop."

Visually, I'm really quite fond of this film. It looks to be entirely rotoscoped with cel animation, and has style and appeal to the look. That's probably one of the things I like most about it is that Bakshi tried to make the characters look cool, generally, without going too stylized (his characters in "Wizards" come to mind).

The story flows well, mostly, and could have been a lot drier in the parts that aren't in more current times. The scenes during World War Two are kind of well done in terms of well-written episodes of the film. After that, when the story approaches the sixties, the story approaches schmaltzy, such as an over-reverence for "beat" culture without any real critical examination, followed by a slightly better (but still somewhat uncritical) treatment of the sixties hippie culture (following a thinly-veiled version of Jefferson Airplane, it would seem, through tours and songwriting experiences). To me, the film shrugs off the more complicated areas of this period, such as drug use and living "on the streets," when exploring some of these things would have given the characters so much more motivation. By contrast, for example, much of the film "Easy Rider" explores the characters' motivations through realistic explorations of various episodes, without losing the "romance of the sixties."

After the scenes in the sixties, the film kind of dawdles until it ends, and towards the point where it was at best dabbling in punk (with possibly the worst Sex Pistols cover, which almost singlehandedly drains any amount of menace or credibility to punk as a movement in this film). Really, on further reflection, what it looks like Bakshi wanted most to make was a film about the sixties, and if he'd spent all of his time and writing on it I think it would have been so much better.

That, and twice in the film he has characters writing songs that are really popularly known Bob Dylan and Bob Seger songs, and bands in the film perform them as if they were "original." In the second case, they simply use Seger's studio recording of "Night Moves" and animate the band playing. Really, considering how often bands came in to cover popular tunes (such as the aforementioned Sex Pistols song) wouldn't it have been reasonably feasable to have original songs composed FOR the film? It would have made the film so much better in my mind, and it wouldn't really have been THAT difficult (I mean, they rotoscoped the whole thing, so difficult is way behind Bakshi is in this film).

This is easily the best Bakshi film I've seen, at least (honestly, I haven't seen that many), it looks good, sounds good in many parts, and given the obvious problems the film has, a decent and respectable work.

Rating:
Summary: Still a classic!
Review: This movie was released when I was 19. I watched it over and over again. Something hard to do before VCRs or DVDs were popular. I was worried that it would stand the test of time. Well, this evening I showed it to my 18-year-old niece who has a scholarship to the animation track at the Art Institute of San Francisco. I was worried she would find it too dated. She really loved it. And I still enjoyed it too!

Rating:
Summary: Still a classic!
Review: This movie was released when I was 19. I watched it over and over again. Something hard to do before VCRs or DVDs were popular. I was worried that it would stand the test of time. Well, this evening I showed it to my 18-year-old niece who has a scholarship to the animation track at the Art Institute of San Francisco. I was worried she would find it too dated. She really loved it. And I still enjoyed it too!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting failure
Review: While no one could certainly ever accuse Ralph Bakshi of being unambitious (trying to cram the first 800 or so pages of Tolkein's epic "Lord Of The Rings" into a 90 minute cartoon, for example), his reach definitely exceeded his grasp with "American Pop". This animated "history lesson" admirably attempts to trace the path of 20th century popular American music from Vaudeville to Punk, but loses more and more credibility as it progresses in time. There are too many musical incongruities to list; culminating in a laughable denouement that portrays a New Yorkish punk-poet type who looks like Lou Reed, but sings the songs of Bob Seeger(!) and Heart(?!)--and this is supposed to represent the apex of American Rock. In fact, the most interesting part of the film is the late 50's into early 60's segment, represented by a (non-musical) character who is an obvious amalgram of James Dean, Marlon Brando and Jack Kerouac/Neal Cassidy. Quite watchable, when taken as pure entertainment; but as a music history lesson, bumbling and uninformed.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting failure
Review: While no one could certainly ever accuse Ralph Bakshi of being unambitious (trying to cram the first 800 or so pages of Tolkein's epic "Lord Of The Rings" into a 90 minute cartoon, for example), his reach definitely exceeded his grasp with "American Pop". This animated "history lesson" admirably attempts to trace the path of 20th century popular American music from Vaudeville to Punk, but loses more and more credibility as it progresses in time. There are too many musical incongruities to list; culminating in a laughable denouement that portrays a New Yorkish punk-poet type who looks like Lou Reed, but sings the songs of Bob Seeger(!) and Heart(?!)--and this is supposed to represent the apex of American Rock. In fact, the most interesting part of the film is the late 50's into early 60's segment, represented by a (non-musical) character who is an obvious amalgram of James Dean, Marlon Brando and Jack Kerouac/Neal Cassidy. Quite watchable, when taken as pure entertainment; but as a music history lesson, bumbling and uninformed.