My first experience with a Bakshi film was Wizards. From what I know now, I feel it's definitely the middle of the road, as far as explicit material is concerned. If say, I saw Fritz the Cat when I was 13-14 years old...yeah...I'd always associate Bakshi with me feeling uncomfortable. I can just picture being over my step-bro's place and not knowing what to feel during the orgy scene. Glad I waited until last week to finally see it.
Anywho, before I get anymore sidetracked, I thought Wizards was a one-shot deal from Bakshi. I had no idea he did anything else, that is, until the days of the internet. I took a browse around on Wikipedia one day 3 years ago, and read up on all his other films. Honestly, I wanted to watch them all right then and there. To bad, so sad...didn't find very much on youTube.
Last year, I found a copy of American Pop on DVD at A&P. For $10, I figured it was worth a shot. So, a year later, I actually got around to taking off the plastic wrap from the casing. Why did I wait so long? Eh, I guess I was afraid to be let down. Other than Wizards, or Fritz, I really didn't hear too much from any other Bakshi's other works. That all changed when I saw this last week (
Update: Seems like the full scene I selected was canned by YouTube, but I found a good replacement):
It's...it's so friggin' COOL! After watching this with my girlfriend...we immediately put in the DVD and wanted to see if the whole movie was like this.
It was not.
However, and that's a BIG however, the movie basically builds up to this scene. "The film tells the story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music." -
Wikipedia
Each generation of this family shows the pop culture of its time. The concept itself is great. It really does pull you into each time period it depicts. All of the characters act so real. It feels so raw. Not to mention that the
rotoscoping helps in this regard. I think I like the last scene as much as I do, because I was brought up in the 80s. I relate to it more than, say, the first few scenes which take place in the early 20th century. It did make it interesting to see what people of that time saw as their pop culture. It's completely different than the 80s. Just like the 80s culture is different from today's.
The best thing about this movie is style. Style is written all over it. Not once did I get bored with any of the characters. Even during the low periods of the movie, I still was waiting for the next line of dialog. Even looking at the backgrounds, or listen to the music...everything balanced out nicely.
Oh yes, the music. Well, we have Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Doors...and over 40 songs in total during the entire movie (at least, that's what the DVD cover tells me). Anyone who grow up in the 80s will probably recognize some of the song from about 1/2 through the movie until the end. Everything else that plays before that are songs that probably my parents or grandparents would know.
There is so much I can say about American Pop. For now, I'll put it in the highly recommended viewing catagory. If you can, watch it with friends over a pizza and some beer.
"Pizza man! We deliver!"