American Pop - ***
Uneven but interesting animated film from Ralph Bakshi. To anyone unfamiliar with Bakshi's work, even his best films have their gaping flaws (some of his films, like Wizards and Hey Good Lookin, have the distinction of being the most ****ing depressing cartoons ever made), but one thing I love about Bakshi is that he takes risks with animation that no one else does.
Before Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly and Waltz With Bashir there was this. It's completely rotoscoped, sharing a similar look with Bakshi's previous film, his version of Lord of the Rngs.
The film follows four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family in the United States, and how their lives reflect the ever changing cultural landscape. The film goes from NYC to California, from prohibition era to punk rock.
The film looks great, a lot of animation buffs hate rotoscoping, but Bakshi does it very well, I love the painted backgrounds. Though one thing I dislike about Bakshi's films is the random and awkward use of live action footage, which often doesn't fit in at all.
The film doesn't give you enough time to really connect with any of it's characters, it quickly skips from one era to the next. So if anything, american pop culture is the star of this film.
There's a lot of use of popular rock music, everything from Hendrix to The Sex Pistols, some of it works very well, some of it doesn't (WTF is Bob Seger doing in this movie?) but overall this is a very interesting, well realized and sometimes even poignant film.