Skip to Content

Summer Budget Travel Tips from Gadling

Free Flick of the Day: American Pop

Filed under: Animation, Comedy, Drama

The early '80s were an interesting time for controversial artist and animator Ralph Bakshi. His 1970s were filled with incendiary offerings like Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Wizards, Fritz the Cat, and his (truncated) adaptation of Lord of the Rings. But once the 1980s rolled around, Mr. Bakshi was a little more sedate -- and absolutely intent on furthering the art of feature-length animation. The often misunderstood Bakshi would turn out Hey Good Lookin' in 1982 and collaborate with the legendary Frank Frazetta on 1983's Fire and Ice ... but I say the filmmaker's best work was his follow-up to the Lord of the Rings misstep...

It's called American Pop and it strives to tell the story of American music over the course of four generations, from an immigrant who specializes in vaudeville to a modern-day rock star. (Well, modern for 1981.) Arguably Mr. Bakshi's most sincere film, American Pop often feels like the Rolling Stone version of The Godfather Part 2 ... and I don't think that was an accident. Backed by an amazing soundtrack and (of course) some dazzlingly offbeat animation, American Pop is our free flick of the day. You can enjoy this (decidedly R-rated) animated feature right here at Slash Control. And let me know what you thought of it!

Related Headlines

 

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.

.