American Pop (1981)

Title: American Pop (1981)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Review:

I’ve reviewed a couple of Ralph Bakshi’s animated films here on The Film Connoisseur and I’ve noticed how they all have a couple of things in common, first, they are very street, always about the struggles of the working class against the system. They are about the hustlers, trying to survive in this big bad world. The counter culture always works itself into his plots somehow. The nature of the animation is always sketchy, but very much alive. His cartoon characters, though animated caricatures, are always laced with reality, a reflection of society. Music also plays a big part in Bakshi’s films, it almost seems to be symbiotically entwined with his animated images. So does dancing, and the Jewish people. American Pop has all these things and one added element that is seldom found in a Bakshi film: coherence!

American Pop is an epic animated film that spans various decades and four generations of a Jewish family. From the very beginning, the family we follow always leans towards the entertainment world, towards the music, towards the performing arts. “It’s the music I love” says one of the main characters at one point. We always follow the male of the family,  from generation to generation, each generation confronting a stumbling block that doesn’t allow them to reach maximum potential, that doesn’t allow them to be who they really want to be. These are all talented characters in their own way, but be it drugs, or marriage or war…something always seems to get in the way of art, of getting that big break in life, of making it big. Will someone in the lineage ever truly make it?

Gotta give kudos to Bakshi here, this is, I’m pretty sure, one of his best films, if not his best one. I’ve yet to see more of his films because some are difficult to get a hold of. But if I’m to judge his body of work by what I have seen, I’d say that American Pop is Bakshi’s masterpiece. It’s his best structured film, it seems focused and with a purpose, something I never got with Fritz the Cat (1972) which is kind of scattershot and surreal. American Pop has a feel of someone who wants to tell a clear story, to make a point and I loved that about it. Out of all of Bakshi’s films, I’d say this one has the most control over storytelling and the best written one. I loved how the film is structured, how we go from generation to generation seeing how each confronts the society of their time, be it gangsters or the Second World War, or drug addiction and the counter culture. We go from family member to family member until we finally meet the most driven one, the one that’s destined to make it no matter what, “the chosen one” so to speak; the one for whom all the stars aligned. The film made me think about generations of my family and what we have collectively achieved.

Bakshi’s characters all have these realistic movements and gestures because almost the entire film is ‘rotoscoped’, which is an animation technique where they film the live action performances and animate over these performances; not unlike today’s motion captured performances, in fact, rotoscoping is the grand daddy of the motion capture technique. The result is that the animated characters have very realistic gestures and movements. But still, if the performances and the movements that are rotoscoped aren’t any good, then your movie won’t be any good either, just look at the mess that is Cool World (1992) to see what I mean.  What amazed me about American Pop is how good the performances where, you almost get a feeling like American Pop could have been made live action and it would have been just fine. These characters are alive! They got attitude, they got things on their minds and they are going to say them! There are some tragic moments that will pull your heart strings and there are very sweet tender moments of love and human connection that will get to you. There’s this scene where one of the characters falls in love with a dancer, and without saying a word they both know they want each other; what amazed me about the scene was how we get all this not from dialog, but from animated images that transmit these ideas and emotions without  a single word.  

At the same time, American Pop is also about the evolution of American music, hence, the title of the film. We see American Music go from big band, to jazz,  to hippy rock, to punk, to the birth of rock and roll, to every kind of music you can think of. We go from Ira Gershwin to Bob Dylan, to the Doors, to the Mamas and the Papas,  I tell ya, this soundtrack is truly amazing. So many awesome bands and songs, this is a soundtrack you will want to have. There are many things that make American Pop the pinnacle of Bakshi’s abilities as a storyteller and a director. It is an ambitious decades spanning story that will get to you in the end, and for this and many other reasons you can discover when you see the film for yourself,  I wholeheartedly recommend it to lovers of animation, but also to those who love their films entwined with emotions and real characters that suffer and feel; characters that never give up and in the end, triumph. This is truly a criminally underrated piece of animation that should be viewed and spoken about a hell of a lot more.

Rating:  5 out of 5

Cool World (1992)

Title: Cool World (1992)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Cast: Brad Pitt, Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne

Review:

I remember going to the theater back in the late eighties to see Robert Zemeckis’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Now this was an event film, it was the kind of film that people went to see more than once, it was that entertaining. Also, it was ground breaking in many ways. The technique of mixing live action with animated characters had been used before in the past, but director Robert Zemeckis used this filmmaking technique in ways that had never been seen before. I remember being completely blown away by it. Not only was it a successful amalgamation of animation and live action, it was a great story, with great actors and to top things off, it had heart. Technically speaking (as is the norm in a Robert Zemeckis film) it had shots and filmmaking techniques that made you wonder “how in the hell did they shoot that?” Another plus was that the animated characters had personality, these cartoons performed, you felt like they were alive. I remember being a bit frightened by the ‘Judge Doom’ character played by Christopher Lloyd. Roger Rabbit was a rampant success; it won awards and accolades left and right. It’s success gave birth to similar films that hoped to duplicate Roger Rabbit’s success. Don Bluth’s Rock a Doodle (1991) is one example, so is the low budget horror spoof Evil Toons (1992), Space Jam (1996) and yet another notable example was Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World, the film we’ll be talking about today. I guess Bakshi saw this sudden interest in animated films as an opportunity to revitalize his animation career, which had been dormant up to that point.

Bakshi on the Cool World set

Cool World tells the story (or tries anyways) of Jack Deebs an ex-con who spent his years in jail creating a comic book called ‘Cool World’. The comic book is an underground success, and when he gets out of jail he learns that people worship him for his comic book. But something weird happens one night, Deebs somehow ends up inside of the world he created himself! Nevermind how it happens, but it does! Not only that, Deebs ends up falling head over heels for one of his own creations: the super hot ‘toon Holli Would. Some of the toons living in Cool World want to cross over to the real world, so they can be truly alive; one of these doodles is sexy Holli. Will she ever get her wish to cross over to our world?  

Believe it or not, writing a synopsis of Cool World is not an easy task because the film is a real mess story wise. This film being a mess is not big surprise for me because many of Bakshi’s films are this way, messy and convoluted. In fact, it’s something I’ve come to expect of is work. Check out Fritz the Cat (1972) or Wizards (1977), two very interesting animated films, unfortunately when it comes to telling their story, they are not very clear films. But in spite of all that, the animation and the themes of these films make them watchable. Unfortunately, Cool World is Bakshi’s sloppiest stab at storytelling. Too many questions are left up in the air with no answers in sight. Why do Dweeb and Frank end up in Cool World? Why can’t toons have sex with humans? Why is Frank so hell bent on stopping toons and humans from having sex? Why is there such a thing as a spear that can make Cool World spill into our world?  Why does Holli want to go to the real world to “feel” when she so obviously feels in the cartoon world? And why does she want to turn the real world into the cartoon world she was trying to escape from? I thought she wanted to be real? Why does Frank’s mother’s death cause him to appear in Cool World? And why does he apparently forget about her as soon as he is in Cool World? So many questions and absolutely no answers.  This friends is a major flaw in this movie. Reportedly, this film is supposed to speak about the “dangers of casual sex” but honestly, I couldn’t pick up on anything this film was trying to say. The film said nothing to me!

But this wasn’t necessarily Bakshi’s fault, the film he had planned was not the film we ended up seeing on the silver screen.  He had a better film planned, more structured. In fact, Bakshi’s original concept was something closer to a horror-comedy film. The characters were darker, more adult oriented; something closer to Frank Miller’s Sin City. You can actually pick up a bit of that “film noir” vibe in Cool World.  Unfortunately after the studio decided to finance Bakshi’s film, producer Frank Mancuso Jr. took the script and had it changed to the point where it was not what Bakshi had originally intended. Reportedly, Bakshi was so furious at this that he punched Mancuso Jr. in the face! Don’t know how much truth there is to that story, but damn, an action like that one could certainly be justified. The studio bought Bakshi’s pitch for the film, but then they twisted it around until we got the messy film we ended up getting. The studio threatened to sue Bakshi if he didn’t finish the film, so Bakshi had no choice but to finish a film he really didn’t have his heart in making, and it shows. According to Bakshi himself, he ended up trying to have as much fun with the animation process as possible, but that’s about it. One look at the film and it’s clear, Bakshi’s heart was not on this one. The animation feels unfinished, unpolished, rushed. Now, most of Bakshi’s animated films have that sketchy nature to them, but here it seems even more so. If this was supposed to be “Roger Rabbit on acid” as Pitt said in an interview, the animation had to at the very least be as good as Roger Rabbit. Unfortunately, you don’t feel like the cartoons are there with the actors, you feel like the cartoons were added in. Sadly, what is most important in this kind of film -the interaction between actors and animated characters- was not pulled off convincingly. This is one of the crucial elements that breaks this film.

But not everything is gloom and doom in Cool World, the film does have a couple of good things going for it. Number one, the background art, the way Cool World looks, was pulled off by this great artist known as Barry Jackson. He achieved the twisted nightmarish look of Cool Worlds buildings and architecture; honestly it’s pretty cool looking if you pardon the pun. Buildings have mouths and faces, the buildings are twisted and contrived…loved it. These paintings really do give Cool World a bit of a horror look, closer to what Bakshi wanted. The soundtrack got more praise then the film did, it even includes a David Bowie song written specifically for the film called “Real Cool World”, too bad it’s a cool song for such a crappy movie! Another plus in the film is of course, the beautiful Kim Basinger, she just looks stunningly sexy on this one. I hear she was a big problem during the production, in fact, she was part of the reason why the film was “softened up” to become a PG rated film instead of the hard ‘R’ that Bakshi wanted. Apparently she thought since it was animated, it would be a film for kids and so she pushed for the film to be more family friendly. It seems she knew nothing of Bakshi’s body of work which always mixed adult themes with animated characters. Still, Basinger brings the film up with her bodacious curves, her acting, sadly isn’t all that, ditto for the rest of the cast.  This is one of Brad Pitt’s earliest performances, before he became the super star he is today. Gabriel Byrne plays the cartoonist who creates Cool World and falls for Holli. A pretty decent cast, the problem is that these actors seem to struggle to pull this movie off, the story is so convoluted, it seems even the actors where having a hard time making it all work.

Final words are that this isn’t a good movie; it’s extremely hard to follow and doesn’t make an iota of sense. At some point during its early stages, it had something worth doing, but then the producers decided to bastardize it and make something more family friendly, which they failed at doing anyways. Holli is too sexually suggestive for this to be a childrens film, she’s always talking in double entendres, always posing in alluring ways. Hell, this story is all about the follies of humans having sex with cartoons? How is that the basis for a family friendly film? This film suffers from that dreadful ailment some films suffer from: it’s a film that doesn’t know its target audience, a malady that many of Bakshi’s films suffered from.  Worst part is that the animation, which is basically the big draw with these type of films, is crude. Too bad, because the film offered an interesting concept, it just wasn’t executed very well. I recommend this film only to animation/Ralph Bakshi fans, as a curiosity, as a way to see a project gone horribly wrong, but not as a film you will enjoy.

Rating: 1 1/2 out of 5 

Fritz the Cat (1972) and The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974)

Fritz the Cat, the comic strip character about a hip cat who comments on society and life, first came to life in the mind of famed underground comic book artist Robert R. Crumb when he was just a kid way back in 1959 in the pages of a little home made comic strip called “Cat Life”. Later, when Crumbs career grew in the underground comic scene of the 60’s and 70’s Fritz the Cat became known to the world as the anthropomorphic cat who represented the counter culture and had all sorts of crazy adventures, including many sexual ones. Crumb by the way is a genius of the comic book art form in my book, his style is one that I personally love and admire and actually kind of emulate in my own stuff, so this review comes from a genuine Robert Crumb admirer. Ultimately Crumb completely disassociated himself from this film project, going as far as getting his name legally removed from anything related to the film. The fact that Crumb cut himself out of the project doesn’t mean that Fritz the Cat is a bad film, because it isn’t. I actually think the film effectively captured what Crumb’s strip was all about but at the same time it has a lot of Bakshi’s own mentality in it as well. It’s the joining of these two genius minds that makes Fritz the Cat such a unique film.  I have to admit that I am disappointed at the fact that Crumb didn’t participate in the development of the film, still, I have to give props to Ralph Bakshi and his achievements with it; it is a special film in many ways.  

Way back in the early 70’s when famed animator Ralph Bakshi was looking for the right project with which to launch his career, he stumbled upon a Fritz the Cat strip and got the idea in his mind that he could make a film about these horny pot smoking animals. He’d been looking for the right film with which to start off his animation studio; a studio that Bakshi wanted to use to produce animated films for adults. But Crumb wasn’t budging; he didn’t want to give the rights to Bakshi, he didn’t want to do the project. Bakshi himself has gone down as saying that Crumb wanted all the credit for himself and making  film, by definition isn’t all about one person. It’s a collaborative medium, many people help a film happen. But the story doesn’t stop there. Crumb’s wife wanted the money that the project was offering and since she had a power of attorney over Crumbs work, she signed over the rights to Bakshi anyways. According to Crumb, they only got 7,000 for the rights! Fritz the Cat cost 850,000 to produce but went on to make almost 2 million dollars world wide, making it a bonafide success.

What was the big deal with Fritz the Cat? Why did an independent animated film suddenly make so much dough? Well, various factors helped this groundbreaking animated film get noticed, first of them is the fact that it was the first animated film to get the dreaded X-rating. Normally, getting an X-rating means economic death for any film; it means your film won’t get played in as many theaters and that the grand majority of conservatives in the world won’t go see your film. And while that might have been so at the time that Fritz the Cat was released, it still went on to make a hefty amount of money at the box office and it is still the single most successful independent animated film in history. Bakshi and crew intelligently used the X-rating to their advantage pasting the phrase “He's X-rated and animated” and “We’re not rated X for nothin', baby!” on their posters. The most controversial aspect of the film is seeing these cute little cartoon animals smoking weed, shooting up heroin, participating in orgies and murdering people. Never before Fritz the Cat had an animated film been aimed at an adult audience, so this film was ground breaking in that way. Fritz’s sexual exploits are pretty nuts as well, they include him picking up three chicks by impressing them with his philosophical ideas, and then getting them to participate in a massive orgy at a house where these beatniks are all having a major smoke out. Then Fritz goes and has sex with this huge black chick called ‘Bertha’. It’s hilarious seeing Fritz squeezing his face into a huge pair of breasts with such reckless abandon.

Fritz the Cat is most certainly a stoner flick; it glorifies pot smoking like very few movies do. Fritz tokes it up and shares the ganja with his girlfriends to get them in the mood. He smokes and goes on these hallucinatory head trips which offer up some of the craziest visuals in the film. I guess every single pot smoking, tripped out hippy went to see this one. Once word of mouth gets out that a film is ‘trippy’ well, acid heads and tripsters go in droves. Same thing happened with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) a film which acid heads went to see not only because it was a great cinematic experience, but because it also offered trippy visuals to augment their drug trips, and this most certainly is the case with Fritz the Cat, though the animation can be crude by today’s standards (as are most of Bakshi’s films) when you get used to it, the visuals can be quite the trip.

The film goes by pretty quickly from sketch to sketch, it can be a bit hard to follow because Fritz the Cat is a film that does not unfold in you’re a-typical linear fashion; it actually plays out a lot like a series of sketches commenting on socio-political problems. But when you finish watching it, you’ll feel that the film is just as chaotic, frenetic and sour sweet as life itself; which is something I enjoyed. I loved how both films serve as a time capsule of the late 60’s and early 70’s, it shows us the way people thought, what they were going through. Race issues pop up constantly, for example, Fritz hates the way white people have abused blacks through out history, so he goes hangs out with black people and plays pool with them, strikes up philosophical conversations about racism. These conversations sparked up quite the controversy; but Bakshi has always been a guy who doesn’t shy away from controversy. Controversy is something that Bakshi films were always about, for example Coonskin (1975) Bakshi’s racially charged feature film, flared up a whole lot of controversy, it was accused for being racist, when in fact it was the complete opposite. It is now considered by Bakshi and his fans, as his masterpiece. Bakshi did always make an effort on his films to comment on racism, for example, there’s something about the way Bakshi made these scenes that take place at an all black bar in Fritz the Cat. The scene has a bunch of black people hanging out, drinking booze, and talking bull. The conversations in these scenes come off as very realistic because Bakshi actually picked up a bunch of black people and brought them to the studio and just let them talk, he later animated the scenes in accordance to the dialog he recorded, as a result the dialog comes off as vibrant and full of life.  

Another controversial moment in the film has Fritz joining this group of revolutionaries who want to blow up some kind of factory, these guys are unsavory types only looking to do some damage, they are just violent for the sake of being violent and so Fritz ends up joining them and participating, not realizing his getting into a heap of trouble. This segment is obviously meant to send a warning. You might be counter culture and you might hate the system, but you have to choose your partners carefully. Ultimately, Fritz the Cat is a strange film to take in, it’s amusing and has tons of shock value, but it’s not easy to digest. At times the film goes on these tangents with Fritz philosophizing about life; you'll feel like you're in a beatnik bar philosophizing and criticizing everything that moves, which is basically the kind of film Fritz the Cat is. Fritz embodies the state of mind and frustrations of the 60’s generation, it’s awesome to look at it just for that.

The sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat was not directed by Ralph Bakshi because Bakshi had said all he wanted to say with Fritz the Cat, he was ready to move on to something else, which would end up being his next animated feature film, Heavy Traffic (1973) a film about a cartoonist/animator who wants to make an animated film, but is finding it difficult to produce, like most of his films Bakshi was venting some personal demons with that one. The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat went on to be directed by a guy called Robert Taylor and had nothing to do with either Bakshi or Crumb. It is seen by many as simply a cash-in, a film made to capitalize on the success of the first. And though I kind of agree with that sentiment, this sequel is not without its merits.

This time around Fritz has gotten married; he lives with his fat wife and child in a cramped apartment in the slums. All Fritz does these days is sit around smoking weed and waiting for his next welfare check; unfortunately the people at the welfare office are calling him up, questioning him as to why he hasn’t found a job yet. At the same time,  his wife is screaming at him at the top of her lungs about being a good father and getting a job, two things that Fritz does not seem to be too good at. So as he takes a puff of smoke, all of his nine lives take an astral trip, each life a different version of Fritz. Each life a different sketch; a different comment on society.

In one life Fritz goes off and screws a young Puerto Rican girl, making her smoke weed so that she gets all horny. After they smoke, they go on this hallucinatory surreal trip, which if you ask me, looks and feels more like an acid trip than anything. In another life Fritz is off to Mars on a spaceship with a news reporter he manages to seduce minutes before take off. In another life, he meets a bum on the streets who says he is God. On another he ends up being Hitler’s right hand man; this  segment of the film aims it’s guns at the fascist movement, making fun of Hitler and the Nazi’s every chance it gets. For example, they go on and on about how Hitler is actually a very frustrated cat because he has only one testicle, and is secretly gay. Hitler actually tries to screw Fritz! Then, we get the most controversial of all the segments, the one in which Fritz has to enter New Jersey, which has now been dubbed “New Africa” because according to the movie, the white men in power gave New Jersey to the blacks! So anyhows, Fritz ends up getting blamed for the assassination of the president of New Africa! Fritz even meets Satan on this one. At the end of the day though, the second Fritz movie isn’t as shocking as the first, but it’s still extremely satirical of the times it was made, the 70’s.

Bakshi himself is not very fond of The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat; he considers it a lesser film and so does Crumb, to whom the film does not exist. If you ask me, I’d say that both films are more or less the same, they both comment on society, shock with their vulgarity and violence (for animated films anyways) and both have that sketchy vibe to them; but Fritz the Cat does have more of an edge to it. It is more graphic in nature, which is the reason why Fritz the Cat garnered an X-Rating while The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat got a ‘R’, this immediately let’s us know that Nine Lives is softer and sort of playing by the rules. The sequel wasn’t as successful with critics and audiences as the first film, but in my opinion, it’s not totally unwatchable. They are both very representative of the times they were made and comment on a lot of relevant issues. They don’t necessarily give any answers, but they sure do plant the questions. Both films have that rough Ralph Bakshi style of animation which can take a while to get adjusted to, but even though both films are rough around the edges, and suffer from imperfect sketchy animation, both films more than make up for it with their content and attitude.

Rating for Fritz the Cat (1972): 4 out of 5

Rating for The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974): 3

Wizards (1977)

Title: Wizards (1977)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Review:

Ralph Bakshi is a filmmaker who has always championed adult oriented animation. This is the guy behind such animated classics as Coonskin (1975), Fritz the Cat (1972), Heavy Traffic (1973), American Pop (1981), Fire and Ice (1983), and Cool World (1992), amongst many others. Some of you probably know him by his animated film version adaptation of Lord of the Rings (1978). But if you ask me, my favorite Ralph Bakshi film is still Fire and Ice, a sword and sorcery animated epic in which he worked in collaboration with legendary fantasy artist Frank Frazetta. Together they created a world filled with sorcerers, magic battles, dense jungles and flying creatures. With Wizards, Bakshi who was then known for making controversial and socially conscious films; was attempting something a bit different, a childrens film! Did he succeed? 

Necro 99, one of the many characters that inhabit the world of 'Wizards'

  

In the world of Wizards the world has been devastated by nuclear war, what is left is the remnants of humanity. All sorts of creatures have emerged after the apocalypse. There are mutants that have appeared as a result of exposure to radiation and for some reason, all manner of goblins and elves and fairies have emerged as well. The film mentions that these elves and fairies are the “true ancestors of humanity”. In Wizards, the world is divided into two factions: one side lives in peace and harmony with nature and the other side are warmongers led by an evil wizard called Blackwolf; a despotic ruler hell-bent on conquering the world with his army of robots, his tanks, and his guns. The real problem comes when Blackwolf discovers old Nazi propaganda films and begins using them to fuel his army with hatred. Once he’s worked them up into a frenzy, he sends them out to the world to do war and conquer lands for him! Can Avatar the good wizard stop his evil brother before he brings the entire land to ruins?

My only real gripe with some of Ralph Bakshi’s films is that they feel sloppy and disjointed. The animation has a rough feel to it; it gives the impression of being unfinished, unpolished and released onto the world in whatever state it happened to be in when they snatched the cells from the animators’ hands. On top of that, Bakshi was fond of rotoscoping, and he experimented by mixing this technique with the traditional animation. Though I’m sure he was experimenting, the result are extremely uneven. Sometimes the film looks like a Saturday morning cartoon; sometimes it looks like real people moving about. But then again, Bakshi was a firm believer in the idea that a films heart was more important than slickness. To him if the film had heart and pulled you in with its story and characters, than that mattered more to him than having a super slick looking film. And that’s exactly what you get with Bakshi’s Wizards. It’s not a perfectly made film, it has many flaws, but it sure has its heart in the right place.

Mr. Bakshi, smoking some inspiration?

This was a film that was made during the time of Vietnam and Nixon, so it's no surprise that the film has an anti-war message attached to it. Blackwolf is the main villain, and his only concern is having a bigger army fueled by hatred. He lives in an ugly, cold part of this post apocalyptic world; amongst the ruins left by a past civilization. The film has a nature vs. technology vibe going for it. We have the good guys living in a paradise, while the bad guys are unearthing ancient technology and using it for war. One scene that perfectly captures what this film is about is a random scene of a mother telling her child “There has been a war, and the land is lost” and the kid asks “Why can’t we fight and win mommy?” and the mother replies “Because they have weapons and technology, we just have love” Once again, governments and their police/military force is portrayed as evil, and this was back in 1977! If we look at many films today, governments and their militia are still portrayed in this way. But Bakshi has always been a rebel through and through, many of his films talk about going up against an evil despotic ruler. Bakshi has always been a filmmaker with a social conscience, and his films show that.

Bakshi has a background in Saturday morning animation, he worked in shows like Spider Man and Mighty Mouse, but he grew tired of that because he wanted to speak truthfully, and not lie to his audience. He wanted to draw black people (something that wasn’t allowed when he was working in Saturday morning cartoons) and he wanted characters talking like real people talk. So when the time came to do his own thing, Bakshi always tried to push the envelope. The result were films like Fritz the Cat “Im X-rated and I’m animated!” and Coonskin (1975) a highly controversial animated flick that addressed racial tension in the U.S. Coonskin was so controversial that screenings often times ended up in audiences running out of theaters because of protest attacks! Wizards is a good example of Bakshi trying to tone down his sexual and controversial side, but never quite succeeding. With Wizards Bakshi was attempting to make a family friendly, kids film. In my opinion, though he tried, he really didn’t succeed. This is one of those films where you don’t know if it was made for kids or adults, or what. For example, one of the films main characters, a fairy called Lenoir, flies around showing her nipples through out the whole film. Avatar, the ‘good’ wizard is always hitting on Lenoir and smoking a cigar. The film comments on the nature of politics and religion, themes that are way too heavy for children. So in my opinion, though he attempted a children’s film, he didn’t quite get there. I guess that’s why the characters look so cartoonish, when compared to films like Fire and Ice for example.

Ultimately, Wizards comes off as an acid trip made by hippies trying various hallucinogenic drugs during their creative process. It is a ballsy film, very experimental, trying all kinds of art in one single film; to me this is the main reason why the film feels disjointed. We get traditional animation, rotoscoping, drawings with no animation on them whatsoever, and we even get some footage of Hitler’s propagandas films in there! It’s a real jumbled mess of a movie! And speaking of Fire and Ice, after having seen Wizards it feels to me like Fire and Ice was simply Bakshi trying to remake Wizards, but with a bit more budget and a bit more quality infused into the whole proceedings. The animation in Fire and Ice is far superior, and has a more polished look than Wizards, yet it has many of the same plot points and situations. And speaking of influences, Bakshi was obviously a huge Lord of the Rings fan because you definitely get a Lord of the Rings vibe on Wizards. Lot’s of characters look like Hobbits, wizards look like Gandalf, and everyone is on a big old quest across a savage, danger filled land. In closing, Wizards is very much a Ralph Bakshi film: It’s rebellious in nature; its animation is rough around the edges and very old school. My only advice is if you can ignore its shortcomings, what you get is a film with lots of heart; just don’t expect a masterpiece.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Fire and Ice (1983)

Title: Fire and Ice (1983)

Director: Ralph Bakshi

Writers: Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta

Review:

The recent passing of fantasy artist/legend Frank Frazetta this year (05/10/2010) was a sad day for me. Frank Frazetta was a major artistic influence on me during my younger years, and I remain a fervent admirer of his works. I used to stare at his paintings for hours and I constantly tried to imitate his style in my own art work, his art was a true inspiration, and still is. With his brush, his paints and his vivid imagination he was able to conjure up fantastical worlds of magic, monsters, warriors and beautiful women. His death was a great loss for the art world, and for champions of imagination everywhere. But what a great legacy he left behind! Fire and Ice, was the only time he directly participated in the production of a film. He designed the characters, helped write the script, and produced the film himself along with legendary producer/animator/artist Ralph Bakshi. This is one of the coolest things about this project: it united two of the best artists in their fields in one film. What was the result?

Frazetta's Death Dealer (one of his most recognized paintings) appears briefly in the film!

Fire and Ice tells the story of a kingdom in peril. Lord Nekron plans to conquer the world by spreading glaciers of ice through out the world with his magic. But the people who live in the kingdom of Fire Keep want nothing to do with that, in fact, when Lord Nekron gives them the opportunity to surrender to his power, they refuse and vow to fight to the death against the spreading of the cold. So, Lord Nekron sends his gorilla like henchmen to kidnap Teegra, the daughter of Lord Jerol, ruler of Fire Keep. They manage to do just that! Teegra manages to elude them, but she now faces and even greater danger: having to survive in the wild! She soon meets up with two barbaric adventurers, Larn and Darkwolf. Together, Larn and Darkwolf decide to go up against Lord Nekron and his plans to rule their world. Will they succeed in their gargantuan task?

Larn and Darkwolf both go up against evil Lord Nekron

Fire and Ice was directed by animation legend Ralph Bakshi, for those of you who don’t know who Ralph Bakshi is, well, let me put you up to date. Bakshi is the man responsible for many animated features that emerged during the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s. He was responsible for the production of films like Fritz the Cat (1972), Heavy Traffic (1973), Wizards (1977), The Lord of the Rings (1978), American Pop (1981) and crossing over to the 90’s he was responsible for Cool World (1992) which starred a very young Brad Pitt. What made Bakshi’s particular brand of animation special was that he produced animated films for adults. His cartoons were not of the Saturday morning variety, though he managed to produce some of those as well. But his cinematic films focused on adult themes. His films have animated characters having sex, doing drugs, killing and showing some skin. Fire and Ice was no different, it’s an animated film filled with semi-naked chicks and gory axe battles. Bakshi was a pioneer in demonstrating that not all animation had to be for kids. Adults could have some fun with it as well.

Teegra must suddenly learn to survive in the Savage Land!

And a fun time it is. This is the type of movie that offers up a strange new world filled with giant lizards, flying dragons, magic battles, sword battles, skeleton witches, basically, in the world of Fire and Ice, anything can happen. It’s a whole fantasy world with infinite possibilities. Don’t know how many of you out there are comic readers, but Fire and Ice reminds me of a comic produced by Marvel Comics called KaZaar. It’s basically the same type of premise, a warrior surviving in a fantastical savage land populated by the most outlandish creatures. On Fire and Ice Teegra has to venture off into this Savage Land where she confronts nature running wild. Fire and Ice also has many similarities with Conan the Barbarian. This comes of as no surprise since Frazetta is familiar with the world of Conan, he actually painted many covers for Robert E. Howards Conan novels. So I’m pretty sure that with Fire and Ice, Frazetta and Bakshi simply wanted to do their own personal version of Conan the Barbarian, this is very evident in characters like Darkwolf who resemble Conan a whole lot.

Darkwolf about to go berserk!

The movie does have its set backs though. The animation uses a system called ‘Roto Scoping’. This is a kind of animation that is very similar in nature to the popular motion capture that is used a lot in todays computer animated films like Robert Zemecki’s Beowulf (2007). Essentially, what they do is they film actors performing their characters and then, the animators draw over their actions, basically copying the performance on to their drawings. The result is a very smooth kind of animation, since the animation is based on human movements, the animated characters move in a very natural way. This doesn’t change the fact that at times the animation is crude, very old school. I mean, these guys were working on a small budget, they were not Disney. What they did have was a very creative crew, and a very talented production team. I mean, Frank Frazetta himself did a lot on the conceptual level, giving the characters their look and attire. As a result, the characters seem like something that popped out of one of Frazetta’s paintings. A film filled with Bodacious babes in skimpy wardrobes and buff dudes with swords and axes.

Fire Keep during the night

There’s not much of a story to grasp save for the evil Lord Nekron wanting to turn everything into ice, and kidnapping the good kings daughter. It is simply a story of good vs. evil. In one hand we have the fighters, the warriors representing the oppressed vs. the despotic ruler who wants to take over their land. The symbolisms in the film go with the title of the film. The cold ruler, who doesn’t think about his loyal subjects, he only thinks of himself. He spreads the cold because that’s essentially what happens with an evil ruler, his heart has to be cold as ice to do some of the things they do when they become power hungry. The good guys live in Fire Keep, cause they are the good guys, the oppressed, who want to keep the fire of humanity alive. So this movie basically has the cold of evil vs. the warmth of humanity going at each other. But that’s about as deep as this movie will go, to me Fire and Ice is more “style over substance” type of deal, which is fine, cause this kind of movie we watch for escapism, to see worlds, creatures and fantasy taken as far as it will go, it’s the kind of movie you watch to escape your regular boring life. It’s purpose to amuse you with its imagination.

Lovers of fantasy, and sword and sorcery films will love Fire and Ice. Comic book fans will devour it, because essentially that’s what this movie is, one big flashy, colorful comic book come to life, don’t look for anything deeper than that and you should be fine. But it’s also a film that you can appreciate from an artistic point of view, the effort put in by these guys in painstakingly drawing this movie frame by frame is something to be admired in my book.

Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5