Has a wonderful soundtrack, but it fails to provide an actual story unless you look hard...
American Pop (1981)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted: 16
Fresh: 9
Rotten:7
Average Rating: 5.6/10
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Musical & Performing Arts
Synopsis: This sweeping epic of Americana follows four generations of angry young men and their music via the animation of director Ralph Bakshi. As the story begins, Russian immigrant song-and-dance man... This sweeping epic of Americana follows four generations of angry young men and their music via the animation of director Ralph Bakshi. As the story begins, Russian immigrant song-and-dance man Louis fathers Benny, a jazz pianist who gets killed in WWII but not before fathering Tony, a sullen Brooklyn youth who runs off to San Francisco to write lyrics for a Jefferson Airplane-style acid rock band. Crippled by low self-esteem, Tony blows his chance at the big time and winds up a New York junkie in the 1970s, along with his illegitimate son, who later becomes a cocaine-dealing cartoon composite of Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Idol. Featuring music by everyone from Scott Joplin to Jimi Hendrix to Pat Benatar, this rambling feature is a powerfully moving experience thanks to its sheer bravado and endless supply of great music. Bakshi integrates his animation style of rotoscoping (tracing the animation from live film) with historical photos and film footage to tell the story of American popular music in a unique way that sets this ambitious picture into a class all its own. [More]
Starring: Frank DeKova, Ben Frommer, Roz Kelly, Richard Moll
Starring: Frank DeKova, Ben Frommer, Roz Kelly, Richard Moll, Lisa Jane Persky
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Director: Ralph Bakshi
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Reviews for American Pop
A sprawling and messy work whose flaws are inextricable from its brilliance.
Although cartoonish in the most pejorative sense, American Pop knows its musical lore. This film has little bits of tragedy that just may break your heart.
American Pop celebrates the vitality of music which seems to weather all changes and continues to serve as a vehicle for our hopes and dreams.
every time it starts engaging the viewer, it quickly shifts gears and heads into a new decade
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