American Pop

Pete: [Slamming down briefcase full of cocaine on table] Pizza man! We deliver! Musician: You got the coke, daddy-o? Pete: What do I look like, man? A soda fountain? Musician: Hey, what else you got there? Pete: Songs. Musician: You scorin' songs now too? Pete:…

Sarah Jane 🔪

Ralph Bakshi's contained and personal multigenerational account of a Jewish family, from a mother and son immigrating to NYC from Imperial Russia in the late-19th century, to that son's great-grandchild born from a counterculture-era one night stand. The film is an…

Paul (Douglas Reese)

The tragedy of Ralph Bakshi is that he's not a very good storyteller. His best work, that I've seen, is still a flawed piece of fantasy (Wizards, which gets bogged down despite a strong ending), and his worst work (again, that I've seen) is a collection of scattershot,…

Sally Jane Black

JUNIMATION II: F*** YEAH! Much of my high rating for this film comes from the animation, which is arguably some of the best I’ve seen from Bakshi. I found a significant amount of it to be quite appealing, as it resembled these highly unusual yet visually stunning…

Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine

If this film taught me anything, it's that Bob Seger's 'Night Moves' is the pinnacle of human achievement.

ChristopherDay

Four-part harmony through generational build, "American Pop" is a 1981 animated musical directed by Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi, for all his efforts, seems to have two clear traditional forms of direction with his work. There is the realistically drawn science fiction or fantasy…

Blake Bergman "Various Spaghetti"

This is Ralph Bakshis hidden masterpiece. Pure vibes driven plot no arcs necessary.

Netscape

This isn’t my favorite Bakshi but it does feel like his Masterpiece — the culmination of all of his pet themes, interests, and fetishes, with some of the best and most boundary-pushing animation of his career. One of the greatest American animators, hands down.

Spencer

Bakshi never excelled at narrative, which is seemingly at odds with a generation spanning story of immigration and the genesis and increasing relevance of pop music in america but his visual style is so assured that the images here offer more to say than most dense scripts…

Justin LaLiberty