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| Columbia Pictures Corporation | Release Date: February 13, 1981 |
Starring:
Ben Frommer, Elsa Raven, Frank DeKova, Jeffrey Lippa, Jerry Holland, Lisa Jane Persky, Mews Small, Rick Singer, Ron Thompson, Roz Kelly
Summary:
The story of four generations of a Russian Jewish immigrant family of musicians whose careers parallel the history of American popular music in the 20th century.
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The occasional use of real people on old film is jarring. But cumulatively, the effect is the strength of American pop to convey American mythology. [6 March 1981, p.15]
That American Pop is a work of anti-nostalgia does not make it any less banal than the sunny trip-down-memory-lane formulas it mocks. For all his very real skills as an animator, Bakshi's limitations as an artist are all too clear in American Pop. There's something perversely small-minded about a saga of pop music that resolutely refuses to convey any sense of the joy of making music. Bakshi's ears hear only the downbeats. [16 March 1981, p.94]
Ralph Bakshi's half-baked epic American Pop exposes the banality of his pop mentality. The creator of "Lord of the Rings' and "Fritz the Cat" surpasses himself: American Pop is undeniably his sorriest spectacle yet. [6 March 1981, p.C11]
The daring ceases to be exploratory and turns, spitting and screaming, on itself. When
Bakshi shows us an animated replay of the infamous 1968 pistol execution
of a suspected Viet Cong sympathizer, he imparts to the event the grinning
slapstick of a Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote confrontation. It's as good a
place to walk out of American Pop as any. [6 March 1981]
Jan 15, 2022
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