Ralph Bakshi's Good, Bad, and Ugly!

[Steve T Power]

Every week we each pick a good (All around GREAT flick), a Bad (Not really aspiring to greatness but still fun or endearing) and an ugly (trainwreck of a movie).

This is where we want to see your picks... Give us your Good, Bad, and Ugly for Smutty cartoon maker Ralph Bakshi!

Fire and Ice!!!

[mavrach]

I've seen three of his movies and they fit perfectly into our categories:

Good: Fire and Ice - Just saw this for the first time about a month ago and was floored by the usage of rotoscoping to create a unique environment that became an epic for adults. And wow that bikini...

Bad: Lord of the Rings - An ambitious failure to adapt the series into a movie, and they crammed both Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers into one movie. The characterisation was a bit weak, the hobbits all looked the same and the two wizards looked the same. Too much of the story is lost by putting so much in one movie, and of course it ends without the third book. And if you watch this after having seen the Peter Jackson trilogy, the scale will seem much much smaller. But still you've got to respect the attempt.

Ugly: Cool World - It's a wonder Brad Pitt's career ever recovered.

[Mitchell Hattaway]

Good: American Pop

Bad: Lord of the Rings & Fire and Ice

Ugly: Everything Else

[Gabriel Girard]

Good: American Pop

That's my man! Although I'm wondering why you're classifying Fire & Ice as bad. Another question : Can you choose the ugliest part of Bakshis' body of work?

[Mitchell Hattaway]

Good: American Pop

That's my man! Although I'm wondering why you're classifying Fire & Ice as bad. Another question : Can you choose the ugliest part of Bakshis' body of work?

Fire and Ice is Conan for undemanding eight-year-olds (no surprise, given who wrote it); Frazetta's work deserved a better showcase. As for ugliest, I'd say the three minutes of Heavy Traffic I could stomach.

[Gabriel Girard]

Good: American Pop

That's my man! Although I'm wondering why you're classifying Fire & Ice as bad. Another question : Can you choose the ugliest part of Bakshis' body of work?

Fire and Ice is Conan for undemanding eight-year-olds (no surprise, given who wrote it); Frazetta's work deserved a better showcase. As for ugliest, I'd say the three minutes of Heavy Traffic I could stomach.

Wuss! I managed to watch all of Heavy Traffic - I barely survived.

[Mitchell Hattaway]

Good: American Pop

That's my man! Although I'm wondering why you're classifying Fire & Ice as bad. Another question : Can you choose the ugliest part of Bakshis' body of work?

Fire and Ice is Conan for undemanding eight-year-olds (no surprise, given who wrote it); Frazetta's work deserved a better showcase. As for ugliest, I'd say the three minutes of Heavy Traffic I could stomach.

Wuss! I managed to watch all of Heavy Traffic - I barely survived.

I still think that movie was secretly funded by the Klan.

[Gabriel Girard]

Good: American Pop

That's my man! Although I'm wondering why you're classifying Fire & Ice as bad. Another question : Can you choose the ugliest part of Bakshis' body of work?

Fire and Ice is Conan for undemanding eight-year-olds (no surprise, given who wrote it); Frazetta's work deserved a better showcase. As for ugliest, I'd say the three minutes of Heavy Traffic I could stomach.

Wuss! I managed to watch all of Heavy Traffic - I barely survived.

I still think that movie was secretly funded by the Klan.

yeah, I mean even Coonskin isn't as offensive.

[Attrage]

Good - Fritz the Cat

Bad - Lord of the Rings (though - disclaimer - up until the "siege of Helm's Deep" bit, it is actually a very watchable, I'd say even entertaining, film)

Ugly - Cool World

[Bryan Pope]

yeah, I mean even Coonskin isn't as offensive.

A former writing professor of mine at Texas A&M, the late Charles Gordone, did voiceover work for both Heavy Traffic and Coonskin. That's the only reason I'd seek out those two movies.

[Dan Mancini]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

[cdouglas]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

+1

[Mitchell Hattaway]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

+1

I thought it was implied that the subtitle of this episode was "Relatively Speaking."

[Attrage]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

Um...FRITZ THE freakin CAT. Granted, it's no masterpiece of cinema, but I'd say the word "Good" definitely applies...does no one on this board agree with me there?

[Gabriel Girard]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

Um...FRITZ THE freakin CAT. Granted, it's no masterpiece of cinema, but I'd say the word "Good" definitely applies...does no one on this board agree with me there?

I selected it as my ''bad', actually. It hasn't aged well and the racism is a little oft-putting. But it was revolutionary for its time, is historically important and even sporadically funny. Fire & Ice and American Pop are his only movies worth viewing. FRITZ, Lord Of The Rings and Wizards are recommended for animation or fantasy buffs. the rest is highly NOT recommended.

[Attrage]

Nothing during the show or in this thread has yet convinced me there's such thing as "good" Ralph Bakshi. All of his features suck mightily.

Um...FRITZ THE freakin CAT. Granted, it's no masterpiece of cinema, but I'd say the word "Good" definitely applies...does no one on this board agree with me there?

I selected it as my ''bad', actually. It hasn't aged well and the racism is a little oft-putting. But it was revolutionary for its time, is historically important and even sporadically funny. Fire & Ice and American Pop are his only movies worth viewing. FRITZ, Lord Of The Rings and Wizards are recommended for animation or fantasy buffs. the rest is highly NOT recommended.

Well, each to their own. I still think it's awesome. And the fact that you are obviously a Reanimator fan means I still think you're awesome too

[J.M. Vargas]

The Good: Fire and Ice ("He-Man" on acid and with enough insinuation of sensuality and violence to make its PG rating as laughable as "Airplane's !," "Poltergeist's," etc.; best use of rotoscoped animation)

Bad/Ugly: EVERYTHING ELSE (seriously, no theatrical work Bakshi ever did besides "Fire and Ice" comes close to passable in my book; I can't think of another filmmaker whose work I find revolting to even look at, though to be fair I haven't seen "American Pop" yet).

My personal all-time favorite Bakshi work was the two seasons (the final one made mostly of recycled/redubbed/rewritten episodes) of "Spider-Man: The '67 Collection," which change the first season's clean-cut late 50's vibe into a f***ed-up psychodelia showcase of Bakshi's drugged-up mind (this 2004 Bakshi interview is a must-read on the subject). The KTM Library soundtrack of those two seasons has some of the catchiest, most top-tapping background music I've ever heard on a TV show (and is on permanent rotation in my MP3 players). And of course the Canadian connection is that Bernard "Bunny" Cowan and his actor troupe did the voice work (Ralph "animated" the show in Gotham), with too-old-for-the-part Paul Soles doing the voice for teenager Peter Parler/Spider-man.