American Pop

1981 "All those years, all those dreams, all those sons... one of them is going to be a star."
7.1| 1h36m| R| en| More Info
Released: 13 February 1981 Released
Producted By: Columbia Pictures
Country:
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
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The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.

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Director

Ralph Bakshi

Production Companies

Columbia Pictures

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American Pop Audience Reviews

Karry Best movie of this year hands down!
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
Claudio Carvalho "American Pop" is a fantastic animation directed by Ralph Bakshi disclosing the American pop music in the Twentieth Century until 1980. The storyline follows four generations of a Russian Jewish family of refugees from the Russian Revolution that immigrate to America. Along the years, the boy Zalmie discovers life and love in night-clubs as performer and musician and becomes the patriarch of generations of musicians. The big picture of the American history is the background to present wonderful music, in blues, jazz, rock and roll, in one of the most beautiful soundtracks of the cinema history. My vote is ten.Title (Brazil): "American Pop"
Angels_Review The show was rather hard to figure out. We seem to follow a Russian boy who came to America and was introduced to music. He ends up going into the business and we follow his life as he grows up into it, then his son and so on through four generations of this Russian Jewish family. When one story ends, another one begins to show the 20th century's popular songs and history.Sadly, the show didn't really capture my attention because of how sort of… bland, the storyline was plus the mixture in styles of art that didn't seem like they worked. The characters speak way to low to be heard and always slur their speech. I know that it might have been the times that had that smooth, slick way of talking but it just comes out slightly slopped.The artwork is rather interesting, mixing old styles of drawing, black and white pictures of the time, and a really American style of characters. The characters look extremely bland considering the backgrounds look like they were drawn by an oil painter. They seem like they were drawn to be slightly chubby and not hold there shape at all when they move. If you ever seen Gonzo on a bad day, this is pretty much like it without shading. They seem to mix in many little black and white paintings and clips into the mix as well which can throw you off at many times. The movement is mostly fluid Well, I have to say the voices seemed dead on for the stereotypical ideas of people. We have the high class musical agent talking with a slang style and we have others who have a rather gangster voice and so on. Behind this though is a rather beautiful songs that we know and love from that time frame that it corresponds to.In the end, it just wasn't my style of show. The voices were low and hard to understand, the artwork was slightly bland, the storyline was something I couldn't get into and the only thing that seemed interesting was just how they placed together old clips to the animation.
crucifido From his directing Tom 7 Jerry cartoons (some of the oddest most memorable ones as well), to Wizards, to Lord Of The Rings, to American Pop, the guy developed a heck of a diverse resume' fro himself.Reading the reviews here I think a lot of people are misguided as to how the animation in this film was done. This film was 99% rotoscoped (sans the backgrounds, still background characters and various environments).While it does look really good rotscoping involves artists basically tracing over acted out sequences. Think "A Scanner Darkly", if you want to get a more modern grasp on it. So yeah, the animation is clean and smooth, but it's not necessarily "pure" animation, like a Pixar film or a Bugs Bunny cartoon. The designs of the characters, their movement and their behavior is so life-like because, well it was performed by actual people. So knowing that maybe some views you read on the animation and how perfect it is can be looked at with a grain of salt.Anyway, the movie is entertaining and at times hypnotizing to watch. It's a great study in the era of film making and art it was done in. Films like this wouldn't be accepted by today's audiences and it's kind of a shame.The story is entertaining enough, though for em the incredibly heavy East coast accents could have been toned down some. After an hour of it, it can become a bit of an endurance contest, and at the least distracting.If nothing else, it's recommended viewing for the animation fan, for those who want to see the art of rotoscoping and for fans of Bakshi and his gritty form of storytelling.
gangstahippie American Pop is a very interesting and underrated animated film.It has a fairly good storyline and also due to the technique of "rotoscoping", the film has great animation as well...especially for 1981! The film shows four generations of a Russian-American family starting from the 1800's and ending in the 1980's.It shows the different musical talents of the family members which also show the era of music they live in.It also shows other historical moments that happen during their time such as World War II.American Pop is a very good animated film.Definitely one of Bakshi's best and his most serious work.Do not expect a movie like "Fritz The Cat", this is a serious animated-drama.Worth watching if you can find it.