THE PACHYDERM AND THE PITY: on DUMBO (1941)

I'm not crying...YOU'RE crying!!!

So...

 

I watched DUMBO (1941) again the other night, the first time I'd sat through its entirety in close to 20 years, and while I consider it to be among the strongest of Disney's early features, I doubt that I will be able to sit through it again any time soon, and if I do I definitely will not enjoy much of the experience. You see, I have adored elephants my entire life and if a nature documentary is on, I will stop whatever I am doing to observe the footage and any new information that may be imparted. Meaning that I get elephants for who and what they are, so witnessing the outright cruelties inflicted on wee Dumbo from virtually the moment the stork drops him off is an agonizing ride. 

 

Dumbo (and let us not forget that his actual name is "Jumbo Jr.") is relentlessly abused and bullied by all and sundry, with the sole exceptions of his mother and Timothy the mouse, and he's just a defenseless baby. When his mother justifiably rampages against a kid who's abusing her child, she is attacked and whipped by the circus's ringmaster and assorted roustabouts as they subdue her, and she ends up in chains, separated from Dumbo while he is forced into the humiliating and dangerous role of a clown, and the viewer's heart breaks. Then the "Baby Mine" number comes on, where Dumbo visits his mother during her imprisonment and the shackles prevent his mother from coming close to the window to actually see him, so all the she can do is extend her trunk through the bars of her prison to caress the wee, weeping baby while singing him a lullaby. For me, it's the Disney moment that wields the most emotional power. A real haymaker that just comes in and mercilessly shatters what remains of your broken heart into about a million shards. I wept for all I was worth while watching it. Utterly wrecked me.

 

And do NOT get me started on the murder of crows who befriend Dumbo and Timothy and sing the now-infamous "When I See An Elephant Fly." I wish Richard Pryor or Paul Mooney had commented upon that sequence. Watching it this time, I was shocked by its sudden intrusion of outright minstrel show antics in a tone completely at odds with the rest of the film. I have no illusions about such material in old Hollywood productions, but as seen here it was just odd, and it mars an otherwise excellent (if painfully miserable) classic. (Same goes for "What Made the Red Man Red" in PETER PAN, and that was arguably a better song.)

Poster for the original theatrical release.

BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON (2021)

 

 (L-R) Richard Dragon, Batman, Lady Shiva, the Bronze Tiger. Sheer badassery.

A dear friend who's immersing himself into the DC animated movies strongly recommended that I check out BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON, and he was absolutely right. Its setting is the world of '70's-era kung fu and blaxploitation movies, or rather a blending of the two flavors, and it reimagines the Batman as one of several former students of a martial arts master who band together to take on an otherworldly evil. It's non-stop action from start to finish and it will all be quite familiar to those steeped in the films that it evokes.

The originally Caucasian Richard Dragon has been recast as Bruce Lee's ENTER THE DRAGON-style superspy, and it works like a charm. The Bronze Tiger is also present — voiced by Black Dynamite himself and real-life martial arts badass, Michael Jai White — and I'll be damned if his look is not meant to evoke '70's-era Luke Cage, which also works beautifully. Lady Shiva is her usual utterly deadly self (the story does not in any way shy away from her total willingness to kill), and the Batman in this story is definitely the Englehart-Rogers version, visually returning his look to that of his 1930's pre-Robin iteration (my favorite version, BTW). 

 

Batman, rockin' it old school.

BATMAN: SOUL OF THE DRAGON is a solid winner and it gets my HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION for those who are in on what it's laying down. The live-action Batman movies wish they were even 1/16 as good or as much fun as this 82-minute animated effort.

 

With these four united, the bad guys may as well dig their own graves and save the undertakers the trouble.

UP (2009)

NOTE: This piece originally ran on THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS  back in June of 2009.

Before I get to the review proper, let me take a brief bit of your time to remind you that just because a film is animated that doesn't automatically make the film in question a "kiddie" movie. Such is the case with UP, and that's not to say that the material in the movie is in any way unsuitable for younger audiences, but rather that the themes explored in it have a lot to do with an understanding of the human experience that one acquires with a certain level of age and what one has gone through in life (I found RATATOUILLE to be much the same in this respect). Thus I suggest that before you take your kids to see UP you should carefully assess whether your youngster will get fidgety and restless during a film that doesn't get lively enough to rivet a child's interest until about two thirds of the way through its running time. The showing of UP that I attended was marred by several families who'd brought their broods to see it, and most of the children in question ranged from babe-in-arms infancy to about five years old, and these kids spent the entire film loudly testing their newly-realized vocal capacities by screaming, shrieking, making random sounds repeated over and over again at top volume, crying, and just about every noise kids can make. And you know it's bad when the slightly older kids in attendance said out loud that there were "too many babies and little kids" in the audience and that they were ruining it for everyone else. But at no time during this agony did I hold the kids responsible; it's their shitheaded parents who don't get that when you have children you have to accept that it'll most likely be several years before you can actually see a movie in the theater again, instead waiting for DVD or cable and seeing flicks at home where you they can attend to the needs of their little ones without fucking it up for the rest of the audience, people who also paid the exorbitant admission price and expect to enjoy the movie they paid to see.

Anyway, enough with my cautionary rantings.

UP, the tenth of Pixar's feature films, is simply excellent in every way it's possible for a film to be excellent, and its 3-D element is not necessary at all in order for the viewer to enjoy it. I've found that the majority of 3-D movies use that effect as a gimmick to disguise a film's plot deficiencies, MONSTERS VS ALIENS and BEOWULF immediately leaping to mind as examples, but UP stands on a very strong story foundation so no such fancy gewgaws or flash are needed in the least.

UP tells the story of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Edward Asner to Oscar-worthy effect), an old man struggling with the crushing void left in his life following the death of his beloved wife, Ellie. The pair bonded during childhood over a mutual love of the promise of adventure in exotic places and hero worship of a famous explorer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), and from that inauspicious meeting we are shown the evolution of their life together, going from youthful innocence through marriage, their shared dreams (some of which tragically never come to pass), and Elie's death, all of which is portrayed in a moving sequence taking up about ten minutes of screen time and featuring more honest. genuine emotion than any film I've seen in years. If you don't care about Carl Fredricksen after what's witnessed during that sequence, you have simply no heart.

Cantankerous and lost without Ellie and facing court-ordered eviction from his (and just as importantly, Ellie's) home for a "life" at the Shady Oaks retirement community, Carl rigs up the house with a massive amount of helium balloons (presumably snagged from his job as a balloon vendor at a zoo, where he worked with his wife who served as a tour guide) and sets off on an airborne course to Paradise Falls in South America, the site where his (and his wife's) explorer idol vanished while on a quest to prove the existence of a rare flightless bird. The goal is to fulfill Ellie's wish of having her home on the peak of Paradise Falls, and while on the way Carl finds himself saddled with an unwanted and annoying traveling companion in the form of Russell (Jordan Nagai), an earnest but irritating scout in search of his "helping the elderly" patch, an achievement that will advance him to senior rank. As the two share a journey that smacks more than a little of the now quaint adventures scribed by Jules Verne, both unlikely heroes have their individual mettle tested and neither comes up wanting, faced with befriending and protecting the aforementioned rare bird (dubbed "Kevin" by Russell) and encountering a pack of dogs equipped with collars that allow them to speak. Among the dogs is Dug (Bob Peterson), the embodiment of all that is sweet and endearing in Man's Best Friend, and he soon proves to be another misfit who casts his lot with the two humans and the bird. More goes on from that point in the narrative — a LOT more — but I'll leave those details for you to discover for yourself; the bottom line is that I hold UP in the highest of estimation and urge you very strongly to see it.

What surprised me most about UP is how the marketing for it gives you no clue whatsoever as to its themes and tone, making it look like a cute little kiddie picture when it is in fact a moving character study of isolated and lonely characters who touchingly find one another and find themselves all the better for that mutual discovery. The film's examination of loneliness and the overcoming of that loneliness, both situational and emotional, touched me deeply and I found myself openly weeping at certain points in the story. One of my co-workers, a hardcore Disney and Pixar fan, actually found the film too sad to be enjoyable and cried from start to finish, but she's a sensitive sort who prefers her cartoons within a certain set of established animation storytelling parameters, and what she got from UP was in no way what she went in expecting.

I found UP's deep emotional resonance to be not only refreshing but also quite cathartic, and when I left the theater my mind kept returning to it and mulling it over for several hours, and after very careful consideration I find UP placing as third in my ranking of favorite Pixar movies (number one being RATATOUILLE, with THE INCREDIBLES an extremely close second), and as the years go by I would not be surprised to see it move up even higher. I'm a very emotional guy and understand what this movie was talking about all too well, so when a movie speaks to me like this, I listen. UP speaks with a subtlety and eloquence missing from the vast majority of Hollywood's output, and the fact that it communicates as it does through the animated medium only makes it all the more precious. Don't miss it.

ELEGY FOR A TITAN: ONE FAN'S REMEMBRANCE OF RAY HARRYHAUSEN (1920-2013)

Ray Harryhausen, animating the transformed Sadi in the classic THE 7th VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958).

(I begin typing while THE 7^th VOYAGE OF SINBAD plays and Bernard Hermann’s pounding main title theme bosses its way out of my flatscreen TV’s speakers.)

How to even begin to express my feelings of loss with the passing of the god of stop-motion animation, the one and only Ray Harryhausen? Sure, the man had a good run of 92 years and left behind an unmatchable cinematic legacy, but this demise is especially painful thanks to just how large his presence loomed over so many of us for so many years.

If you have no idea who Ray Harryhausen was, think back to the old school movies you saw that took you to fantastical landscapes teeming with mythic beasts of myriad shapes and sizes (with a few extra-terrestrials included for variety). A good number of those films featured stop-motion animation painstakingly wrought by Harryhausen, and those creations were as magical as the sorcery encountered in the narratives. The man spent weeks and months of excruciatingly time-consuming frame-by-frame manipulations that rendered his lovingly-crafted foam rubber and armature models into living, breathing, rampaging characters, the memories of which stick in the viewer’s mind long after the house lights have come up or the DVD is removed from the player and returned to its plastic clamshell packaging.

During my often-lonely childhood, I devoured old sci-fi, fantasy, and horror movies whenever they aired on TV in those pre-cable days, with my favorite fare being anything featuring monsters. I was simply crazy for monsters and the bigger they were, the better, with their anti-social, destructive mayhem perhaps allowing me to process my own feelings of powerlessness and anger. I’m not certain I saw any of Harryhausen’s movies on one of those blessed local television showcases for old flicks, but I have carved-in-stone memories of seeing THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974) on the big screen during its initial release. The TV commercial come-ons for the film caught my eye like a poorly cast three-pronged fishhook, so I had no intention of missing such a spectacle.

Black magic at its most lethal: Kali enters the conflict.

As I settled into the indoor nighttime of Westport, Connecticut’s Post Cinema, my impressionable eight-year-old self was simultaneously transported and utterly blown away by the film’s fantasy quest that thrust daring seafarer Sinbad into direct, terrifying conflict with an evil sorcerer whose powers commanded an assortment of horrors. A living juggernaut of a ship’s solid wooden figurehead, a bat-like spy in the form of a parrot-sized homunculus, and an agile, sword-wielding stone statue of the six-armed goddess Kali all strutted their fairytale stuff across the silver screen, along with a griffin and a cyclopean centaur, to greatly affect the mind of a child who longed to be anywhere other than where fate had cast him in the wake of a move from one coast to another. (The presence of smokin’-hot Caroline Munro as a bosomy slave girl was also a considerable plus and helped open my mind in other notable ways.) Upon leaving the theater, I was a kid transformed, now infused with a burning hunger for more fantastic cinema bearing the mark of this wizard named Harryhausen.

Having seen the restored, uncensored version of the original KING KONG (1933) earlier that year — the film that over the subsequent decades asserted itself in my consciousness as my all-time favorite movie — I noted many similarities in that film’s animated monsters and how they moved/emoted when compared to what Harryhausen had wrought, so it came as no surprise when I discovered that Harryhausen had seen KONG during its first run. That significant formative experience set him on his life’s path and led him to apprentice under Willis O’Brien, the man who animated King Kong and his numerous prehistoric opponents. (At the time I knew who Willis O’Brien was but I did not truly dig deep into his history until a year later, when I wrote a detailed and passionate report on the making of KING KONG for a 4^th grade assignment. Used to her students turning in essays on sports figures and TV stars, my teacher was rather surprised by that one.)

The second step in my Harryhausen education came during a series of weekend theatrical matinees that ran during my ninth year. Each week, Fairfield, Connecticut’s Community Theater screened double and triple-features of old children’s films that parents could drop their kids off at and leave them there all day, and the weekly fare featured mostly cheapjack time-wasters like the culled from Swedish television Pippi Longstocking films (which looked cheap and shoddy even to us under-tens; the books were infinitely better), an occasional 1960’s Italian superhero movie, zero-budget dubbed Mexican imports from schlockmeister K. Gordon Murray, and the occasional Toho giant monster city-stomper to liven things up (those always went over quite well), and it was at one of those matinees that I first encountered THE 7^th VOYAGE OF SINBAD. 

Considered by many to be the finest fantasy film ever made — an opinion I disagree with in favor of the 1940 version of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD — 7^th VOYAGE is a visually-stunning, colorful, exciting, and just plain balls-out fun Arabian Nights-style adventure yarn, and it is arguably the first feature that really allowed Harryhausen the ideal showcase for his singular talents.

The Cyclops, aka the garden variety fauna of the island of Colossa.

The monsters that populate the remote island of Colossa (I love that name!) were gigantic, aggressive, and ravenous, and Harryhausen imbues each with a fleshy, palpable urgency that left other such 1950’s fare in the dust. While perfectly suitable for all ages, the encounters with creatures like the Cyclops (once seen, never forgotten, and perhaps the film's signature monster), the two-headed roc, the sword-slinging skeleton warrior, the princess’s handmaiden who is transformed into a disturbing, writhing snake-woman (until the transformation goes horribly wrong), and that poor, beautiful dragon were all scary as hell in a child-friendly way. 

The eerie dance of Sadi.

Coupled with the lush fantasy of Arabian opulence from a bygone era, THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD is the rare fantastic yarn that hits every note precisely, resulting in one of the very few absolutely perfect fantasy movies. It’s a classic for a reason and that reason’s name is Ray Harryhausen.

Another of those Community Theater weekend matinees brought the eager kiddie audience the epic JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), and minds that had already been blown by Sinbad’s Arabian exploits were further expanded by Jason’s excursion into Greek mythology. I’d been a hardcore Greek mythology buff since I was seven years old, so I was more than ready for a film of JASON’s caliber, and what I got from it exceeded even my wildest expectations. Crammed from top to bottom with gods and monsters and bolstered by a solid script from Greek mythology expert Beverly Cross, the film is an experience on par with THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and it’s kind of impossible to truly determine which is a better film. If you’re a Harryhausen fan, it’s likely that either 7^th VOYAGE or JASON is your favorite of his works, and I’ve seen the debate as to the comparative merits of both movies get quite heated. I personally used to lean more firmly into the camp supporting JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, but I now have to grudgingly admit that THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD strikes me as the superior film, simply by virtue of it having a complete narrative. JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, kickass though it certainly is, reaches its climax with the successful heist of the Golden Fleece but abruptly comes to an end shortly thereafter, leaving all of the other hanging plot threads unresolved with hints of a possible sequel that never came. But that’s all apples and oranges.

The skeleton battle from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS: Harryhausen's finest moment?

The monsters in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS are all compelling and brilliantly realized, but the true classics therein are the enormous metal titan, Talos, and the group of skeleton warriors that give Jason and his fellows one hell of a fight (which amazingly eclipses the set-to with the lone skeleton combatant in 7^TH VOYAGE). That skeleton battle is now hailed as one of the greatest moments in any film ever made, and its impact has to be experienced on the big screen to truly get what a big deal it is. The same can be said of the reveal of Talos, the sequence that was the first movie moment to elicit an exclamation of “HOLY SHIT!!!” from me.

The horror of Talos.

By the mid-1970’s, Harryhausen was in his mid-fifties and slowing down, be he continued to animate. Between seeing THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD in the theater and the release of SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977), I managed to see all of Harryhausen’s prior films on television and researched the hows and whys that went into their creation. Some were better than others and all were of interest and entertaining, but the days of Harryhausen’s brand of entertainment were numbered and the release of STAR WARS in May of 1977 ushered in a new era of special effects extravaganzas, films crafted by artists who became effects wizards thanks to their budding imaginations being fueled by Harryhausen, an innovator those craftsman spoke of with unabashed reverence.

Following the middling results of SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, Harryhausen’s final film, CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981), was a return to the realms of Greek mythology, and while beloved by many who saw it as impressionable youngsters during its initial release, it doesn’t hold a candle to the sheer wonders found in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (which is admittedly one hell of a hard act to follow). It is entertaining, though, and the sequence in the lair of Medusa is one of Harryhausen’s incontestable masterpieces. The design of Medusa largely deviates from her classical iteration, but the changes made all worked spectacularly to create one of cinema’s most horrific and memorable monsters. The sequence is a tour de force of eerie lighting (Medusa’s lair is illuminated by flickering torches), use of silence against which the monster’s rattling tail becomes undeniably ominous, and edge-of-your-seat suspense. Even in the era of movie spectacles like THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980), it is beyond my powers of reasoning to ponder just how CLASH OF THE TITANS didn’t garner the visual effects Oscar for the Medusa sequence. Even if Medusa had been the only monster in the movie, it would have been worth sitting through the entire film just to see her.

CLASH OF THE TITANS' Medusa: a tour de force of a swan song.

After CLASH OF THE TITANS, Harryhausen retired, which only made sense because, seriously, where do you go after Medusa? He occasionally showed up at conventions and retrospectives of his work, and I was fortunate enough to meet the man twice.

The first of those meetings occurred at a Dragon Con in Atlanta during the late 1990’s, where he was doings signings and a slideshow presentation on his career. During that talk, he discussed his work and I swear you could have heard a pin drop as the lecture hall packed with fans hung on his every utterance. He even brought along the actual puppets of the ghouls from SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER, the living figurehead from THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, and sword fighting skeleton from THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and when he set them upon the long table, the throng of camera-wielding fans was at the ready. To fans of his oeuvre, seeing those figures was like bearing witness to holy relics.

When the presentation concluded, I fought my way through the tumult of the con’s signing area and, armed with my VHS copy of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, made a beeline toward where Harryhasuen was to begin signing. As I approached, I expected a line of fans that would rival the exodus scene from THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (in terms of both sheer volume and imagined stench). When I arrived at the allotted table, there sat Ray Harryhausen himself, one of the most revered living gods in the entire history of geekdom, with naught but two fans seeking his autograph, and otherwise ignored while there were other allegedly greater luminaries to meet. Yes, you read that right. ONLY. TWO. FANS.  Appalled by the lack of interest and respect he’d received, I went up to him and did my best to keep my undying admiration and adoration to a reasonable enough level of expression to be able to have a coherent conversation with him while he signed my tape’s box and an 8x10 of himself and some of his creations.

That photo hung framed on my wall for years, and is now filed in a handsome leather presentation binder with my other autographed photos. (I put it away to prevent it fading.)

Harryhausen bore the aspect of a beloved uncle or grandfather, his voice all kindness and mellow tones, and like one would expect from a storyteller of his magnitude, the anecdotes about his career and interests flowed from him like a river. But the best part of all of that was when I mentioned how the original KING KONG was my all-time favorite movie, Harryhausen’s eyes lit up and we spent the next half hour geeking out like kids over how much we loved that film. Getting to geek out with my idol over our mutual favorite film is one of the very small handful of moments in my life where everything seemed right in the world, and it is a cherished memory that I will hold dear in my heart and mind until the day when I no longer draw breath.

Then came the shocking moment when he told me he’d finished writing an exhaustive autobiographical coffee table book, but he expressed dismay at not being able to find a publisher for it. Yes, you read that right. Ray effin’ Harryhausen kept having his lovingly-prepared, loaded-to-the-gills book rejected due to “perceived lack of interest.”

Yeah. Let that one sink in for a moment.

Outraged, I told him I had a friend in attendance at the con who was a publisher and I’d be happy introduce them to one another. Ray was pleased that I wanted to help, so I corralled the friend in question and left them alone to talk. Nothing came of their meeting but the huge book did eventually find a publisher and it saw print a few years later. It’s called RAY HARRYHAUSEN: AN ANIMATED LIFE, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s a must-own for all Harryhausen enthusiasts and a must-read for all serious film buffs, so if you can only own one book on this singular artist and his work, this is the sole book you’ll ever need.

My second meeting with Harryhausen came in 2003, at a double feature screening of THE 7^TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD and JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS at Manhattan’s famed Lincoln Center that also served as a signing for his aforementioned book. I of course bought a copy and waited on the signing line — this time of a respectable length — and when I made it to him I mentioned our conversation about KING KONG. He remembered me but the length of the line rendered further conversation impossible, so I wished him well and once more thanked him for his influence. And once I began making my way to the auditorium, I bumped into an adorable old lady who was none other than Kathryn Grant, Princess Parisa herself, from 7^TH VOYAGE! I recognized her and asked if she’d sign my book, which she very sweetly did. After that, I settled in for the double feature, which began following an introduction from Harryhausen, who sat and watched the movies with the packed crowd of ardent fans. As previously stated, both films are spectacular on the big screen, but it’s another thing entirely to see them with the Master himself in the audience. Each creature drew loud rounds of applause, but when the skeleton battle in JASON was about to start, a hush fell over the theater. As “the children of the Hydra” sprouted from the earth, a smattering of applause began, a smattering that erupted into full-blown applause and resonant cries of approval and praise when the skeletons let out that war whoop and got down to the business of killing. In short, no man could have asked for a more fitting and heartfelt acknowledgement of his achievement.

And now it’s ten years later and Ray is gone. There’s really nothing left to say, other than that his like will never pass this way again and that we all owe him an un-repayable debt for enriching the lives of the big and small the world over. Ray, I didn’t know you personally for more than an hour, but I honestly and very deeply loved you for what you gave to me when I needed it most. You fed my young imagination with a feast that just kept on giving, and that is the greatest gift of them all.

Requiescat en pace.

HEAVY TRAFFIC (1973)

We's all niggers, boy! Ha ha! You an' me, just goddamn crazy niggers! We's all niggers boy. Most of us don't know it yet. 

-Crazy Moe

Back in April of 1972 a new animated film opened and I, as a kid just two months shy of turning seven, begged my mom to take me to see it. She kindly obliged, but when we arrived at the movie theater we were both shocked at being refused admittance because the cartoon flick in question was rated X. The film was of course Ralph Bakshi's FRITZ THE CAT and I was quite confused by not being admitted to a cartoon since in my experience cartoons had always been a thing designed for kids, but I came away from that experience with an understanding that films bearing that strange X rating must contain something it was necessary to protect my innocent young mind from, thereby igniting an interest in X-rated movies that burned fiercely within me until I finally saw one during my adolescence in the late 1970's. The funny thing is the first X-rated movie I ever saw was director Ralph Bakshi's followup to FRITZ THE CAT, 1973's HEAVY TRAFFIC, and while not in any way what I expected from an X flick (namely unmitigated pornography featuring hairy hippie types with dirty feet), I was not in the least bit disappointed and have found that the film sticks with me far more than any other that Bakshi has made.

HEAVY TRAFFIC's cartoonist protagonist, Michael Corleone.

HEAVY TRAFFIC is a surreal and over-the-top blend of live action and animation, but the world it depicts in both instances is a caricatured study of a decaying environment and its equally squalid denizens. It follows the day-to-day existence of several lowlives who act as grotesquely-delineated New York City mainstays from the pre-Giuliani era, those bad old days of a Times Square that oozed a fetid and potentially deadly allure, an urban existential limbo populated by whores, junkies, bums, Mafiosi, and living ethnic stereotypes run rampant. The film is chock-a-block with volatile niggers, spics, guinzos, kikes, gimps and damned near every other unflattering human you can name (although the Chinks are conspicuously missing in action), and at the center of the dysfunctional maelstrom is twenty-two-year-old Michael Corleone (no, not that Michael Corleone), a more or less jobless, virginal slacker who lives in a run-down tenement apartment with his mob-connected Italian father, Angie, and his long-suffering Jewish mother, Ida.

Ida: "I died the day I married a Goy."

While stuck in the middle of his parents' failed and physically violent marriage, Michael spends most of his time at his drawing board, creating what were then known as "underground" comics, and when not being a disappointment in the eyes of his hyper-macho dad and serving as his mom's focus of maturity-stifling Jewish mothering, he wanders the streets of New York, encountering the myriad types previously described. There's not really a plot to speak of, but rather a series of events propelling Michael from Point A to Point B and so on.

During Michael's wanderings we meet such notables as Crazy Moe, a homeless black guy whose bent philosophy may be the closest thing the film has to an existential "voice," pathetic drag hustler Snowflake, the legless and very creepy barfly Shorty (who looks like an even tougher and more mutated version of Popeye transplanted to a depressing post-hippie metropolitan dystopia), and most importantly Carole, a tough, no-nonsense black bartender.

Carole tells it like it is.

Carole is the object of Michael's initially unrequited affections and when she loses her job she moves in with Michael, after which the pair team up for a pathetic series of attempts at earning money that soon escalate to savage brutality.

Angie (Michael's dad and the anti-Homer Simpson) and his drunken mistress, Molly.

But while Michael and Carole try to figure out what to do with their lives, Michael's dad commits a few errors in judgment and conduct that put him out of favor with the local Godfather, a situation that does nothing to soothe his already explosive nature, and his temper is pushed past the limit when he comes home with a fat Italian whore he intends to give to Michael to finally take care of his son's virginity problem, only to find his son shacked up with a mulignane.

A very drunk Angie takes a walk on the wild side with Snowflake (and friends).

Michael's dad then goes on quite a bender, finding solace in the understanding (and frankly predatory) arms of Snowflake — and also possibly several other homosexual hustlers who've set up base in an abandoned cargo truck — and hiring Shorty to kill his son after the Godfather refuses to sanction the hit because Angie's hatred of his nigger-loving progeny is personal and not business-related.

Shorty embarks on a jealousy-fueled hunt.

Y'see, Shorty has carried a seriously unrequited torch for Carole's fine black ass and her hooking up with Michael does not make the legless badass very happy at all, so it's only a matter of time until something very ugly transpires...

Clocking in at a brisk seventy-nine minutes, HEAVY TRAFFIC blew my fourteen-year-old mind when I saw it during a visit to my dad's, late night on WHT (remember that?), since up to that point about the most vivid depiction of New York City that I'd seen was SERPICO (also from 1973). That bygone era was rife with New York City-based films examining the human condition but at such a relatively innocent age I didn't know about that, and my existence in Westport, Connecticut was about as far removed from the horrors of the big city as a one hour ride on a Metro North train would allow, so I certainly was not prepared for the exaggerated truths contained in Bakshi's movie. Several things about it shook me to the core, for better and worse, and to this day I can't get some of HEAVY TRAFFIC's images out of my head. For example (SPOILER WARNING!!!):

• The sequence when Michael is kindly invited to lose his virginity on a rooftop mattress with the very willing assistance of a neighborhood cutie, while a trio of sleazy greasers egg him on.

This bit was especially squirm-inducing to my fourteen-year-old mind because it was certainly a situation to be desired (minus the greasers), but the setting rendered the potentiality quite sordid (who knows what kind of action both that mattress and the girl had previously seen?). But what's more disturbing than the concept of losing one's cherry while being observed by switchblade-wielding local louts is that Michael's over-eager rush toward the girl in question results in her being accidentally shoved off the roof, and after a brief stunned silence Michael turns to the greasers with a sleazy smirk on his face and observes, "She had it comin'," after which he and the greasers laugh at his perceived wit. I was stunned to see such nonchalance in the face of an innocent girl's apparent multiple-story plunge to a splattery end on the pavement, but almost immediately after the boys laugh themselves silly we see the nude and apparently unconscious and unharmed girl dangling by one foot from a clothesline, also to be seen again later in the film from another angle. Was I supposed to read it as the deserved fate of a "loose" girl who'd give herself to any random slob on a rooftop? I didn't know then and and I'm not all that sure about it now, but it still disturbed me when I saw it again recently.

• The exuberant dance, punch-up/slash-up engaged in by the greasers following the girl's plunge off the roof, musically accented by the Isley Brothers' original recording of "Twist & Shout."

The happiness and bloody violence expressed is indeed cartoonish, but it made me think of some weird ancient ritual performed by a bunch of modern savages whose only joy can be found in pain and degradation. This was also the first time I'd heard the original "Twist & Shout" rather than the Beatles cover, and it holds a lot more power for me when coupled with the idea of a group of friends merrily beating and slashing each other. The Coyote coming back unscathed after his latest crash to earth or run-in with dynamite this definitely was not.

• Snowflake was perhaps my earliest exposure to the late-1960's/early-1970's cinematic stereotype of the pathetic and grotesque gay drag hustler, and I really didn't know what to make of her at the time.

An offensive stereotype even then, Snowflake is depicted as trawling seedy bars for very rough trade and actually enjoying getting beaten when her date discovers she's actually a guy. I grew up with some kids who knew they were gay and were out, loud and proud about it from the time they were eight, so Snowflake's sad creepiness did not compute with what I knew of homosexuals. In the years since 1979 I have witnessed the real life version of Snowflake more times than I care to consider, and just as the question crossed my mind when I was a kid, I still ask myself whenever I see one of those lost boys, "What put you where you are, and what will become of you when you end up on the wrong end of the wrong bruiser?" I'd love for some of my current crop of gay friends to see this movie and give me their analysis of Snowflake, once they got over their justifiable offense and nausea.

• Shorty scares the living shit out of me for a number of reasons, especially after encountering several types just like him in the real world during my time at the barbecue joint.

Shorty's a creepy regular at Carole's bar whose lack of legs is never explained, but his half-a-man stature belies the palpable violence brewing a millimeter from his misshapen surface. This dude is the embodiment of every tough guy loser I've ever seen in seedy dives and his animalistic, uncomprehending need for the clearly not interested Carole is painful to watch because once he gets it through his head that he's been rejected, you just know somebody is going to pay for it in blood. Everything that self-admitted diamond in the rough Popeye stood for finds its polar opposite in Shorty, and that's something I'm loath to contemplate.

• The idea of the isolated loser finding solace in the movies of yesteryear is an old trope but it works really well here as Michael sits alone in a vast decaying moviehouse, watching 1940's comedies and musicals that cast the world in far more pleasing shades than the one he exists in (note that I don't say "lives").

The images Michael watches bear no relation to his reality and the heart sinks as the camera pulls away from him, seated in the balcony, to reveal a theater so empty and quiet save for the unspooling movie's soundtrack. I've experienced a similar feeling several times over the past three decades as I sometimes sat alone in assorted theaters, and every time I'm drawn back to the image of Michael's desolation.

• The New York City captured by Bakshi is a surreal and freakish jungle whose every inhabitant and vista appears to have been hewn from some bottomless source of both psychedelia and deep psychosis.

The panicky, bloody red as Carole fearfully avoids being stalked by Shorty.

A distorted view of Snowflake's dockside cargo seraglio.

The pre-Lynchian models at Michael's uncle's girly magazine photo studio.

Looking back at it now, it's something of a miracle that I moved to New York City to find my so-called fame and fortune in the wake of seeing HEAVY TRAFFIC at such an impressionable age, but maybe some of its untamed interpretation of the pre-Giuliani NYC served as a lure to this Connecticut darkie...

• At the film's end we get to see a live action Michael and Carole, and their real life selves are refreshingly even less glamorous than their animated incarnations.

Y'see, the movie opens with live action Michael (Joseph Kaufmann) playing pinball, and as the game intensifies the animation kicks in, blended with well-used stock footage and live street locations. I may be wrong about this, but I think the main animated narrative is a feature-length fantasy experienced by Michael as he works the pinball machine to a futile conclusion (although a conclusion considerably less bleak and disturbing than that met by his animated avatar). Upon making his way out of the arcade and onto the street, Michael's wanderings bring him past the bar where Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson) worked and he sees his dream girl angrily cursing out an unseen patron. The two eventually meet in a park, briefly argue, and then end the film dancing together to the by-now-haunting strains of "Scarborough Fair" as rendered by Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66. It's a weird and disorienting finale, but somehow wholly appropriate.

Reminiscent of LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN in its hopelessness, HEAVY TRAFFIC will come as a sobering and rather depressing story for those whose animated tastes are informed by the works of Das Uber Disney and is not recommended if you need a feel-good break from the real world's endless cycle of misery and ennui. Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66's version of "Scarborough Fair" is heard several times throughout the film and serves as an ominous signature that underscores the film's menace and anguish. When I found the soundtrack album in a cutout bin for a buck about eighteen years ago, I took the LP back to my Manhattan apartment, smoked a fat joint and put the record on the turntable, listening to "Scarborough Fair" about six times as the other-than-nicotinal bliss took hold, and in those moments I felt very much connected to Bakshi's squalid vision.

These days the New York City seen on film in movies like MIDNIGHT COWBOY, SHAFT, MEAN STREETS and TAXI DRIVER is long gone, tits-up dead and relegated to history. But as long as films like HEAVY TRAFFIC and its dark fairy tale of Manhattan remain, its time will never truly fade from memory. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Original theatrical release poster.

BRAVE (2012)

This thirteenth computer-animated feature from Pixar (yeah, Disney distributed it but who cares?) is set in 10th century Scotland and takes its viewers into a richly-realized world of tartanned clans, witches, enchanted forests, magic, and enough comedy and visual charm to dazzle even the most jaded of viewers. Which is good because BRAVE, while very entertaining, is definitely a mid-level work for this studio.

Tomboyish princess Merida of the kingdom of DuBroch (very effectively voiced by Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald) is feisty, independent and an archer with skills that would make Legolas nod with approval, but unfortunately for Merida he's not in this film and instead she faces the disapproval of her mother, Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), who relentlessly grooms Merida to be the very acme of all things princessly. Her mother loves her daughter but has zero consideration for her Merida's complete and utter disinterest in all that princess crap and makes nearly every waking hour of her daughter's time a living hell of comportment and courtly protocol. Neither understands the other, and thus are the seeds of mother/daughter frustration sown.

Then comes the day when Merida's father, the enormous, tough and sweet-natured King Fergus (Billy Connolly, who's perfect for this role), drops a bombshell: the princess must be betrothed to one of the sons of the three clan leaders with whom her father is allied, or the allegiances forged when Fergus and his former enemies banded together to drive back the Romans and Viking raiders will dissolve and the kingdom will find itself in a state of inter-tribal warfare. Hey, tradition's a bitch, and Merida wants none of it. Nonetheless she finds herself all prettied-up and presentably perfect when the suitors arrive and she is given the choice of what contest of strength or skill at arms the princes will compete at for her hand. Noting that her suitors must be firstborn to compete and that she herself is a firstborn, Merida chooses archery as the test and, much to her mother's horror and mortification, enters to shoot for her own hand once the princes have loosed their own arrows. With the ease of a possible ancestor of Oliver Queen, Merida decimates her suitors, launching perfect bullseyes with each shot, even splitting the only previously fired arrow to (accidentally) make a perfect score. Furious, the queen has a bitter row with her daughter that leads Merida to slash a tapestry depicting her family that her mother had crafted by hand, in angered response to which the queen throws her daughter's beloved bow into the fire, causing Merida to flee the castle in tears, borne by her trusty steed. (In a telling moment, once Merida has fled the room her mother immediately realizes she has attempted to destroy something her daughter treasures, so she hauls the scorched bow from the fireplace's flames and pats it out as her face clearly conveys her regret. It's beautiful piece of character animation.)

As her horse plunges headlong into the nearby forest, Merida encounters a trail of glowing Will O' the Wisps, sprites that purportedly lead one to their fate, and she follows them to the home of friendly wood-carving witch (Julie Walters) who specializes bear-themed tchotchkes. The desperate princess purchases a spell from the witch (along with her complete inventory) that is guaranteed to change her fate but, like damned near all stories where a magical bargain is struck, things do not go as Merida planned, and the rest of the narrative deals with the trials and tribulations that she and her mother must deal with once the spell works its unforeseen alterations to the proper order of things. (No, it doesn't create an alternate timeline or anything like that, and I ain't sayin' what happens.) Anyway, an ancient curse, the king's obsession with revenge for a long-ago encounter that cost him his left leg, ursine shenanigans, mother/daughter dysfunction and examinations of tradition, the pitfalls of pride-fueled impulsiveness and the need to respect one's kids' need to be who they are and not necessarily what their parents want to make them into all collide head-on before everything is resolved.

The kingdom of DuBroch's royal family: a gaggle of fun-loving gingers...and one well-meaning brunette killjoy.

BRAVE has all the elements one could possibly want from a fun, funny and unexpectedly somewhat-deep fairytale, but it's missing that certain intangible something that makes for the perfect Pixar cinematic experience, and for the life of me I cannot quite figure out what it is. The film is funny, visually sumptuous, features terrific voice acting and an evocative score, has no actual villain — well, yes and no, but I really can't discuss it without spoilers — yet it does not lack for conflict, and Merida's younger identical triplet brothers —Harris, Hubert and Hamish — steal any scene they're in, but despite all that BRAVE, out of Pixar's thirteen feature-length efforts, comes in for me somewhere in the mid-range. It's enjoyable, you won't be bored by it and it's definitely kid-friendly with a skew toward adventurous young girls, so definitely see it in the theater on as large a screen as you can find, and don't shell out the extra scratch for 3-D; I saw it in 2-D and it was just fine, so spend those extra bucks on some Goobers instead. Just don't go expecting the another THE INCREDIBLES or UP. Pixar's tremendous but nobody knocks it out of the park every single time. I mean, look at CARS, for god's sake! (BRAVE is waaaaaay better than either of the CARS movies, so don't even go there.)