Ralph Bakshi: A Retrospective

Ugh...am I really going to do this? I guess I'm really going to do this. I did not enjoy the feature film work of Ralph Bakshi. From Fritz the Cat to Cool and the Crazy, his Showtime movie in 1994, Bakshi showed little command of any filmmaking, storytelling, or animation tools. His best films were written by other people…

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Ralph Bakshi: The Definitive Ranking

Hey! An actual top ten! That hasn't happened in a while. I had a better time going through Wes Craven's body of work than this. The bright spots of Ralph Bakshi's career rise all the way to the pinnacle of mediocrity (interesting mediocrity, I should add), while the rest of it gets mired in different…

Cool and the Crazy

#8 in my ranking of Ralph Bakshi's filmography. With Cool World being a critical and commercial bust, Ralph Bakshi found his last feature film work making a movie for Showtime based on a script he'd had laying around for more than twenty years. Well, it certainly does feel like the work of a much younger…

Cool World

#7 in my ranking of Ralph Bakshi's filmography. There were production troubles with Cool World, and some of that blame can be placed on Kim Basinger. Reportedly, Basinger approached Ralph Bakshi and the producer, Frank Mancuso, halfway through production saying she wanted to make a film that she could show to sick children in hospitals.…

Fire and Ice

#3 in my ranking of Ralph Bakshi's filmography. Partnering with Frank Frazetta to create the art design, Ralph Bakshi returned once again to the world of high fantasy with Fire and Ice, a middling effort that brings nothing particularly new to the table while demonstrating that Frazetta's art was best used in the visual art…