"Heavy Metal" (1981) d/ Gerald Potterton

... or as the Nick Adams-tongued denizens of the Wyoming Valley would say, "Evvy Meh-ull". To spice up my regular cardboard boxed haul of reads, my old man would throw in issues of Epic Illustrated and Heavy Metal, whose hallowed pages often contained the stuff that any prepubescent boy's dreams are made of ; naked, pillow-chested damsels-in-distress thrown over the shoulders of muscle-bound warmongers in the act of saving their world from saurian terrors, or power-mad wizards, while wielding a hernia-inducing weapon of destruction against an alien blood-red sky...that sorta thing. I always envisioned those publications to be like a long boat full of  master artists I grew up on, like Berni Wrightson and Richard Corben, being whipped like galley slaves to the sounds of  Dio-era Sabbath into creating jaw-dropping scenes of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. Then, they went and made it all into a movie.


"Freddy doesn't own me, Shaggy. Now get those bell bottoms off..."
The film opens with "Soft Landing" (O'Bannon/Warkentin), where a space shuttle orbiting the planet releases a convertible 1960 Corvette, driven by an astronaut, into the atmosphere and segueing into "Grimaldi" where a returning astronaut brings his daughter a present, the Loc-Nar, a green, glowing orb of great evil that melts the space traveler where he stands and connects the fantastic stories that follow. Next is "Harry Canyon" (Goldberg/Blum), concerning the two day exploits of a New York cabbie in 2031. This is followed by my favorite segment, "Den" (Corben), where a timid earth-nerd accidentally transports himself to the land of 'Neverwhere', transforming himself into a bald, muscle-bound warrior, in the process. Next comes "Captain Sternn" (Wrightson), as we see a Bruce Campbell-esque space captain on trial for numerous unforgivable charges.


No jokes here. Corben's stuff leaves me at a loss for words.
Next, we see "B-17" (O'Bannon/ Ploog), as the Loc-Nar affects a World War II B-17 during a bombing run with heavy casualties, resurrecting dead soldiers into walking zombies. "So Beautiful And So Dangerous" (McKie) follows, a humorous short that involves sultry red-headed Jewish stenographers being abducted by a spacecraft captained by stoner aliens and seduced by horny robots. Taarna (Goldberg/ Blum) concerns a beautiful female warrior atop a pterosaur mount and her vengeance upon a barbarian army that has wiped out her people under the influence of the Loc-Nar. Finally, we return to "Grimaldi", where the astronaut's young daughter endures the destruction of her mansion home and the orb alike, only to replace Taarna from the previous story, as the next Taarakian champion, flying off into the sunset.


If it ain't Wrightson... it's just wrong, son.
Attaining cult classic status as a 'Midnight Movie', Metal's VHS release was delayed some fifteen years due to licensing headaches over the high profile bands who lent their music to the soundtrack, like Journey, Donald Fagen, DEVO, Sammy Hagar, and Black Sabbath. An SCTV-heavy list of actors lent their unmistakable voices to the production, with the likes of John Candy, Joe Flaherty, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, and longtime Bakshi vet, Richard Romanus all giving memorable performances within their respective stories. Some thirty-three years later, Heavy Metal remains one of the greatest original showcases of artistic creativity that the motion picture industry has ever produced, a few uneven moments aside. This is a must-see, obviously, a lush explosion of scintillating imagery, both sensual and violent. A diversion at it's worst, at best, a highly evocative piece that deserves a place among your all-time favorites. Four wops and my highest recommendation.


If you're gonna force me to look at goofy robots, you've gotta throw a naked, smoking chick in there, as an incentive.

"Hey Good Lookin' "(1982) d/ Ralph Bakshi

Following the success of Heavy Traffic the previous year, Ralph Bakshi began work on tonight's review, a feature that would incorporate animated main characters who would interact with a live-action supporting cast, initially completing the film in 1975 for Warner Brothers, who repeatedly postponed and pushed the project back for various reasons, until it was finally granted a limited release seven years later as a much different film than the one it began as. I remember excitedly snagging a VHS copy off the shelves at Wyoming Valley Video, a favorite hole-in-the-wall shop of mine at the end of an avenue strip mall in the eighties, only to walk away feeling mostly indifferent about the entire experience in the end. I really hadn't watched it in thirty years or so, but since we're on a Bakshi kick here of late at the Wop, and my recalcitrant Libran values demanded a revisit before casting a final judgmental stone, here we are...


Oblivious to Mr. Kotter's pleas, Barbarino prepped for the big rumble with Boom Boom.
We see a garbage can and some trash having an existential debate before the trash hears an epiphany or an approaching garbage truck, and hops on, shouting "Fuck this city!". What an opening. In 1980's Brooklyn a shadowy figure rendezvous with a washed-up-on-the-beach (Eyyy-yo, Slade!) dame under a streetlamp, throwing her a chunk of biker leather, which she sobs over as he takes us back to the fifties, and the coat's origins. Vinnie (Richard Romanus) is the leader of a gang called The Stompers, his best friend is a Joker-esque cat called "Crazy" Shapiro (David Proval) whose homicidal father is a badge named Solly (Angelo Grisanti). When Vinnie's attempted coitus with a local kosher dish named Roz (Tina Bowman- later Romanus) is interrupted by her smothering papa (he chains her to her bed), the guys score some hookers and crash on the beach, waking up in the middle of a mafiosi beach party that Crazy eventually beats to death in a bloody brawl. On the run, Vinnie bumps into none other than Boogaloo Jones (Philip Michael Thomas), the head of the Chaplains, on the black side of the beach, leading to an inevitable rumble.


"When Milton Berle Ran with Street Gangs" will return after these messages...
After Crazy ices a couple of Chaplains while on a double date with Vinnie, Roz, and Eva, his father investigates the murders and is pointed towards the Stompers by Boogaloo. Roz tells Crazy that his best pal is ditching town, making him the new head of the gang, entitled to her goodies as such, and he breaks himself off a warehouse piece upon hearing the news. Solly makes the scene and beats his son like a rutabaga until he sells Vinnie down the river over the double moidahs. As Vinnie's about to break the eff out like the measles, he unwittingly bumps into his old crew as they're about to rumble with the Chaplains. Crazy lives up to his nickname and busts wild shots from a nearby rooftop just as his old man is about to arrest Vinnie, and in a surreal swirl of psychedelia, swan dives on top of the detective, killing them both. As a heartbroken Roz makes a song request for her lost love, Vinnie leaves the city. Back in the eighties, the overweight has-been reveals herself as Roz and fingers the shadowy stranger as Vinnie, who decides to stick around this time, bringing the story to a happy ending of sorts...


I think you know which side of the beach towel I'd be on.
There are a lot of good ideas and nice visuals here, but they seem disjointed by time, and further hindered by an unflattering, mismatched score that wears a synth-soaked eighties stamp even when recalling sounds from three decades earlier. Bakshi probably should have paid the licensing fees for the original tunes he wanted on the soundtrack, for better results. I would have liked to see the live action sequences with Yaphet Kotto and the New York Dolls that were ultimately cut from the film, too. When talking about this one, I find myself saying "I would have liked" more often than any of the other Bakshi films, and that ought to tell you something. On the scale, Good Lookin' earns a pair of Wops; not entirely unattractive, by anyone's standards, but far from gorgeous.


"Somebody dosed Kid Creole's drink! Get the Coconuts, he's freaking out!"

"Heavy Traffic" (1973) d/ Ralph Bakshi

April jumps off the drawing table here at the Wop with another Bakshi review, in Heavy Traffic, his X-rated follow up to the popular and successful Fritz the Cat a year earlier. Gone are the trippy, anthropomorphic animals that audiences had grown accustomed to, and in their stead, real human characters facing the tribulations of life on the streets of the big city. Of course, tackling such a risky, personal project meant legendary clashes with the producer; leading to Bakshi actually being locked out of the studio along the way, as a disgruntled Steve Krantz searched for replacement directors, until Samuel Z. Arkoff threatened to pull all funding for the film unless Bakshi was re-hired. In the end, I'm sure the inner turbulence got laughed off by all over the bubbliest of champers, as Traffic's ambition and gritty realism were rewarded by both, the box office and critics, alike. While Tarantino gives PDA's to Hey Goodlookin' (1982), and Ralph often cites Coonskin (1974) as his own favorite, ol' Wop is here to tell you that tonight's review tops his list of Bakshi's cinema work to date, though nobody's ever asked me that question either. What are you afraid of? I only bite occasionally...


"Michael! Twiggy's on the phone, she says you ought to be a good boy and return her hairstyle to her, ASAP."
Life as an underground comic artist in the big city is like being a pinball, as Michael (Joseph Kauffman) can attest to, as the twenty-four year old unemployed virgin son of a doting, nipple-slipping, Jewish mother (Terri Haven) and a shamed Italian father (Frank DeKova) with mob ties. Michael is constant mediator to their violent and abusive domestic quarrels when he isn't trading cartoons of a legless bouncer named Shorty for drinks from his favorite bartender, a together young black chick named Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson). After a transvestite prostitute named Snowflake takes some gay knocks for hoodwinking a burly drunk on Carole's shift, she finds herself jobless and on the receiving end of unwanted charity from the enamored cripple, forcing her to cozy up to Michael in a hurry. This sudden pairing draws the scorn of a rejected Shorty and more racial venom from dad, Angie, who's generously enlisted the skills of a girthy Sicilian prostitute named Rosa to deflower his son, in between pistol-whipping his wife's face in, leading the impromptu young couple to vacate the premises for greener pastures...


I faced similar obstacles finding my way back to Cowboy X's van in a Phish show parking lot back in the nineties.
In an attempt to raise funds for a California move, Michael pitches his unusual comic strip to a gravely ill executive, providing only disappointment when the mogul turns his toes up before he finishes, while Carole's stint as a taxi dancer ends abruptly when a fortuitous panty flash kills an elderly customer. Back at home, Angie turns to the Godfather to put a hit on his disgraceful son, but the Don refuses, claiming his gripe is personal, not business. The jilted Shorty makes the scene, gladly accepting the contract in the end. Meanwhile, the lovers have resorted to crime, with Carole turning to prostitution and Michael choosing cold-blooded murder, as he bashes in the brains of one of her tricks in a fleabag motel room, but as they walk out together, they're surprised to see Shorty, who pulls his burner and pulverizes Michael's skull with a single, slow motion bullet. Top that, Walt Disney. A bizarre, psychedelic montage of disturbing imagery leads the viewer back into the live-action world, where we see Michael angrily tipping a tilted pinball machine over and storming out of an arcade, only to bump into Carole, who, after some brief unresponsiveness, takes his hand and dances us into the end credits.


"Alright, you win! Helen Reddy is better than Anne Murray!!!"
Jamie "Klinger" Farr of M.A.S.H. fame has a blink-and-you'll-miss-him non-speaking cameo in the live action sequence during the final reel. The fantasy sequence set to Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" experienced some censorship, with the tamest of three versions making it into the final X-rated cut of the film. I'd like to see the other two someday. The folks at Shout Factory, always at the top of their game, released the definitive 40th Anniversary Blu-ray last year, so there's no legit excuses as to why this one has no place upon your shelves. On the scale, Traffic naturally receives a perfect score of four Wops; a thought-provoking, visually dazzling masterpiece that comes with my highest recommendation. See it!


J.F.K.? Cobain? Dwyer? I give up already, I'm just no good at charades.

"Coonskin" (1974) d/ Ralph Bakshi

Nobody ever asks me who's the guy responsible for my favorite animated features of all-time, but if anyone ever did, I'd tell 'em it's obviously Ralph Bakshi, once I'd gotten over the initial shock of someone actually having asked me an interesting question. Tonight's review, Bakshi's third such feature, and second to mix his highly stylized animation with live-action sequences, is an urban update of Uncle Remus' beloved children's stories starring a pre-Miami Vice Philip Michael Thomas, Scat Man Crothers, and even Barry "Can't-get-enough-of-yo'-looove-baaaybuh" White, that drew mixed reviews upon a limited initial theatrical release due to it's satire-heavy portrayal of the frustration of life in the inner city. Bakshi lays waste to racial stereotypes of all sorts here by giving them center stage, in all their absurdity (the main characters' looks are based on the black faced make up of the travelling minstrels of yesteryear), for the audience to interpret as they will, though it should be noted that any mafiosi in attendance will surely feel the sting of the piss-take herein. Just don't take it personally, Sollozzo, and may your first child be a masculine one. Here we go...


You never see brunettes in this kinda predicament. Just sayin'...
Somewhere down south, we see Randy (Thomas) and Pappy (Crothers) in the midst of a daring midnight prison escape, and while camped out against a high wall out of the line of sight of any guards and waiting fo' the getaway whip, Pappy tells the funky story of three cats who remind him a lot of Randy and his ambitious homeboys: Brother Rabbit (Thomas), Brother Bear (White), and Preacher Fox (Gordone), who relocate north to Harlem, home to every Black man, when the bank forecloses on their southern digs, effectively turning it into a whorehouse ( you know, the kind that a racist sheriff's daughter would get caught turning comical interracial tricks at ). Upon arrival, they meet up with Black Jesus' cousin, Simple Savior, a black separatist who shoots up images of Elvis, Nixon, and John Wayne while hoisted atop a light-up cross on stage in the nude, ferchrissakes. Needless to say, Rabbit and Bear pull his card, making Rabbit the new boss of all of Harlem's underworld action, but he soon finds that with notoriety comes with a high price tag...


Don King or Al Sharpton? You be's the judge, baybuh.
Rabbit goes head to head with Madigan (Frank DeKova), a badge-wearing palooka that's on the mafia payroll, who gets his drink dosed, gets duped into a homosexual interlude, and ultimately gets taken down by his fellow officers while on a black-faced shooting spree while coming down off acid. Meanwhile, the Godfather (Al "Grandpa" Lewis) puts a hit on Rabbit from the underbelly of the sewers, but when his only straight son, Sonny (Richard Paul), shows up to ice the hare at his nightclub, decked out in blackface, he's pumped full of lead then abruptly blown to smithereens, before his ashes are sent home to his bawlin' mama. Bear visits Fox, who's been running a brothel for the mob, is hastily married to one of the tricks, and talked into boxing professionally for the crime family. Rabbit builds an explosive-laden tar facsimile of himself and plants it at one of Bear's prizefights, where the remaining mafiosi unwittingly all get stuck while trying to off the bunny. Our heroes escape in the nick of time as the venue blows up with their cartoon enemies inside, as we switch back to the daring live-action bullet-riddled, broad daylight escape of Randy and Pappy, who are equally successful in the end. Credits...


"C'mon, take the noose off, I promise I won't do any more James Taylor covers..."
Despite multiple title changes (Harlem Nights, Coonskin no more..., Street Fight, Bustin' Out, etc.), an undeserved demise at the box office, and much controversy along the way, you're bound to be entertained here. If you're the rare type of individual that equates racism with names like Ted Nugent or Steven Colbert, there's a good chance you'll be too highly offended by the exaggerated ethnic stereotypes on display here to ever pick up on the social commentary within. Those of us who live in the real world, on the other hand, will find a lot to love about Coonskin, a visually dazzling time capsule of the tumultuous and turbulent seventies, as edgy as it is funny. On the scale, it earns an impressive three Wop score, and comes highly recommended.


"You mobsters feelin' some type of way up in that tar right about now."

"The 9 Lives of Fritz the Cat"(1974)d/Robert Taylor

A year ago to the day(Damn, I'm good.) we tackled the first feature focusing on R. Crumb's perverted, pot-smoking fornicatory feline as directed by the legendary Ralph Bakshi, a wildly popular counterculture hit worldwide; it only stands to reason that tonight we oughta take a gander at the sequel that followed two years later.This time around, Bakshi had nothing to do with the production, busy on his own Heavy Traffic(1973) at the time, with the director's chair taken by Robert Taylor, who had worked with Bakshi in the sixties on his superhero cartoon spoof, The Mighty Heroes, and a problematic Crumb-less script that has Fritz reminiscing over his previous incarnations throughout the years, rather than focusing on the seventies the way the prior film dealt with the sixties, as the decade was only four years old at the time(so was your humble narrator, for those keeping score at home).Instead of sex, the sequel is more political(yaaaaawn) in nature this time around, as the filmmakers were looking for an R rating over the X the original earned itself.The result is a critically-panned dud that failed to generate much box office interest and whose very existence is denounced altogether by the character's eccentric bespectacled creator.Though this thing tends to drag a bit, despite the brisk seventy-nine minute running time, I'm here to tell you it still holds a few classic moments of raunchy ethno-humor from bygone days of racial insensitivity, just like yo' mammy used to make.9 Lives is an equal opportunity offender, and several vintage stereotypes are on display here, even my own hippopotami(Italians), though I'm no damned water horse, you dicks, I'm only hung like one.You gotta be able to laugh at yourself every once in a while, kids.

Sitting around high as balls in your own filth never gets old.
As we jump back, baby, into the 1970's, we find Fritz obliviously blowing reefer in his slovenly mess of an apartment to escape the monotony of domestic life, under a constant deluge of New Yawk-flavored verbal abuse and torment from his wife(could this fat-assed feline frau be what became of his girlfriend Winston from the original flick?!!Ee-gads.), whose existence consists of breastfeeding his infant son, Ralphie, and scolding him for the constant masturbation that he learned from observing his deadbeat welfare dad in action.While she's busy belittling our jaded hero, he hazily reminisces about his prior lives, ignoring her barbs and threats...(insert failed marriage joke here)before he has an out-of-body experience on the street below, mercilessly ripping ass on his Puerto Rican friend Juan then relating a cannabis-based sexual liason he had with his amigo's sister, Chita(Louisa Moritz), while two pot-smoking crows case the funky joint for a robbery outside, before her pig father shows up and blows Fritz's ass away with a shotgun.He then bumps into a stumblebum dog that claims to be, among other things, a black belt in karate and God.Fritz turns up next in Nazi Germany(!), where, after being caught in a mother-daughter sammy by his commanding officer, he ends up nearly taking one in the shorts from the fuhrer himself(!!), as he confesses a repressed desire to be a ballet dancer, before incoming artillery blows his last remaining testicle off, and he's smooshed under a tank, from which a Patton-lookalike emerges and shoots a retreating Fritz in his ass, before shooting himself accidentally.After trying to sell a used rubber to Niki, the Italian hippo who runs the liquor store, Fritz reminisces about the thirties.An overlong mixture of live-action nightclub footage from the era and Fritz in top hat n' tails ensues over a musical number that goes on for like, days, man.

If the American military looks like this to you, you might be a pinko commie.
When Morris, the pickle-chomping Jewish parrot who runs the pawn shop, refuses to cash Fritz's welfare check, he hoodwinks the cat into accepting a space helmet in trade for a toilet he'd brought in, reminding him of the time he was an astronaut on a mission to Mars.Fritz sneaks a female black crow reporter aboard the rocket for an exclusive story, as payback "for what my people did to your people", and they end up fucking their way out of Earth's atmosphere, where the capsule explodes.Then he bumps into the ghost of his old crow friend, Duke, leading to a flashback to when all the crows were given New Jersey(!), which they renamed "New Africa"(!!), a separate country from the rest of the United States.Fritz is a courier given a message to deliver to the black president from the white one, an oppossum that resembles Kissinger(!!!), and gets caught in the middle of a power coup and executed by a firing squad for his troubles.Cue another musical cartoon montage where a pig(white) and crow(black) declare war on each other until both are reduced to uncivilized savages, and when the crow basketball-dribbles a boulder onto the head of the pig, killing him, a rat with Nixon's head appears and declares him the winner.We then find Fritz hanging out in the sewers, where a Hindu rabbit floats by on a raft, and a gay Satan emerges from the filth, looking for a misplaced earring.Fritz snaps out of it to find himself still sitting in his crummy living room, getting chewed out by his wife, who follows through on her threat of throwing his good-for-nothing ass out.He briefly(and unnecessarily, we've just watched it all happen once, we haven't forgotten it yet) re-examines each of his past lives before remarking that this current one has to be the worst one he's ever had, boogieing down the street and changing colors to strains of the Tom Scott title track.

"Yo momma so black, dat bitch be leavin' fingerprints on charcoal!"
You might remember Louisa Moritz as the Latin nympho with the jealous boyfriend from Last American Virgin(1982), but she's also worked on a number of other interesting movies like The Man from O.R.G.Y.(1970), Up in Smoke(1979), New Year's Evil(1980), and Chained Heat(1983).It should also be noted that Robert Ridgely who voiced Satan among others in tonight's entry was also responsible for bringing Thundarr the Barbarian to life.Bob Holt, who voiced the wino/God also provided the demon voice in William Girdler's Abby(1974).Glynn Turman, who provides several black voices here, not only chalked up roles in quality blaxploitation classics like J.D.'s Revenge(1976), Five on the Black Hand Side(1973), and Cooley High(1975), but also was husband to "Queen of Soul" Aretha Franklin for six years towards the end of that decade.I grew up seeing Skip Hinnant on television just about every single day during his six year stint on Electric Company, so you can imagine what it was like instantly recognizing his voice the first time I sat down to watch Fritz(Electric Company was a children's show that followed Sesame Street on PBS back in the seventies) smoke grass and partake in orgies.Hot diggetty.On the scale, 9 Lives merits two solid Wops, and is definitely worth a look if you're into R. Crumb(who isn't?) or seventies adult animation features like this minor cult classic.

On any given day, you can catch a cat like me jumpin' back in similar fashion, baby.

"Fire and Ice"(1983)d/Ralph Bakshi

Back in my formative years, epic fantasy overbrimming with muscle-laden battle axe-wielding barbarians, curvaceous sex kittens, demented power-mad wizards, and otherworldly beasts was a hot commodity even outside of heavy metal album covers and airbrushed vans with bubble windows.I'd imagine teenaged guys of the day got spun on a lid of grass in their Billy Squier baseball tees and foggily flipped the pages of far out fantasy fare like Heavy Metal and Conan the Barbarian, grooving on the raw violence and unabashed sexuality in the artwork that jumped off the pages, while Stranglehold blared out of their eight track speakers, fucking with their ear holes.Hell, that's what I'd have been doing if I wasn't such an Eldubelhue(L.W., or Little Wop, if you will) at the time.In 1983, a collaboration between Ralph Bakshi, the director responsible for animated cult classics like Fritz the Cat(1972), The Lord of the Rings(1978), and American Pop(1981), and the late, great sci-fi/fantasy artist, Frank Frazetta, whose enormous body of impeccable artwork for everything from comic books to movie posters won him acclaim, awards, and even a well-deserved spot in the Comic Book Hall of Fame, was finally agreed upon by the two long-time friends, using the rotoscope process(cels of live action traced over by artists frame by frame) for the most part, as it was the only viable technique to capture the intricate detailing in Frazetta's comic work.As an unapologetic flyer of both the Frazetta and Bakshi flags for many moons now, I believe the finished product effectively captures the rich visual compositions and doctrine of the inimitable artist in the most beautiful way possible.Alas, in the strength of the film, one can also find its shortcomings; underneath the masterful style, there's precious little substance to wrap your mind around, and the story, as written by Marvel Comics regs Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, lacks flow and coherency in spots.Still, it's fuckin' tits to look at...

You won't find a background cel like this in friggin' "Ice Age", buddy.
You see, there's this diabolical conjurer named Nekron(Sean Hannon), who resembles a white haired, pale and gangly He-Man/Bruce Dickinson of 'Iron Maiden' love child that, with the misdeeds of his maleficent mammy, an ice queen named Juliana(voiced by Susan 'Forbidden Zone' Tyrrell), plans on conquering the world using ape-faced primitives of high violence and low i.q. called 'Subhumans' as his army, and some sissified wrist and hand gesture psychokinesis that controls massive ice glaciers, as if the loincloth-garbed brutes weren't enough.It just so happens that one of the last bastions of free will occurs in a volcanic area aptly called Fire Keep, as ruled by a King named Jarol, whose sybaritic loin-fruit(!), Teegra(Cynthia Leake), has the propensity to crawl seductively on all fours when she isn't swinging her flesh-wares, barely concealed by a prehistoric micro-kini(!!), to and fro like the Teutonic trollop she is.Nekron enlists his Subhumans to fetch Teegra abduction-style for to use as leverage against the insubordinate sovereign, but she somehow manages to bare-ly escape, ahem, by slinking and bouncing through the treacherous forest, and heaving her pillow chest, slightly traumatized by her tribulations.In the meanwhile, Nekron's hate-glacier decimates a village of men in its path, save for a lone blonde pony-tailed warrior named Larn(Randy Norton)who wears animal-fang bling when he isn't vowing blood-vengeance for his fallen peeps.Teegra introduces herself to Larn by endearingly jacking a raw direwolf leg that he'd been ravenously gnawing at, off of him.Saved from a pack of the infernal things himself, by an abstruse gent named Darkwolf(Steve Sandor) who stretches a wolf skin over his grill when he isn't letting arrows fly.Got all that so far?

Teegra(Cynthia Leake) is primo animated box.
The Subhumans manage to kidnap Teegra a second time, and for a second time, she manages to give the monkey-grilled bastards the slip, but she's gripped up by a massive swamp retard who lumbers off to a witch with designs of trading the pouty princess off to Nekron, but his primordial contingents eighty-six both she and her pet waterhead, and drag Teegra off to him, anyway.Juliana suggests that her ice-slingin' son should marry the prisoner, but he balks at the proposition, exclaiming, "I don't need ANYBODY!" and promptly pimp slaps the dime piece down the stairs(!!!you should be slappin' that ass, Wrist-boy), before using his wrist/hand skills to force Teegra's brother to kill himself.Let's recap for a second.Half-nude curve-heavy goddess crawling through swampy terrain, just begging for a guy to make out with, served up on a platter to our resident conqueror, who doesn't dig her in the least.But when Larn's arrow misses its mark, instead of mind fucking him into self-death, he de-cloaks, and beckons the blondie for some hand-to-hand combat.Sounds like you've spent one too many eternities bound to the ice queen's apron strings, Nancy.Though I won't go into particulars on how this saga finally wraps up(this is one you've gotta experience for yourselves, preferrably under the influence of some potent smokables), there are fleets of flapping pterodactyls, man-gulping gargantuan iguanas, giant bog squids, and even reanimated witch skeletons that enter the mix before the climactic showdown between good and evil(so it's sassy evil, still qualifies as evil...) transpires.Snag a copy!

"Gloves of Metal rule tonight! Yea Leather, Metal, Spikes and Chains!" sings Nekron(Sean Hannon), a Manowar fan from way back.
This one, going out to Windy City Woprophile, John, since digging Heavy Metal as per request from my countless fifty-five gallon tubs of dvds proved a lot more difficult whilst cake-n-pipe shmammered than I originally thought it would be, should have been a huge hit for Bakshi, but it was met by luke warm reviews from critics and all but disappeared from societal radar until the fabulous bastards over at Blue Underground gave it the special edition two disc treatment it so richly deserves.It would be nine years before Bakshi served up another movie, the animation/live action mix of Cool World, which suffered from many of the same faults as tonight's review, and was also largely panned by critics, sending the director back into cartoon work for television, most recently providing voices for the unsuccessful 2003 Ren and Stimpy reboot.Frazetta's one sheet work included The Fearless Vampire Killers(1967), Mad Monster Party?(1967), and Eastwood vehicle The Gauntlet(1977).In summation, getting past the weak story should require very little effort for any fans of the genre, or specifically, Frazetta and Bakshi.The lush visuals and meticulous animation will hold your attention until the final credits.If the story were less derivative of Conan the Barbarian(Frazetta painted the covers of the original novels btw), it would have scored a perfect four wops on the rating scale, but as it stands, it still merits an impressive three big ones.See it for yourselves!

Golly, that's one satisfied looking pterosaur.

"Fritz the Cat"(1972)d/Ralph Bakshi

As we meet tonight at the Wop,we bid a bittersweet adieu to actor,Leslie Nielsen,whose body of work contained many excellent genre roles in films like Forbidden Planet,Day of the Animals,Prom Night,and Creepshow,before achieving great popularity in light comedies and spoofs later in his career.It was a little distressing to see the number of people paying tribute to the late actor yesterday that totally neglected to notice what a great performer he was in dramatic roles.He was much more than a "funny guy",and let's hope history will remind folks of that.R.I.P. Leslie,you held your breath a long,long time.Onward...
Tonight's feature,a long time favourite of mine,got a lot of screenings at the legendarily decadent "working class holidays" at One Cherry back in the nineties.Through a fog bank of smoke of questionable origins,the parties cheered on the outrageous antics of underground artist R.Crumb's anthropomorphic cat,brought to life on the big screen by animation legend Ralph Bakshi and voiced by the insincere-sounding Skip Hinnant aka/Fargo North,the word decoder of '70's childrens' staple,The Electric Company.Jaded after toiling away on cartoons like Deputy Dawg and Heckle and Jeckle,Bakshi looked to animate a feature film that contrasted the bright and cheerful world of Walt Disney,and found it in an East Village bookstore in Crumb's satirical comics.The production was plagued with trouble from its problematic start,as the ever-squirrelly Crumb was reluctant to sign over the rights to his character,some animators walked off the job,refusing to draw the controversial sex and violence in the script,and distribution was stifled somewhat by the MPAA's X rating given to the feature and decadent material,but in the end,Fritz was a worldwide success,earning nearly two hundred million to date.

New York,from the fish-eyed viewpoint of hustlers and hippies.
After arriving too late to make any sort of impact on the burgeoning Washington Square Park folk guitarist scene,Fritz the Cat(Hinnant)notices three young girls taking a shine to a crow nearby.When the object of their interest turns out to be gay,he makes inroads with the trio by pitching them a steady flow of existential bullshit,ultimately landing him in a ganja-veiled bathtub orgy with them at a hippie squat.When two beat cops(pigs)raid the party,Fritz manages to sneak one of the officer's pistols out of his holster in the clouded confusion,shooting the toilet,and washing the entire writhing,stoned mass out into the streets.Fritz ducks into a synagogue full of lions,only escaping the long arm of the law when a radio announces that the United States is about to fund more weapons to Israel,causing the rabbis to jump up and dance.Back at his college dorm,his roommates are too zooted on bennies studying for exams to notice Fritz,or pay any attention to his exploits,causing him to gather his notes and papers into a massive pile and set them on fire,vowing to live life to the fullest from there on in,as the entire building is set ablaze.He enters a crow bar in Harlem,where he befriends a pool hustler named Duke,who saves the cat's feline hide when he mistakenly calls the bartender,"Boy"(!),then sends the entire bar into hysterics when he says "bug out",a cat using crow lingo,dig that!Duke and Fritz steal a car and head to Bertha's,a fat crow prostitute,to blow some pot.Bertha stuffs multiple reefers into the bewildered cat's yap,causing him to hornily seduce her in a nearby junkyard.She laughs at his manhood,exclaiming,"You aint black enough,honey!" before giving him a piece anyway.In midstroke,Fritz has a revolutionary revelation,and rouses the neighborhood crows to riot in the streets.Duke is shot and killed by the police,and Mickey Mouse,Minnie Mouse,and Donald Duck(all in silhouette)cheer as the Air Force drop napalm on the ghetto.

A minyan of kosher lions tear through the Torah.
Hiding out in an alley garbage can,he's found by Winston Schwartz,a fox he goes out with now and again,who convinces him to pack up and move to San Francisco with her.In the middle of the desert,Winston's car runs out of gas,and after a redneck dog with a pickup full of chickens in cages(that he clobbers to death with a two by four with a nail in it)diagnoses their engine,Fritz is left to walk back to the gas station with a bucket.Weary of Winston's droning,he decides to abandon her for a smackhead nazi-biker rabbit named Blue and his old lady,Harriet the Horse.Together they ride Blue's chopper to his terrorist cell's underground hideout,where his two snake pals in hooded robes plan to start the revolution by blowing up a power plant.Harriet doesn't like the idea,and after voicing her opinion,gets the snot knocked out of her by Blue who punches and chain-whips her.When Fritz voices his discomfort with the situation,the head snake puts a candle out in his face,leaving him to watch in horror as the three beat and rape her as she's helpless to defend herself,chained to a cot.Later,Fritz drives with one of the snakes to the power plant,where the cat climbs the structure and puts dynamite in place.As Fritz has a change of heart,the snake lights the fuse and drives off,leaving the feline to struggle to remove the dynamite as the fuse burns down.The power plant blows up,and Fritz with it.In a hospital in L.A.,his room is guarded by a policeman,who denies entry to the original three girls from the NY park who have rushed to see him in his critical condition.A nun arrives to offer last rites,and the girls sneak in with her.She removes her hood to reveal that she is Harriet,as Fritz groggily regains consciousness amidst his life support machines and full body cast.He struggles to relate the valuable lesson he's learned from all of his adventures:a reprisal of his decadent hedonist lifestyle,as he throws the girls down on his bed and fucks them all in a flurry of bodies and bandages.

Fritz(Skip Hinnant)has fought many a good man,and laid many a good woman.I can relate,baby.
Bakshi who voiced the opening narrative("Happy times,heavy times."),would also lend vocal talents as one of the pair of bumbling pig policemen therein.He would not return for the sequel(which we'll check out later on down the line,kiddies),and went on to direct Heavy Traffic,the controversial Coonskin,Wizards,Fire and Ice,and American Pop,among others.Most of the dialogue in Fritz was recorded raw in real life situations,the background chanting in the synagogue scene taken from a recording of Bakshi's own father.Hinnant would go on to voice Fritz in the sequel,appearing sparsely on television,ultimately becoming the president of the S.A.G. in New York.Crumb allegedly didn't like the film treatment of his popular cat very much,claiming the movie was a departure from the stories in Head Comix and Cavalier that the script drew upon.When watching the thing straight,it's hard not to notice the haphazard manner in which it's paced,but overall it remains a pretty damned enjoyable slice of seventies grindhouse entertainment.On the ratings scale,Fritz hits the pipe,and exhales a very respectable three wops worth.Dig it!

Heckle and Jeckle done come a long way,baby,can you dig it?

"The Plague Dogs"(1982)d/Martin Rosen

I've deprived the sexy young grogwenches at my local watering hole the extreme pleasure of seeing my ruggedly good-looking face for one night(at least...)to bring you another installment of B.W. goes to the movies,and as it's that time of week,we'll focus our lens on another cartoon that you probably wouldn't want your kiddies to viddy.'Course I couldn't focus my glassies on much of anything after this week's bonfire of irresponsibility,which included three bars,a case of Perroni,cod on the grill at Smith-tips' estate,and passing out sideways on the bed while listening to the local constabulary,lights a' flashing,grilling a suspect who wasn't me for a change.How sweet it is!
This week's animated feature is another grim 'toon from the team responsible for Watership Down(1978),only this one is even grimmer still!The misleading poster promises adventure,but I must have missed it in between all the death,blood,and gloomy set pieces throughout.'Course I'm just the target audience the film's makers were looking for,as I enjoy a real bummer as much as anybody.If frothing war-crazed bunnies didn't grab you,director Martin Rosen and writer Richard Adams focus on two escaped test animals from a British laboratory where scientists secretly eff with bubonic plague behind closed doors!Sound like your kind of "buddy picture" too?John Hurt is on board to lend his vocal talents,as well as Patrick Stewart(as a Major near the end,if you listen carefully enough)and 70's Brit horror staple Judy Geeson as a chatty Pekingese.If Umberto Lenzi made cartoons in his heyday they'd probably look a lot like this.

They don't come when you call, they don't chase squirrels at all...
Rowf,a lab mix, is one of many dogs they experiment on at the Lake District animal research facility.Every day they throw him in a big tank of water,and every day he drowns real good.His friend Snitter,a fox terrier who's undergone experimental brain surgery,convinces him to break the fuck out like the measles before they end up on the business end of a shovel headed for the incinerator.After their daring escape amidst mobs of screaming monkeys and schitzy rats,the taste of freedom is bittersweet when they must regress to primal survival instincts in the dismal British countryside.Snitter has frequent black and white flashbacks to happier days at his master's side before he got pinballed in front of a moving car.Once the facility realizes the dogs have escaped,they attempt a cover up of the secret tests they've been carrying out using the bubonic plague virus,and set hunters upon the fugitive animals at the same time.

Blowing your own face off with a rifle,a staple nowadays in animated features.
While feasting on the local sheepherders' stock,they befriend a fox who teaches them how to get in touch with their wild roots in exchange for shared meals,but when the sheep start dropping with regularity,the authorities take notice.Off on his own,Snitter is about to befriend a hunter when his paw hits the trigger of the man's gun,effectively blowing the poor bloke's face off(!)and intensifying the pair's status as outlaws.The research center sends out their own hunter,hoping to end the negative publicity once and for all,but their secret testing involving bubonic plague leaks out,and the hunter falls off a cliff,ending up as a meal(!!) for the escaped mutts and their foxy friend.The government shuts down the facility,sending soldiers and attack dogs to sweep the countryside for the pair of pooches,and when the fox risks himself to throw the dogs off their trail,he is killed.The dogs make it to the shore,but find choppers and soldiers at every juncture, and when Snitter wades out into the ocean believing he can see an island ahead,Rowf follows soon afterwards with a flurry of bullets hitting the surf behind him.Both dogs,near exhaustion,paddle with the last of their strength against the tide,the hardships of freedom more satisfying than either one could have imagined.

Rowf and Snitter weren't best friends to this poor son of a bitch.
Rosen's screen adaption of Adams' book leaves out a lot of human interaction,choosing instead to cover the material through voiceover narration juxtaposed over the animals arduous journey.He also nixes the tome's happy ending where both dogs reach Snitter's original master,as in the film,he is killed by a car in the street,and the dogs' survival is unlikely on the screen,but makes for a much more powerful movie,in my opinion.As it stands,the director wasn't speaking out against vivisection, but was one of the first to bring the suffering of laboratory animals to light none-the-less.As for my thoughts on the subject,I feel any unneccesary pain and suffering to these creatures should be left out altogether,unless there are very definite medical advances to be gained for humanity by doing so.As a side note,one of my crazier ex-girlfriend's online nicknames was Vivesection(sp),adding to the foul taste in my mouth that I get whenever I say the word.Plague Dogs is another stellar film to add to your collection,an uncut region two disc with the disturbing gore intact plus extras is floating around,so get your hands on it.It comes highly recommended,with the highest scale rating possible:

The doggie-equivalent to the ending of Thelma and Louise.