Best movie of this year hands down!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Blistering performances.

First off, I don't give a damn about political correctness so no points off. Second, I grew up in the inner city so no points off for grittiness.However, I do want to watch a movie with something interesting to say other than people are mean to each other and out for their own self-interest. That's 90 percent of the movie. His dad is a POS Italian misogynistic womanizer works for the mob. His mom is a bitter Jewish shrew. He's just a lost asshole animator who wants to sell "Wizards".Feel free to watch it if you're wasted and want to watch some poorly drawn violent dark stupidity.Oh, btw, everything is excusable since Bakshi is making a statement about society. Sure. His "statement" about society is that it's violent and sucks.

I just finished watching this film, and I couldn't be more in awe. It's definitely one of the most bizarre pieces of true Art that I have seen in recent years, and yet the naked honesty is instantly resonant on a very deep level. This a a very dark look at one short period in a young artist's life in what seems to be New York. Ralph is not afraid to show the extreme in the ordinary, the sublime in the tragic, the sparkling filth that charges the air with horror and magic. This is our world, and his, with all the petty bitterness and hope that goes with it. I am saddened by those who say this film is garbage; I was at times horrified, laughing, moved, angered, and yet I emerged from the experience hopeful. I have rarely ever seen such a pure and rich depth of feeling as with this film. Ralph Bakshi is indeed a Master of our time, and the fact that he is still fairly obscure is a terrible waste. See this film, but keep the kids far away, it's rated R for a reason.

Michael is an underground artist in New York City who draws strips of the people he sees around him. He hooks up with the beautiful Carol, but she loses her job in a bar and so the two go searching for the high life.Bakshi's films are hard to find, but it's more than worth the effort. Outside of Japan, he's really the only director in the world who has managed to make adult-oriented animation features, and his films are completely unique. Heavy Traffic is his most personal and probably his best too - it sucks you into the seedy seventies world of NYC and doesn't let go. On one level it's a shocking freakshow, filled with hustlers, transsexuals, down-and-outs, hookers and thugs, but only if you're a bit of a prude. It's really just a slice-of-life series of observations; some satirical, some gross, some tragic and all rendered in a wild array of visual styles - traditional cell animation, live action, multiple composites, filters and negatives, pencil-tests (the Maybellene sequence), near-subliminal stills, real movie clips (the film Michael watches in the empty cinema is Red Dust, with Clark Gable and Jean Harlow), stock shots, what have you. If nothing else, it bombards the viewer with a myriad of dazzling visual techniques. The film has many influences (Vaughn Bode, Robert Crumb, a sudden mock-up shot of Edward Hopper's Nighthawks) but Bakshi's direction is unique and his fearless experimentation with cinematic style is both admirable and rewarding. He not only plays with animation, he plays with styles within animation, like the incredible bullet-in-the-head moment, or the whole Mother Pile / Wanda The Last sequence. If the film has a weakness, it's that it's a bit episodic - crazy New York nights - but it's so overloaded with wild ideas and freaky moments that it doesn't spoil the flow, but just contributes to the freewheeling anarchy. The voice cast are cool, notably Atkinson, and there's a fabulous score by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin, featuring a memorable soul-fuelled cover of the traditional ballad Scarborough Fair. An acquired taste, for sure, but a must for real fans of animation, and check out any of Bakshi's other films (particularly Wizards and Cool World).

This film is one you'll pretty much love or hate. I think to those who don't like it . . . either you're sensitive to the nudity, issues it covers, or other content material, or maybe you just don't understand it.Sometimes confusion can lead to hatred. But the film is without a doubt visually stimulating. IMDB voters are giving it crap ratings, yet I agree with the people who give out star ratings, for this piece got 3.5 stars out of 4. And it deserves it. It's groundbreaking, and such a perfect posterchild for the 70s in terms of seedy animation and urban decay.Well done Bakshi, well done.