How Come No One’s Ever Made An Animated Hip Hop Film Before?* AKA Dartflix Edition #12

I remember listening to Slum Village’s “Fantastic Vol. 2” for the first time with my brother and I heard the following line uttered by one of the members ,“I rock and rule like Mok”...We were like “Yo!”. “Rock & Rule” was this animated movie with a rock soundtrack (featuring Blondie, Cheap Trick, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Earth, Wind & Fire) where the characters were all rock musicians that had their own signature songs. I had it on VHS back in the days and it used to come on cable sporadically back in the 80’s and early 90’s. Of course, it went out of print and some opportunistic people made a killing selling VCD copies of it on EBay for years until the good people over at Unearthed Films rereleased it last fall in a 2 disc set(God bless y’all).

Along with this movie I can count Ralph Bakshi’s animated ode to the history of American music, “American Pop” (Bakshi is best known for creating Fritz The Cat, Heavy Traffic, Coon Skin, and let us never forget him blindly ripping off Vaughn and Mark Bode’s “Cobalt 60” for his animated film “Wizards”) and the film adaptation of the stories and art contained in Heavy Metal Magazine, “Heavy Metal”. I am a huge fan of all three of these movies but the question remains, after 30+ years of Hip Hop culture and Rap music invading the American mainstream, how come there hasn’t been a “Heavy Metal”-ish movie made for Hip Hop audiences?

In recent years, studios greenlit an animated feature adaptation of Robin Harris’ “Bebe’s Kids” which featured “urban music” (and I pray that the Men In Black exist so they can erase my memory of it). Legendary turntablist DJ Q-Bert helped to produce the animated film to go along with his album “Wave Twisters” and Techno/Dance/Trip Hop duo Daft Punk collaborated with Japan’s legendary anime house Toei Studios to produce the animated companion to their “Discovery” album called “Interstellar 5555: 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem”. So far no one’s either thought of or pitched the idea to make an animated film with a hip hop soundtrack behind it a la “American Pop”, “Rock & Rule” or “Heavy Metal” yet...

I find this surprising considering how many makeshift anime rap videos I’ve seen on Nightsessions TV in the past, the marriage of Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” with Stones Throw and their subsequent collaborations (“Dangerdoom” and the “Chrome Children” series) and the breakout success of animated series like “Samurai Champloo”, "The Boondocks" and “Afro Samurai”. You mean to tell me that a Robotech/Gundam hybrid movie with fighting mecha, voice acting by RZA, MF Doom, Common, Madlib and ill Wu Tang/J Dilla instrumentals playing in the background wouldn’t put asses in the seats? Shit, people are PAYING to see “Norbit”!

For whatever reason, it still hasn’t happened yet. Do studios need to be convinced that a hip hop themed animated feature would find an audience here and overseas? Are they afraid that it might attract an “undesireable element” to the theatre? Or has it just not been pitched to me properly or scripted the right way yet? The Sound Scientists (from my 32 Producers on MySpace list) informed me that they are working on a pilot for an animated series and they may or may not pitch it to the bigwigs on Williams Street. I wish them luck, for now I’ll just have to be content to watching “Ninja Scroll” on mute while playing Ayatollah instrumentals.

* If anyone wants to take this idea and run with it I claim rights to it first on that intellectual properties tip, if you want me to present you with a treatment, concepts or help with the pitch to make this a reality, get at me.

Movies avaible to rent through Netflix:
American Pop
Heavy Metal
Rock & Rule
Wizards
Fire & Ice
Wave Twisters
Interstellar 5555: 5tory Of The 5ecret 5tar 5ystem
The Virgin Suicides
Open Your Eyes
Starchaser: Legend Of Orin
Golgo 13: The Professional
Amores Perros
Ragtime
Tzameti 13
Throne Of Blood
Sword Of Doom
Come Drink With Me
The One Armed Swordsman
Lady Snowblood (blueprint for The Bride in Kill Bill)
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song Of Vengeance
Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven In Hell
Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart To Hades
Lady Vengeance
Princess Blade
Babel
Dirty
The Weatherman
Shade
Sympathy For The Underdog
Suspect Zero
Phone (Korea)


Dart’s ThreeTrailers Of The Week (3/18/07-3/25/07):
Vacancy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452702/trailers

Sunshine
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448134/trailers

Pirates Of The Carribean: At World's End
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449088/trailers


Dart’s Picks:
13 Tzameti- The less I tell about this film, the more of a surprise it will be for you when you see it. I’m going to be as vague as possible so as not to give any spoilers and not come off as an asshole while doing so (pretty damn hard to do, IMO). It’s in black & white, has subtitles and it won hella awards at film festivals all over the world. Just rent it and watch it...Trust me.

Brick- I love this movie. It’s a present day noir thriller set in a California high school that’s both well acted and well scripted. The lead actor totally redeems his performance in the godawful flick Havoc. Try to watch this joint with the subtitles on so as not to miss any of the dialogue...it may take a couple of watches to catch all of the extra nuances. Great first feature from a young director.

London- My brother and I just watch this movie again last night (It’s On Demand on Camcast digital cable) and we caught mad more stuff we missed the first 4 or 5 times we saw it. It’s an ill character based movie that draws you into the characters through their interaction with each other. It actually convinced me that Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) can act! (A feat in itself). Features Jason Statham, Jessica Biel, Joy Bryant, Kelli Garner, Isla Fisher and even Paula Patton makes a cameo...damn good movie (a shitload of coke snorting, though).

Dart’s WTF/Watch This Bullshit At Your Own Risk Award:
Rocky Balboa- A 60 year old punch drunk/brain damaged ex world champ gets back in the ring again...Does he win? Do I really give a fuck? Make Tango & Cash 2, Rambo 4, Cobra 2 and then sit your old ass down, Sly.

One.