Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Redwarmin This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

SoftInloveRox Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Anthony Iessi Coonskin has been dragged into the darkest realms of cinematic obscurity. When it was released in 1975, people panicked. Not since the 1940's has such racially insensitive jokes been made on African Americans. CORE and the NAACP screamed for blood and demanded this film to never be released, or shown to anyone for that matter. Leading Paramount Pictures to drop this movie from its original distribution and was forced to be shown in Grindhouse theaters nationwide and distributed by a mafioso production company. How devastatingly ironic, because this film HATES the mafia. Perhaps it was due to its off putting title. But I think more importantly, it was its trailer. The film's theatrical trailer is one of the most surreal, unholy debaucheries of a motion picture you will ever see. Just a bunch of scenes (some of which are pivotal to the plot of the film) thrown aimlessly together without any explanation of what the movie could be about. Of course, people speculated the worst from this film. But it wasn't what anyone thought it was. Coonskin is an absolute trip. It' points out the sad, painful truth about racism as we know it and threw it in our faces whether we could handle it or not. If anything, it advocates for the good of African Americans and slanders everyone that took advantage of it. It's a tale about three brothers, losing their way in the slums of Manhattan, as they try to get back at the "man". It's classic blaxploitation fare with a tendency for screwing with the audience and shocking them with the cold hard truth. Ralph worked his hardest with this film and insisted on making this his masterpiece, and it shows with explosive results. I loved the characters. The three brothers are dangerously cool, especially Brother Rabbit. Miss America is without a doubt the sexiest animated woman ever drawn. Unfortunately, she represents everything bloated, superficial, perverted and wrong with America. Which makes her a wickedly evil villain. The main villain, the Godfather was a little hard to swallow being Italian and all. But the Mafia was just begging for a Hollywood beating, and Bakshi let them have it. If I was to sum up Coonskin in one sentence, I would call it the Pulp Fiction of animation. It has the same level of genius and wit as that movie did, and will grow on you for an awfully long time. It's too bad not many people will ever see it. Hopefully, a home video release will finally surface in the future, and we can all celebrate this controversial classic.

TheLittleSongbird I had heard much about Coonskin, mostly good, though I do know a fair few who were offended by it. Seeing this film, I can see why Coonskin won't appeal to all, due to its very gritty subject matter(racism) and the fact it is stereotypical. However, I loved this movie surprisingly and consider it one of Bakshi's better films alongside American Pop and Heavy Traffic. The visuals are wonderful, the blend of animation and live action is very clever, and some of the images are brutal but often fascinating. The music is equally great, especially the opening title sequence. The satire really does bite and hit you hard, while the story is rich and multi-layered with lots of insight(correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think Bakshi has done anything as ambitious as Coonskin before). The voice acting adds a lot, in particular from Scatman Brothers and the resonant, deep voice of Barry White. All in all, Coonskin is not for all tastes, but I loved it, and appreciate it for its biting satire and its take on a very gritty and perhaps controversial subject. 9/10 Bethany Cox

tomgillespie2002 Randy (Philip Michael Thomas) and Pappy (Scatman Crothers) escape from prison and await a pick-up from their friends Sampson (Barry White) and Preacherman (Charles Gordone). Pappy begins to tell a strange story about three crooks, Brother Rabbit (voiced by Thomas), Brother Bear (White) and Preacher Fox (Gordone), who rise up throughout the Harlem crime ring. They come up against an evangelistic maniac who teaches his followers to kill whites, a crooked white cop with a hatred of Brother Rabbit, and a fat, Italian-American, Godfather-type who put out a contract on the trio.Ralph Bakshi, one of the most revolutionary cartoonists in recent times, had a long history with the making of Coonskin. He experienced segregation first-hand growing up in Brooklyn where he was forced out of an all-black school due to the fear that the whites may discover it and cause havoc. These racist attitudes seem to have left their mark on Bakshi and he wanted to satirise it brutally, leading to the birth of Coonskin, a film that was picketed and protested against by various groups before any screenings of the film had been arranged, and a film that remained so misunderstood by many until recently.Bakshi savagely attacks stereotyping and racist iconography by using, well, stereotyping and racist iconography. He employs characters in minstrel show blackface that were so popular in Civil War-era America, and portrays the black characters as loud, crude and violent. Yet no one is safe here - homosexuals, Italians, white-trash, Jews - all are portrayed as wildly over-the-top stereotypes. Bakshi conquers the problem by facing it head on, exaggerating it ten-fold, and then throwing it in our face. If you don't get satire or if you completely miss the point of Coonskin, then this is possibly the most offensive film ever made.The animation is crude and dirty-looking, but I believe this was Bakshi's intention. By giving it a grimy, almost sloppy feel, he brings the story closer to the street, where his characters live out their lives. The mixture of animation set against real backdrops evokes Disney's still-banned Song of the South (1946), a film that Disney are so ashamed of due to the fact that it could be construed as racist, that they placed the ban on it themselves. The film is also quite strange, jumping between different styles and tones, and the result is as often confusing as it is mesmerising.They are some truly inspired moments, such as the scene when our animated trio enter Harlem (the "home to every black man") to be greeted by a wailing saxophone in the street, as well as Scatman Crothers' rendition of Ah'm a N****r Man over the opening credits. I would recommend anyone with a fleeting interest in racial history to watch this film as long as they can stomach the viciousness of the satire, as it is as powerful as it funny, and as smutty as it is sophisticated. How this film was managed to be made escapes me, and how it was made by a white man simply perplexes me. Essential viewing.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

abracadaver Street Fight is a brilliant piece of brutal satire. This is not a movie you just watch for fun. It is not a comfortable experience, although it does have some laugh-out-loud moments. This is a movie you watch when you need food for thought.To dismiss this film as simply racist is to miss the point entirely. This is not only a satire of Song of the South, it's also a biting commentary on the prejudices that Americans still have as a society. Every ethnic group portrayed in the movie gets shown as grotesque caricatures of their stereotypes, which in turn are grotesque caricatures of real people. Through this wild exaggeration, the filmmaker shows just how absurd these tightly-held beliefs really are.If you're the sort of person who's willing to acknowledge the ugliness of the prevalent prejudices American culture still holds, and if you're not afraid to look your own prejudices in the eye, this movie may be for you.