The Worst Film Ever

Awesome Movie

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

This early Bugs (you always tell because his head is shaped more oblong and his ears are longer) has him in tuxedo and on stage ready to play Lizst's Second Hungarian Rhapsody on the piano.After he warms up with some knuckle-crunching, he gets set to play but some idiot makes a loud coughing noise and stops him. After the second time, Bugs takes out a gun and shoots him. That's funny - something we wouldn't advise or condone but think about doing. Anyway, he then performs, hams it up a bit, and then bothered by a little mouse who pops out of the piano right above the keys. The by-play between Bugs and the mouse is very reminiscent of some Tom and Jerry cartoons, most notably "Cat Concerto." The latter might have been considered a better work of art, but I laughed at more things in here as the mouse made the music change to jazz, then chopsticks, then taps, etc. There is more humor in this one and it's more fun to watch, especially with the fantastic artwork.What I liked best about this animated short wasn't the solid humor or the music but the colors. This was a nicely drawn 'toon. The bright golden hued drapes and the dark piano, tuxedo, green floor, reflections on the piano, etc., all made for some nice visuals.The 'toon got better and better as it went on with the last few minutes extremely creative and colorful.

Bugs Bunny is a musician playing Franz Liszt's 'Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2' for apparently a large audience. First Bugs has some problems with a coughing guy in the audience, he knows how to solve that, then with a mouse who plays parts of the rhapsody.The way this cartoon makes fun of the preparation of a musician, the way Bugs solves the problem with the noisy audience, the way the mouse is used are hilarious. When the piano slowly changes into other things (typewriters) and the keys begin to move it gets even funnier. The music put together with the animation is a good reason to see this cartoon, the great gags make sure you will like it even more!

I had the pleasure of meeting Virgil Ross once at a public appearance, and I was able to talk with him briefly. He mentioned that this was the cartoon he had the most fun to work on, so I sought it out, curious to see it. I must say, it does look like it would have been fun to make, because it's really fun to watch. Even by today's standards, this is a very clever and humorous piece, free of cliches. I liked it!

A ghoulish mixture of Liszt, murder, violence and carrots, 'Rhapsody Rabbit' is an exuberantly inventive Bugs Bunny cartoon which manages to explode the boundaries of its single setting. Bugs is a famed pianist, the kind of fastidious virtuoso you still find today, but worshipped in the 40s because arrogant eccentricity somehow signalled class. Having removed his many gloves, Bugs, a proto-Glenn Gould seats himself down in near-religious preparation, only to be interrupted by two loud coughs. He shoots the culpable party.The film is full of gloriously unpredictable moments like this, helping it transcend the immediate object of satire, which has dated, now that Hollywood has given up as unprofitable the attempt to educate audiences in high culture. So Bugs interrupts his playing to chomp on a carrot, or play with his feet. One lovely sequence has him gathering all the keys and throwing them back in perfect rhythm. Like Fischinger's 'Allegretto', 'Rhapsody' is animated music, full of a strange, mercurial, yet elegant fluidity.The centrepiece is a Tom-and-Jerry-like battle between Bugs and a small mouse who tries to undermine Bugs' pretensions, changing the solemn rhapsody for swing at one point. Despite the violence and disruption, conflict, as so often in music, leads not to chaos, but harmonic rapture. Freleng is no Tex Avery - his use of colour and camerawork is restrained - but the relative plausibility of his composition have a pleasure all of their own.