Hey Good Lookin' (1982)

I've watched "Heavy Traffic", "Fritz the cat", "Cool World" & "Coonskin", all of which were pure awful, just like this one. This film also had the lack of story line and super bad characters in this. Yeah it's about an ex gangster telling his past to a stupid dim witted prostitute. Really, it was just random, not exciting or interesting to hear about.That guy was a womanizer, a cheat and a dope. He's not that likable as a character either. After this, I'm not gonna bother looking at another Ralph Bakshi because really, I'm always disappointed in his movies. I'm not even gonna watch his 2015 movie, I'll probably wouldn't like I either....I wouldn't recommend this film, it's pure stupid....

You remember Mean Streets- Scorsese's rough and raw and unpredictable tip of the hat to Little Italy (and, consequently, episodic though with a little plot), which was about as personal as movies could get. With Hey Good Lookin', warts and all, Bakshi has his Mean Streets. It's about two guys, Vinny and Crazy (Shapiro), who go lookin' for girls, start up a possible rumble, and just act like cool and wacky 50s Brooklynites. But to say that this is simply what it's about is nonsense; it's about mood and time, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, and about an abstract sensibility (or, if you will, an impression) of what life was like in Brooklyn hopped up with lots of rock and roll and attitude. It is, indeed, none other than a Bakshi film.But what does this mean for those who've only seen his work from Fritz the Cat and Lord of the Rings (or, on the lower end of the spectrum though more recent, Cool World)? What may seem like chaos in a Ralph Bakshi film isn't a fault but the actual style of the piece. Everything and anything can happen in a scene, and like an early Scorsese or Cassavetes it's extremely improvisational. This might seem weird since it's animation (and sometimes folks it really is). Baskhi, however, is a delightfully unbalanced force in animation. His characters are ugly and crude and physical and filled with such puffed up cliché or (yes) stereotype via ethnicity or race or (especially) sex, that it's easy to see why some would be turned off in a second.Hey Good Lookin' doesn't want the most amount of viewers like a Disney flick. Bakshi has a crazy means to his vision, but for those tuned in it's a deranged kind of bliss. His film is alive and wild in not just the style of drawing but in little set-ups (where else will you get a raucous sex scene in a pile of hamburgers, or a car busting through a music hall and killing the band). Sometimes the comic set-ups merely bring up some chuckles, and others are total riots. While this time Bakshi might not have the best musical accompaniment- the songs range from being slightly catchy 50s throwbacks to crappy would-be-50s-really-80's tunes- and the chaos in the storyline or specific scenes might backfire once or twice into total "what the hell is this" territory, mostly it's all good.This is a true wildman pulling off a personal vision of a time and place with an eye for character, a knack for casting true to the setting as opposed to higher-scale talent (David Proval, also of Mean Streets, incredibly plays Crazy Shapiro), and if it's not one of his very best, it's close.

Hey, Goodlooking is an intelligent, dark, and satirical look on the American youth culture of the 50's. Look beyond the poor standard of animation to a story of friendship, love and betrayal. And, of course, there are some great tunes. This film is truly a case of substance over style, which is unfairly dismissed by most people. If you can get past the early-80's, cheap techniques, as in Bakshi's LOTR, you'll discover a great film that works on many different levels.

O.K. I am a big fan of cartoon movies. with live footage. This one gets goofy in some spots but very watchable.. get it on video, and give it a good chance.