Hey Good Lookin'

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.

You either love, loathe or simply don't understand Bakshi's films. I personally fall into the first category and this was the film that started it all for me at the tender age of 12. It still remains my favourite 15 years later. Me and a friend of mine were obsessed with it and would quote it to each other (and others who must have wondered what the hell we were on about) constantly.

I love Bakshi's animation, it maybe rough and sketchy at times but this is part of the appeal. It's far more organic than some pristine computer generated Disney schmaltz or his rotoscoped films. He has a wonderfully unique way of capturing characters in his art. 98% of people in his world are ugly. Though usually with a couple of exceptions. The love interest Rozzie, for example may well be the very ideal of a red blooded males fantasy, forget Jessica Rabbit! The dialogue (as in all his earlier pics) is wonderfully un-coached and at times sounds very improvised. It's drops a lot of the psycadelic and pseudo 60's philosophy that inhabited "Fritz the cat" and "Heavy traffic". There is also less of his trademark mixing of animation over live action backgrounds although it's still present to good effect in certain scenes. In a sense, it's perhaps more streamlined and consequently more accessible to new comers to the world of Bakshi than his previous works. What really makes the film for me though is Ric Sandlers superb soundtrack which (probably due to the films lack of anything beyond extreme cult success) has never been released. I implore those of you who feel the same to email him and tell so because I personally know (from experience) this music does still exist. And with enough interest it could see a release.

Playin' To Win

9 Out of 10

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.

I don't know if I'm a fan of Ralph Bakshi or not but I do like a lot of his movies, including "Hey Good Lookin' ". "Hey Good Lookin' " might not be his best film but it's up there. This movie moves well and is never boring. There is always something crazy going on. Maybe it doesn't make sense all of the time but that's not unusual for a Bakshi movie. "Hey Good Lookin' " might not be the first Bakshi movie that I would recommend to a novice but it would probably be the second. Honorable mention: a wildly dreamy Roz. I'd love to meet Bakshi's inspiration for her.

This movie has some of the best dialogue I've seen in an animated movie in a long time. It feels very natural and the terrible mic quality actually adds a special feel to the movie. Both the main two voice actors do such a good job at voicing a couple friends that I am convinced they shot their lines together in a studio

The animation and tone of the film is very dirty, like most 70s/80s adult animated films so that's to be expected. But this really works on the darker aspects of the grease style film. There are many aspects of Italian/black gang life strewn in an the characters that would be associated and I really think it pulled together a lot of the 50s new york scene in an intersecting way

I personally think it does a great job at romanticizing and vilifying the era.