Con Ferguson
This film is complete garbage. None of the characters are interesting, the dialogue cannot be understood, and the storyline is so weak. The main character, Vinny is a bit of a tool and I've noticed similarities between him and Danny Zuko from Grease. This could mean that Hey Good Lookin' supposedly ripped off Grease, that would explain why many people hate this film.Vinny, now that I've compared him to Danny Vuto, that led me thinking about how John Travolta played Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. Yep, and Vincent could be Vincent's real name, but everyone in the film refers to him as "Vinny." Despite that Pulp Fiction was released 12 years later than Hey Good Lookin', Vinny is more like Danny Vuto, due to the fact that he picks up chicks, has a cocky personality, and is portrayed as a greaser, as well as Grease being released prior to Hey Good Lookin'.The dialogue is somehow entertaining in certain parts of the film, but mostly involves lots of yelling, cheering and reactions to things. We see typical conversations in this film, but they're about random things that don't really pertain to what's going on in the film. After watching the first ten minutes of the film, the dialogue gets boring and loud, sounding like a Looney Tunes cartoon. And did I mention that Warner Bros. distributed this film? Despite that this film is considered terrible by many, we come across another positive aspect of this film. How this film began production. The slippery slope of how the producers dealt with marketing this film started when Ralph Bakshi started writing the script for this film, after producing Coonskin. This resulted in Warner Bros. trying to cash in on the film. Many black animators were informed about this becoming a film, so they joined Ralph Bakshi's studio and contributed on this film. Once they realized how the black characters in the film were given mainstream African American stereotypes, the black animators left the studio; supposedly as a response to how Bakshi avoided giving blacks stereotypes in Coonskin, but exploiting the stereotypes negatively and crossing the line in Hey Good Lookin'.The film contains live action footage that blended the animated characters with the backgrounds used for the film. In one scene, the black characters break dance, despite the fact that break dancing wasn't popular to the release of this film. This film perfected the dance style and this dance became popular among African Americans in hip hop culture.Since Bakshi wanted the break dancing scenes in the film, a lot of the live action footage was deleted and reshot. Bakshi was capable of rotoscoping the break dancing scenes, but couldn't on some of the scenes that were reshot due to budget issues. The film was then shelved until the release of American Pop, and despite that Warner Bros. wanted this film to be a success, it didn't do too well.If the film is so bad, then yes, the music is also horrible and is rare to find. This film only became a film because Warner Bros. was fascinated with Bakshi's script, yet I personally find it uninteresting. The music is cheesy, and pretty much exploits the lifestyle the characters live in. The music attempts to be 50s music but sounds more like 80s music, the type of music this film has is like the 80s version of Nickelback. It only gets negative reviews. The character Crazy has the stupidest name in the film. Naming him Kangaroo would've been better, because it isn't too obvious that his personality is like a kangaroo's. Crazy is clearly really clumsy and goofy and the fact that his name is Crazy makes us know that the film will be boring.The animation is good, and is supposed to be a representation of Coney Island. However, there's this one scene where Vinny feels something in the sand and digs up a disturbing skull that petrifies the women at the beach. And what was their reaction to it? Well, I don't care, because this is frankly an unwatchable film.
gangstahippie
Rated R for Language,Violence and Some Nudity. Quebec Rating:13+ Canadian Home Video Rating:14AHey Good Lookin is one of the four Ralph Bakshi films I have seen.The other Bakshi films I have seen are Fritz The Cat(his best movie),Coonskin(good but not as good as fritz or this) and Cool World(which wasn't very good...but not bad).Not many people seem to have seen this film(as of August 28 2007, it has 97 votes).Hey Good Lookin is a film about the 1950's.A mysterious man tells a girl a story.The story follows Vinnie, who is the leader of the gang "The Stompers".Him and his friend Crazy Shapiro have fun smoking,drinking and trying to pick up girls.One day, Vinnie accidentally goes on the rival black gang's turf.The leader of the gang asks Vinnie to rumble with him.He agrees.The rest of the film shows gang trouble and Vinnie and Shapiro dating two girls.Vinnie's girl's name is Roz.Also Crazy Shapiro's father is a cop who hates his son and tries to kill him.The rumble at the end of the film is pretty good but weird with Shapiro hallucinating and shooting at garbage cans and street signs.Vinnie ends up getting shot but is okay and Shapiro falls to his death.We then see the film go back to 1982 where we find that the mysterious man is Vinnie and the girl is Roz.The two then reunite.Hey Good Lookin is one of bakshi's better films and if you can find it, I recommend it.Hopefully this will come out on DVD.
Tom-5673
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.
conan-4
Having first seen "Hey Good Lookin'" at the movies in 1982, the year I was seventeen, I have always considered this a film that connects me directly to my past. I was involved with my first "real" girlfriend at the time, and this is one of the first films that we saw together. That aside, having seen this movie countless times since then I have been struck by it's completeness, and excellence as a film. Bakshi's only film that featured a completely original, and brilliant, musical soundtrack, "Hey Good Lookin'" gives a good look into what it meant to be a guy growing up in 1950's Brooklyn and the role you needed to play in order to get respect, get along with your friends, and what was necessary to get the girl. From the leather motorcycle jackets, the slicked back DA's and the rumbles, Ralph Bakshi gives us a window into which we might look into a past where male / female roles were clearly defined, and a man could still be a man. Oh yeah... and the animation is PHENOMENAL as well. This is one of Bakshi's best!