Fire and Ice (1983)

An American animated fantasy adventure by Ralph Bakshi and Frank Frazetta.
Due to a North/South war between regular folks in the south and ice magicians in the north, a southern princess is captured, rescued, recaptured and re-rescued as southern warriors fight off northern warriors on their way to battle the ice wizards.
Ralph Bakshi is amazing and Frank Frazetta's artwork is awesome. They must have been thinking "If we work together and rotoscope the animation, that would be brilliant!", right? Nope. Mediocre was the outcome. It's like mixing bright yellow and purple paint: each part is great, but they make muddy brown when they get together. Enough talking shit about my favorite artists. What was good? I liked the pencil drawings in the intro and female anatomy points were not at a shortage. Teegra's rotoscoped boobs moved very naturally. There were some monsters like a giant lizard and wild dogs/wolves that I couldn't tell if they were composited and rotoscoped or just plain animated. The music/soundtrack was kind of epic. Don't get me wrong, there were some good elements to this film. However, as a whole, it was sub-par and standard. I rate it o.k. Watch it, but don't expect any magic.

Cool World (1992)

An American live action and animated comedy noir directed by Ralph Bakshi.
A World War II veteran gets into a motorcycle accident and is transported to a cartoon world. Years later, the creator of the cartoon is transported there as well. Problems arise when the issue of "doodles" (cartoon folks) and "Noids" (real folks) start crossing back and forth between the worlds.
After reading Wikipedia's description, I can see why this is literally Bakshi's worst film. His story got thrown out. That being said, there was plenty of compositing and special effects. Most of the time, this was live actors in front of a green screen with cartoons composited in behind and in front of them. The plot and characters sucked. The animation style had a slight Bakshi flavor, but it wasn't his stuff. Overall, I rate this poor. I was expecting much better.

Hey Good Lookin' (1982)

An American animated comedy crime adventure by Ralph Bakshi.
A shady looking man speaks with a woman on a city street at night. He shows her a piece of a leather jacket and tells the story of the jacket's owner. The owner was the leader of a gang called "The Stompers" in 1950s New York City. The gang leader has a goofy friend, falls in love with a young woman and gets his gang into a fight with a hostile black gang from a nearby area. We are then returned to the shady looking guy and the woman and find out their real identities.
As previously stated, "Ralph Bakshi can do no wrong". I have been looking for this film forever and just recently found it. I had seen like 75% of it on youtube, with a missing middle section somewhere, but watching the whole thing is way better. The animation style is classic Bakshi and it makes use of many of his sexual and racial jokes. Apparently, it was toned down before release because of how extreme Coonskin was. The plot and characters were good, but there was some jumping around between scenes and non-linear plot. A good example is Crazy's hallucination that just pops in and leads into the climax scene. Pacing was pretty fast to fit all of this plot into an hour and seventeen minutes. Music and soundtrack fit the setting pretty well, but I would have liked a more instrumental approach than the '50s pop with vocals that seemed to be re-worked '70s style. Overall, it's Bakshi and his shit is infallible, but his other stuff is better. I rate this good. Watch it because of who made it.

Wizards (1977)

A fantasy science fiction by Ralph Bakshi.
After nuclear bombs wipe out the world, mutants dwell in radiated areas and magical folk live in the good lands. A faery queen gives birth to 2 wizards, one good and one evil. The evil wizard goes to the mutant areas and builds an army while the good wizard travels the land helping people. After their mother dies, the wizards have a conflict to the death.
This is one of my favorite films. It's a toss-up between this and The Princess Bride. Both offer fantasy and adventure with lots of variety and epic quests. The animation in this mixes rotoscoping with regular cartoon style animation at will and it turns out for the better. The plot is epic and the characters are unforgettable. I'm rating this best because it's one of my favorites and my first review didn't do it justice at all.

Coonskin (1975)

A crime film by Ralph Bakshi.
A pair of black prisoners plan an escape and their black friends plan to pick them up. The older of the prisoners tells the younger a story while they wait.
There were a few intentional similarities between this and Song of the South. What I'm talking about is the briar patch sequence with the window and the garbage can and the tar baby sequence at the boxing match. Again Bakshi proves himself as the master of mating live action and cartoon. This time, it's in abrupt changes between the 2 media, instead of rotoscoping. If you remember correctly, Ralph Bakshi can do no wrong, so I'm rating this awesome.

Fritz the Cat series (1972 & 1974)

A comedy by Ralph Bakshi.
An anthropomorphic cat smokes cannabis and gets involved in wild adventures.
Ralph Bakshi does a good job on these films. The soundtracks are full of wah-wah guitar sounds and overdriven organs. These films were referred to as "dirty Disney" at some point in history for obvious reasons. There is cartoon nudity throughout the set. I liked the idea of using crows for black people. I'm rating this good.

The Lord of the Rings (1978)

An animated fantasy directed by Ralph Bakshi.
A mixed group of adventurers embark on a quest to destroy an evil ring.
Bakshi and rotoscoping go together very well and Tolkien helps too, but this film is incredibly long and gets boring. Another video technique used by Ralph Bakshi in this film is called posterization, but I was unable to find an adequate definition. I'm rating this adequate because it's cool, but long and a little boring.

American Pop (1981)

A musical by Ralph Bakshi.
The son of a rabbi goes to America and his subsequent family gets involved in every era of the American music scene.
This film was done in rotoscope by Bakshi, so the animation is the absolute best. The characters are very good and the plot is deep. The music was generally good, although some was a little stale. I saw something a little odd when Tony leaves his room. Is that his dresser or a satanic altar? The worst thing about a good movie like this is that there isn't much to say. I'm rating it awesome.

Heavy Traffic (1973)

An animated drama directed by Ralph Bakshi.
A young artist who lives in New York city with his fighting parents gets a black girlfriend. His father, who is in the mob tries to put a price on his son's head.
This film mixes various animation styles with live action. Thoughts of the characters and songs heard by them turn into mini-episodes of animation. There are lots of sexual situations prtrayed in this movie, but they are all done in Bakshi's classic style. Now let's see... a Ralph Bakshi film... How could I possibly rate it?
Better than good! This was AWESOME!

wizards

this is an awesome film by my favorite animator, ralph bakshi. set in a fantasy world of magic, fairies and, of course, wizards, this movie follows the adventures of a typical D&D questing party on their way to beat the bad guy. what a surprise! along the way, they are waylaid by groups of mythical humanoids. the real deal is that the bad wizard sent out robot assassins to kill off all of the magical people in the world and one of these killers is captured by the good wizard and his buddies. the robot becomes their inept guide when the good wizard decides that his counterpart needs to be slain due to his warmongering.
I wouldn't trade the cartooning for a mile high stack of dragonball z, but there is a style of siluoette animation that is a real eyesore. it looks like film stock from old war movies was imposed on a smoky background in an effort to look psychedelic. it didn't work. the musical score sounds magical, with heart felt melodies for the heroes and upbeat marches, calls to battle and german nationalist music for the armies of evil. the voice casting fits the characters very well.
this is a definite must see, even if you have to pay for it!