Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sweepin' Joe's Ep 4.]

I suppose it's kind like several TV shows.

Sex in the City, Friends... I don't find them that funny or amazingly interesting, but they interest me just enough to sometimes keep me watching if I happen to see the programme start on TV.

Obviously the style of humour is different here, but it's very similar for the reasons I watch it. I suppose I'm mildly bored - have stuff to do that I don't want to start right away - and when I see the start of something like this, I can't help but wonder how it will end.

The series has been technically good throughout, but only once has it made me chuckle.

The 2 hallucinations were mildly entertaining I suppose and looking through the 4 pages of reviews, it's obvious you have some real fans of the series.

I suppose you can pat yourself on the back. No matter what you make, there will always be some who don't find the humour funny, don't feel emotion when they're supposed to or whatever. But no-one has really faulted your graphics or sound and I suppose that's a testament to the quality of work that you produce.

Good work, but I won't be eagerly awaiting the next episode.

[Sweepin' Joe's Ep. 3]

Funnier than the others

This one actually made me chuckle with the 'near', 'far' bit.

However, the rest of the stuff he did wasn't that amusing to me and whilst I enjoyed this because of the chucle, it still isn't that great.

Your graphics and voices remain excellent though and I like the short background tunes you've used.

You just need to practise your joke-telling and story-telling, I suppose...

[Sweepin' Joe's Ep 2]

Not that funny...

I was hoping the wittering in #1 would give way to some zaniness, but was really disappointed.

I liked the animation when he span into the air, and the lip synching seems slightly better here.

However, it still seems to be appealing to some sense of humour different from my own...

And yet, the potential offered by the current position does make me eager to watch #3.

One criticism I'd make is the lack of a play button at the start as I think it's better to have the play button than make it play automatically.

Still, it's well made and professional-looking in terms of graphics and sound.

[Sweepin' Joe's Ep 1]

I really liked the graphics.

However, whilst your art was excellent, there were a couple of animations that didn't seem as good - in particular, the walking at the start and the lip synching.

The voice of the main character makes his words a tad difficulat to understand.

However, it seemed interesting enough and definitely makes me want to watch episode 2.

[All Your Pie]

This movie is testamount to your abilities.

It's truly impressive that you've taken an idea so seemingly mundane and unworthy of a flash movie that most would overlook it and turned it into something not only watchable, but something which I found myself luaghing at more than I've laughed at something in ages.

So many great pastiches of other cartoons other forms of entertainment reside within this cartoon. I specially liked Lenny's appearance and the duck.

The voices are great. You've done a great job making the characters both semi-realistic and amusing. I specially liked you part where the guy smirks about his 'self control'.

However, the movie isn't without faults.

At the part where Kerrigan says 'I'll be back in a minute', the clock flashes back a couple of times.

The 2nd time I watched the movie, Lenny never appeared. However, he appeared the 3rd time. (Which I'm watching whilst writing this review.)

Some of the subtitles are mispelt. (At the bit where the pie starts talking. Normaly? Perpare?)

However, the faults are minor (as you can see) and the extra features at the end and the fact that the clock tells the correct time helps this become a truly well-rounded package which I'd reccommend highly.

One thing I don't get at all is the Mentos ending. I take it it's based on some American cartoon? In any case, its random nature just made me chuckle and overall I have this to say:

'Great work, Joseph! Keep it up. :)'

[-= PEE MAN II =-]

Another high-speed collage of ideas.

I'm starting to doubt if this is this format is without flaws.

Whilst it was a rocket-ride the first time around, by the time I watched the 2nd episode, the novelty of the high speed had worn off.

The main plot took me 3 watches to totally understand (the 'lemonade' helping to form the monster) and I feel that that's a bad thing.

Maybe you could have explained the plot via some flashing text screens or sound effects, to aid us in understanding it first time around?

I chuckled at the girl falling though and that's a real achievement.

I didn't like the graphics as much though, since the limited pallete of the original seemed more stylish to me. Maybe if the opening scene with the girl falling had as much colour as the rest, it might have been more pleasant in appearance due to its greater unity.

Also, the parts where the P was reversed due to you just re-using graphics looked a bit poor... I mean, it'd just have taken a couple of minutes to re-draw the P...

I liked some of the effects you used - I specially like the softening of the outline round the text on the title screen, the various gradients you used and the rising-sun pattern on the opening sequence.

I specially liked the whole speedy credits as well.

Overall, I'm starting to have doubts about the format. But you do what you set out to do (I think) and do it well.

Good stuff. :)

[-= PEE MAN =-]

I liked the style,

I know the graphics were probably a result of you trying to make this as fast as possible, but they really do look great and really stylish.

I'm rather envious of you being able to make such an excellent full animation in only 40 minutes...

The movie was far better than I expected it to be. Pissing into the baby's mouth... sick...

Also, I liked the fast-paced nature of the animation and your choice of music.

Surprisingly enough (considering the fact that some thought seems to have gone into the whole thing) I didn't laugh, but it was so fast-paced that I didn't have a chance to get bored.

It would seem to me that Pee Man is actually a super villain, considering the fact that he just drowned the entire globe in piss...

One thing I would criticise is the lack of a pre-loader and replay button. Apart from that, it seems great.

[Bills bday]

Good song at the end.

However, the actual movie was terrible and the quality of the aforementioned song was too low to make it as enjoyable as it should have been.

The voices you recorded were too hard to understand.

I suggest you use subtitles if the voices are going to be hard to understand like this.

The graphics were terrible and all in all, I'm surprised this wasn't turd of the week with a score that low...

[Cleaver Country IV]

Voices were a bit hard to understand.

I had to watch it twice to understand what they were saying and then realised that it was a mildly amusing joke, that may have made me chuckle had I been able to understand them the first time around.

Maybe you could have an option to have subtitles?

Also, it was a bit hard the first time around to make out who was saying what on the phone. Maybe if you had some text appearing with their name as they first appear it'd aid people in understanding it faster and thus laughing at the joke?

Lastly, I didn't like the fact that the end screen seemed to be a button that didn't do anything. (I had to right-click rewind to replay.)

I really like your graphical style though. It looks to me like you've used Photoshop and Flash in conjunction, and to nice effect.

I liked the edited photo at the end and also the text.

In short, I liked the graphics.

But some optional subtitles would really help this, I feel.

OakieMeadows responds:

Hey, Now that's what I call a review.
Thanks for taking the time, and I appreciate the contructive critism, really. The voices on the phone were suppose to sound like they were coming from the reciever, thus making the scene the listener, saving me from having to do mouth syncing. I guess I should have filtered it more.
Yup that's photoshop ... you probally recognized the charcoal filter ...
A simple process really. two frames of background and a cutout with the almighty "PEN" tool for the charectors.
Thanks
Oakie Meadows