Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Adolf Hitler:CAI493+D 103]

astonished

I checked in just to see if the series had changed at all, expecting none. Chuckled only at the sight of the 'evolution'.

Frankly, with these episodes the variations are never really enough to elevate it to humour. Seeing hitler mutated as he was here could have actually been an awesome sight had the colour layer and lack of self-shadowing not delayed the realisation of what was going on. Having said that, the leaves were fairly well cropped out and I liked the desaturated background to help distinguish the bg/foreground.

The Japanese music was fun - I liked the suitability of the tropical theme and it made me smile.

However, the humour - for me - is simply in the fact that such a thing is actually being created. Like Desert Bus, which I wouldn't enjoy the act of playing, it beggars disbelief that such a thing should be created. I'm astonished that this series continues, essentially unchanged.

It's that fact alone that made me chortle.

You've elevated yourself to a legend in this corner of the web.

And so coming to rate it, do I rate it on the strength of the episode or on the strength of the series as a whole? When it comes down to it, I must rate not only the concept but the execution too and so whilst I'd happily rate the concept 10/10 simply as appreciation for its existence, to do so would suggest that the execution is immaterial. Ultimately, I'll give the episode what I feel it deserves standing alone and realise the truth in all those protestations of 'it's the words that matter - not the score'.

AfroUnderscoreStud responds:

I'd give these a 0 myself. ;)

[ITLA Pirate Day Collab]

Fun watch

Cool watch! I liked the variety of styles in here and everything raised a smile.

Though I enjoyed Souled's jokes, I felt the length of it slightly ruined the tempo - 3 quick sections and 1 long bit just seems wrong to me and lacking in balance.

Anyway, it was fun to watch with decent presentation.

How come EvilToast wasn't co-authored?

FlukeDude responds:

EvilCactus actually, and he didn't want to be co-authored.

[Phoenix Madness]

Cool joke.

I liked the joke.

Voices should have been clearer though and the animation wasn't too great - I'd have liked to see a bit more body movement and the blood splattering on the wall looked too quickly done.

Otherwise, enjoyable stuff.

[Streamline - FBF]

Surrealism in its classical sense

In a way these animations hark back to the surrealist movement.

It seems to have become a rite of passage for Flash artists - fbf animation of miscellaneous objects morphing from one scene to the next, spending

I liked how the smiley face spitting out the blue/pink looked a bit like pacman, linking us to the previous scene.

The morph into the flag was specially nicely done. A couple - turning into the snowman or the bow/arrow or basketball seemed far less smooth.

Cool stuff in any case. An above-average example of a genre that I like anyway.

Stay funky!

Graeme responds:

the shakiness was on purpose. i feel it added a little substance, and fit the mood a little better.

i agree that some transitions weren't as good as other. and i never really thought about how the smiley guy looked like the pacman. but i can see how that could create a sense of familiarty (word check)

thanks again for a detailed review.

funky and fresh ;)

[Mortal Kombat: Day Off]

Kinda amusing.

I felt the thick lines of the bg didn't go so well with the thin lines of the characters.

Also, the tweened running is terrible. It's generally hard to get motion to look totally natural with tweens, but a tip - watch folk running and see how far they raise their legs in front/behind.

I kinda liked the joke though and good usage of the sample.

Graeme responds:

thanks man. that was my first real full-body attempt. and i know the running looked like shit.

one problem though, is that i used to tweens. i hate using tweens. thats just how shitty the running loop is. it made it look like a tween. if you want you can decompile the movie and see for yourself. i know, pretty sad. haha

[Chalk Doodles]

Not enough real animation!

The little men waving then jumping at the start were great! Lovely to watch. Surprisingly smooth animation, considering you wouldn't have been able to see the previous pic.

After that, it went downhill - no real animation (apart from the breaking stick, which was good but not as smooth as the starting bits) - just shots of a pic being drawn or erased. Really that sort of 'animation' is fair enough to use in small sections, but after the incredible beginning, I was disappointed.

Good stuff nevertheless. Soothing tune.

Graeme responds:

i never thought of it like that. i see your point though. maybe if i make another chalk movie, i'll keep that in mind.

also, my trick for knowing what the last frame was, was that i just kinda dabbed at it with the eraser. then it would be so faded, that i could make it out, but the camera was too weak to notice anything. so then i'd just draw my next frame around that.

tricky, no?

[A Dragon's Revenge]

A definite improvement.

If I were giving aspects ratings, it'd go:
drawings: 6/10
animation: 4/10
music: 8/10
sfx: 8/10
narration: 8/10
premise: 8/10
the way the story pans out: 6/10

This isn't meant to discourage you - just express my opinion. For the record, I'm not saying the average quality of animation is better - quite the opposite in fact!

The drawings are good with some great elements, but I think you need to maybe get away from all that pseudo-realistic jointed tweened animation. I've not seen your other stuff, but maybe do a quick project entirely with fbf - maybe just a stick-man or whatever. But working fbf may really help teach you stuff. At the moment... your guys just seem slightly lacking in energy if you know what I mean.

I was thoroughly impressed with the splicing of the music and whatnot - really gave it a theatrical quality.

Story is great as always and yes - it is a definite improvement.

Now speed onto your next project!

OxSox responds:

I couldn't agree with you more that I need to fbf much, much more. I think that you've hit on THE thing I have to do take my animation to the next (front page,daily award) level. I think I'll probably do another larger project next, but I definitely feel that fbf will be a key part of the next project. Before I started re-doing Dragon's Revenge, I knew I had to improve but I didn't know how, if Ice or redoing the movie has taught me anything, it's how to take my animation to the next level. Now I have to make that into a reality, oh thanks for the review, by the way, and I hope I can impress you more next time!