Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Meditation - Lighthouse]

switch off

+++ Starry sky was beautiful.

+++ Wonderful music.

- I got irritated, thinking about how the hill/lighthouse were too bright.

- Sea could be drawn better.

- hill was lacking in texture.

==
This is something of a beautiful piece. Taking it as an opportunity to chill and switch off for a minute, it works wonderfully.

There's just enough going on to keep it from being a simple screensaver, but little enough to help folk switch off a little.

[Yellow Mustard]

How

Main movie:
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+++ Great font. Nice mustardy colour.

++++ Great mix of those 2 tunes sets the tone well.

--- Graphics were a bit messy in places. Disliked the way the graphics moved, revealing cut-line, before arm/end were added.

---- End kinda lacked dynamism. I think some radial lines, some starburst effect, may have worked well.

++++++ Had me chuckling away. Watched it 3 times, bewildered and grinning the 1st time, guffawing on the 2nd, chortling the 3rd. I chuckle now, as I think back to it.
Like my own DYMLB!!! animations, I think the humour is found as what we initially imagine to be a fairly long video gives a sudden cry, that overpowers all else. YELLOW MUSTAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRd!!! Nothing else matters. The video is resolved. And all in an instant, we find it to be a far simpler matter than we previously believed.

==
I laughed. How I laughed.

Thank you.

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extras
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--- Luigi and randomness had little or no humour for me.

++ The 'classic yellow' was a good pic for the song standalone.

?? Maybe 'lyrics' would be good? You could have a little bouncing ball, so we could sing along...

Frenzy responds:

Lol, thanks! Liked the review and tips. Great, great review!

And here are the lyrics!

On my shirt
A little dot
A yellow spot
I got it from
YELLOW MUSTAAAAAAAAARD!!!11

Song by Frank from the Newgrounds Audio Portal

Thanks again for the great review!

~ Z

[Rotting Brains]

animation

+++ When the last guy got to the end, despite (or perhaps because of) the awful animation and lack of characterisation, I really empathised and felt so jubilant. Then I cringed and shuddered as the final thing appeared...

++ The rotting brains story in the 'extras' really has me intrigued.
I have to ask... rotting brains... was this an actual TV show? What kinda traps? Which country was it shown in? How did it get put back on air?

--- Terrible animation. Only tweening. Fbf work shouldn't be above you and it'd help make this a far more interesting watch. As it is, it feels like we're getting an abstract icon-based depiction of what happened, rather than an actual 'movie'.

--- Partially because of the poor animation, it all seemed to really drag on. From around man 3 up until the end of man 5, I was pretty apathetic and kinda bored of it.
At around man 3, I was thinking of another flash, which had fbf men running through a trap-based thing simultaneously. Having it all going on at once made for a far more frantic and frenzied watch.

==
Good to see another animation by yourself, but I really think you should stretch yourself a bit more.

Frenzy responds:

Lol, yeah. This was my first movie that had assed jusgment!

To answer your questions:

was this an actual TV show?

I made it up. Inspired by 'The Running Man' and 'Total Recall'.

What kinda traps?

Lots. Maybe I'll make a sequel, with better animation someday...

Which country was it shown in?

All of them. The world was fascinated.

How did it get put back on air?

Pure human curiousty. Like a snuff film, but with multiple deaths.

---

Thanks for the great review!

~ Z

[Daily2oon07022005]

quality

GFD
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+++ The door closing made me chuckle

+++ Actual 'story'.

--- abrupt ending of tune

--- scribbly lines seem messy. Not stylish.

7/10

TwoStar
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++ Some amusing jokes

+++ Lovely font.

+++ Great music.

-- Some unintelligible audio

------ Voices hurt my ears.

4/10

Vozz
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+Vagualy amusing tune

----- Nearly non-existen animation

==
Would work better as an audio loop alone
3/10

Threestar
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+++ I like the way the boy is drawn

------ Dull, uninspired 'joke'.

3/10

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+++ Nice loading bar analog!

+++ Fairly good presentation for menu

??? Maybe the 7 buttons could have a shadow or something? Labelling it 'buttons' seems silly.

==
I enjoyed a few parts of GFC/Twostar's flashes. Overall though, I felt the quality was really poor.

[The Adventure(s) of Snarf]

a massive factor

+++ I liked the ending, just before the credits. Interesting.

+++ Some well-matched music

++ The newgrounds tagline was vaguely amusing.

------ Voices were often hard to understand. No subtitles, which would help.

---- I hated the bad flash. At first gonna watch it all, like I normally do with stuff I can skip, ('just so I don't miss anything'), I decided that I could stand missing a few seconds of purposely awful animation. Dismayed to see the button didn't work.

-- The self-referential story of 'OMG, we're bad at this artform! Let's make another! Hey! It's still bad!' is overplayed.

-- The way the anchor moves around on your face and the way you only have 2 frames when turning, whilst the anchor moves kinda 'smoothly' is irritating.

==
As indicated above, the fact that I couldn't understand the voices were a massive factor in my displeasure at this.

It all seemed like it dragged on for too long, too.

Rather dull, I felt.

xthesnarfx responds:

My first review that tought me something. My next flash will not dissapoint you.

[Windows Vista SUcks Pt.1]

slightly painful

I feel almost guilty bumping down the previous review. Folks - skip back and read it if you're interested in reading about more Vista problems.

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As you're obviously a bit more technically savvy than myself, I was hoping for some fairly well-researched technical information, maybe presented in a vaguely amusing manner, on the faults and problems with Vista.

This personal account doesn't really hold much weight from a factual perspective. I mean, it's just your experience.

The whole video was horribly slow at times - at one point, when the screen remained static for a while, I wondered if any more would come (right clicked and saw it was still playing so waited longer). Basically, we don't need that long to read text. Maybe stop it and put in 'next' buttons if you want to ensure everyone can read it whilst not aggravating the faster readers?

The loading bar and the buttons did seem really glitchy. At first I thought that was to make us feel as if we were using Vista or something. But the fact that the presentation remained subpar makes me believe otherwise.

==
To be honest, it was slightly painful to watch.

Thanks for sharing the experience though. I wasn't gonna rush out and get it anyway, but I'll maybe be even more cautious now.

jpoke89 responds:

I apologize for that, this was my first flash anything, and it was prior to my class(web design, we had a Flash unit) I will try and make a better version of it. sorry for causing you pain! If you would like so see something better, go and try out my Start button hacking tutorial. Thanks for the review!

[Windows XP Start Hack]

many folk had fun

+++ Clear instructions

--- Near the start, some audio glitching from the left speaker really hurt my ear.

--- No links to programs needed.

==
Not as good a tut as the game, obviously.

I forgot to mention in the other review - you really should provide links and a full list of what we need to dl. The credits on the other one was a good resource, but having clearer 'what you need to dl' list would really help if I ever chose to do this.

I just noticed that you have them in your comments, but why not as a clear, clickable list in the flasH?

Funky tutorial and I imagine many folk had fun with this.

Question - can we put in kanji? I'd mebbe like to have it as: 'Gogo go [ji]!!!' (So the pun of 'go, go, go!!! o'clock' or '5pm').

jpoke89 responds:

Well, I figured int he other flash that if someone wanted to do this, they would just use the Flash, since it instructs you to click your new button and view the credits. plus, NG doesn't like URL tags in the submission comments sometimes... sorry.

[A review by Eric Bauman]

the whole thing

+++ Mildly amusing concept.

-- non-existent lip-synching.

-- Most jokes were a bit obvious.

- Not synched. Set the audio to 'stream' to ensure visuals stay in synch.

==
Maybe the whole thing is kinda too obvious, but whatever it was, I was just underwhelmed by this submission.

The basic idea still made me smile.

[Life Begins to Suck at 40]

reminder of how

++ Amusing angle.

--- Some weaker jokes. ('like the 'ahhh' when you lie on grass and some towards the end)

++++ Ending made me chuckle. (both 'at least....' and 'dedicated to......')

+++ Great, dry, voice.

? Maybe add a written version of the dialogue in, off to the side or below?

==
Although not a game, I can see the problem in categorising this.

I'm personally ambivalent about the format - maybe it'd work just as well with some touches of animation and placed in a movie format. But this way allows you to take more time over the art, I suppose.

Thanks for the chuckle and the reminder of how good I still have it.

[=Phoenix Wright Tribute=]

PW is low

+ Vaguely amusing loading screen.

++ I (think) the sentiment is well placed.

---- Horrible, ear-hurting audio

---- Not funny.

==
Yeah, PW is low-effort stuff technically. But this doesn't really enlighten or amuse me at all.