Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[DS Ibby's Hair Restorer]

end, I jus

+++ The resourceful use of MS sounds was amusing.

-- It was a bit aurally empty though. Some bgm could work well mebbe.

+ The 2 jokes when he was working on the formula raised a smile.

+ The author names (hugh Mann particularly) raised a smile.

---- Most of the story is boring and predictable. There's no obstacles, he just chooses what to do and then he gets it. There's no revelations or interesting stuff that we see after his first success.
Maybe you could have used that to show some funny effects of folk having all this hair... old men being able to woo the grannies... maybe some bald kids with chemotherapy or whatever are able to strut with their new Elvis-style dos?
Or maybe you should've had some actual problem/obstacles arise with the production? Maybe some crazy guy doesn't want him to make the formula? Maybe the failed formulas are making him less and less human, emaciating him and draining his life?

--- The start is too sudden - we're given no explanation as to who he is, and the revelation that he's a baldy comes out of no-where. Maybe the start could have been him walking along a street and people smirking at his baldiness. Maybe he has a dream where he's a guy with loads of hair and then he wakes up, inspired to find a formula when he sees he's still just a baldy? That's just off the top of my head, but basically, something establishing who he is, maybe giving a chance for some personality to come across, would be nice.

-- Art is too basic and not clean either.

+ I do like the 'D' at the start.

==
It kinda made me smile at points, and kept me vaguely entertained, but at the end, I just thought, 'is that it?' I was expecting more really.

I skimmed a few of your previous responses and also saw the stuff when you click the paper and note that there's gonna be some crazy problems with too much hair. That sounds good.

IceDragon64 responds:

Hello again, what a wonderfully thoughtul person you are! IHR has come a long way and it still has a long way to go. Originally I set out only to get earthdragon's 2 second hair restoring face through judgement with a few gimmicky, simpl scenes, but others feel, like you that ther needed to be a 'point'. It gets through judgement OK simply becuase it has all the baisics and lasts long enough. Trust me, the Dragons, with our Spirit friends to help, will work on this. I have promised the final resub in the Spring, with lots more to it. It is much harder to keep improving than to make new from scratch!
With your encouragement, I will carry on, and I will put the key parts into the alphas and PM you.
Best Wishes,
Ice

[How Many Licks "2"...]

the shocking end

+++ Charming drawings. Great retro style.

---- Incoherent sound.

- lines could maybe be a little cleaner. (Regarding the overlapping lines and slightly jerky foot-animation.)

++ Ending made me cringe.

-- Not particularly funny to me.

I read through the review and the fact that you copied the drawings and used the original sounds explains away my first 2 comments.

The fact that I've never seen this advert maybe explains the last.

==
I enjoyed it both for the way it used such simple animation so effectively and also for the shocking end.

Americans will enjoy it even more, I'm sure.

[Cat Syrup]

how you used

+++ Using glitches like that intentionally is something I hadn't seen done before.

+++ Fits into the flow well and is well produced (the glitches, I mean). I specially liked the interpretive dance and the cate repeat.

+ The horrible creatures are kinda nicely drawn

--- A lot of ugliness. I accept that maybe you tried to make it look ugly, but the tweening head, for example, just looks cheap as does the syrup thing.

-- No real message.

-- I didn't find it funny.

==
Loved how you used the visual glitching, but it's not really used for any great purpose here.

I'd love to see these visual glitches maybe incorporated into something, in the style that Negativland do with aural glitches.

[Giraffes Tail]

I picked out

Watched 2x. From the title sequence, Yoshi's Island instantly came to mind.

++++ Great general 'texture' and colours! Assuming you were inspired by that game, you copied the style brilliantly.
I particularly loved that tree.

-- I thought the girl's thin outlines (visible when she zooms in) didn't go well with the style of everything else. Maybe a no-outline style. Maybe a thick band of shading?

Check out 'Damn you, Mr. Ladyboy!!!' (triple exclamation mark) to get an idea of what I mean.

--- When we zoom into the giraffe, I felt the mountain looked excessively messy close-up. Zooming into the 'grass' on the ground by contrast, that still looks fairly good. I don't think you should've messed up the lines (presumably on purpose) quite so much.

--- After the girl spies the giraffe, her walk turns into a limp (one leg moving quickly, as if it's skipping a few frames mebbe).

++ Amusing credits

--- The story feels a bit empty. It's really predictable and the ending doesn't really seem like it has full closure. If she'd gone on a long walk (even if it were mostly 'cut out') and eventually gotten to see the giraffe, maybe I'd come away more satisfied. Or maybe she could've brought out some big megaphone and shouted 'hi' to the giraffe or something.

-- I didn't like the text so much. Maybe you could ask someone like Kagome to voice-act? She could do a great job, I'm sure, and it'd let folk focus more on the graphics.

-- I didn't like the way it stopped suddenly at the end with no replay button. It didn't just stop on a simple small icon either (like at the end of film credits or Nintendo games), which might make more sense.

+++ It's a happy story.

==
I picked out a lot of flaws above, but the joyful colours, combined with the feel-good story let me really enjoy this.

A wonderful piece!

Oh, and a question: How do I call in to get my thing?

[Random Eye Madness]

an awful lot

Watched once. Reviewing whilst watching 2nd time.

++ Nice colours for clouds/stars

--- The stretching's pretty poor. You need to have the sleeves come off the sides of the shirt rather than the front. And having him hold up his arms constantly raised through that line seems odd.

+++ Great bit of animation on the fish jumping

++ Nice face on SLJackson

++++ House astray - nice imagery.

--- Glitchy as the house zooms out and also as Cosby arrives.

+++ Cosby's intro made me chuckle.

--- Re-using the smiley mouth-shapes for when the dude's angry with the tentacle beast is kinda annoying.
You should really redraw the phenomes for the different emotions.

--- TV voices were hard to understand.

---- TV programme wasn't funny for me - and I'd rather you'd stayed within the 'reality' of the dream.

==
Cool anim. Didn't make me chuckle an awful lot, considering its length, but I liked some ideas there and it entertained mostly.

[Kilo]

with the cha

++ why was the stickman slamming himself so hard against the sides? That made me almost chuckle.

+++ Nicely synched to BGM.

-- Changing body size/head shape. Try to keep that kinda thing consistent.

---- Lacks any satisfying elements.
Facial expressions, some sort of explanation, some emotional aspect, maybe properly explaining his motive...

==
I couldn't empathise with the charmless character. It was nicely synched though.

You have some skill, but put more thought into your next piece! And maybe use faces or body postures to convey emotion.

[How To Win Portal Awards]

for what is

+++ Cool idea. Subject matter instantly grasps people's attention. Well that of authors anyway.

-- Poor buttons. Sort out the hitboxes on frame 4. Perhaps use a big rectangle in that frame.

+++ Cool bg logo.

-- Kinda garish text colours and button colours.

---- Really thin on actual info. There's a lot of tips and tricks you can use to get these awards, none of which are mentioned.

--- The bg for the 'voice' version is really boring. Maybe you could have instead had an option - text alone/text with voice?

- Voice option does seem kinda pointless.

++ Cool sounding wee snippets.

==
Nice idea, but for what is essentially just textual information it's just not informative enough.

Frenzy responds:

okay, thanks.

.frenZy.

[Adolf N' Woodrow 01]

ain, but for gi

'6' for gfx mainly for intro and fonts.

+ seems a fair observation.

---- I have no idea who WW is.

+++ German barbie girl+Hitler comparison made me chuckle.

--- Limited nature.

==
Yeah, nothing to watch again, but for giving me a chuckle, I give a 7.

The song is fantastically funny and whilst that's a large portion of the appeal, the appeal is still there.

AfroUnderscoreStud responds:

Woodrow Wilson was the president of the United States of America during WWI

Thanks for the review ^_^

[Birth of Newgrounds]

I come away feeling

+ Great font at the start.

+++ Dramatic music creating suspense and intrigue.

+++ Lovely colours. Specially for the eye and also for the video footage.

+++ The watch is specially nice.

-- Is the kid beating the dude up/the guy jumping the camera meant to be one and the same? If so, the hair looks kinda different...

-- Abd if it's meant to be Tom, whilst it's like him when he's jumping the camera, the bit when he's beating the guy up isn't.

==
Basically, despite watching this 4 times, I'm totally confused. Are these people meant to represent folk? Who's the guy at the end? Is that meant to be someone uploading to NG or some archivist?

And what's with the NG 'paper' at the start? Is that representing some dude tearing up the NG magazine that Tom made?

The fact is though that your great gfx and colours did encourage me to spend a few minutes thinking about it all... so well done I guess.

Another fact though, is that I come away feeling unfulfilled, not any happier and not 'moved' in any way really.

Masonogy1 responds:

Read the Author comments before you watch... Its my interpretation of how Newgrounds.com was developed... It is meant to be a wierd Eerie stylistic approach to the formation of Newgrounds.com! It was supposed to make you think, so i did my job! :)

To be able to understand you really need to know about Tom Fulps past life... I might add a link to the lit page in the movie!