Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sketch--4]

tired

--- When choosing the numbers, we had nothing to base our decision on. We were practically forced to run through it 3 times with the different numbers.

To my mind, it wasn't a game at all, as you made no informed choices and there wasn't an objective. Def. a movie.

--- overly basic gfx.

++ #2 of stickman 1.

+++ the big people of the last stick.

- Most others were kinda predictable and/or unoriginal.

+++ Cool music.

+++ Everything follows the rhythm of the tune well.

==
Only just worth keeping. It's a tired idea and needs to be done better if it's gonna be done for the umpteenth time.

[Stupid Mario Bros]

watching

++ Some ideas seemed fairly original and interesting.

++ Nice use of voices and tunes.

-- Horrible text.

- Badly placed 'yahoo' sfx on title - it plays a tiny part first and leaves a bad first impression.

+ Mildly amusing 'any key' gag.

==
I enjoyed watching. #1 was my favourite. Drowning was a bit too expected as was 'the wrong pipe'. Last one was also cool.

Bitmapped text would have really helped with the presentation and probably would have actually reduced filesize marginally.

[The Internet]

seems to mainly rest

++++ Amusing song.

++ The characters you picked kinda fit the voices well.

+++ Can't see the joins in Bowser's tweening.

--- There should be more body movement. When Mona gets angry, have her whole pose change. As the previous dude said, dancing would be great.

Maybe you could even have disco lights or flowers spring up when the chorus starts.

+ I do like the way you introduce Bowser.

==
Cool movie, but it seems to mainly rest on the audio. Whilst gfx are up to scratch, there could be so much more going on.

[Invader Zim: TMHSE]

seeing what you guys do

I've never seen Invader Zim. I've seen the talented author of Miracle Explosion's fan art, but that's it.

++ After this short, I feel I know the characters in part.

- The silence was unsettling, in a bad way.

++ Lip synching was cool for the most part (one or two occasions where it seemed a /tad/ off).

++++ Lush colours.
I specially love the backlighting on the boy.

- When Zim (I think it's Zim) is talking to the robot, the direction that the light is coming from seems to keep changing.

+++ Made me smile and chuckle slightly. Particularly at the slapping and also the 'not gonna bother'.

==
Cool cartoon. Wish I could see some of the originals, but I don't think it's available in the UK.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys do next.

[Throwback the Duck Ep. 0]

I'm looking

++++ Really lost myself in that flash. As the story unfolded, I practically stopped paying attention to the technical details and just enjoyed the ride.

+++ Great colours.

+++ Shading is done so well...

+++ And it all just works so well together... bgs, character lines... colouring... makes for a beautiful cohesive whole.

++++ Practically flawless animation on a technical level.

- Though as a criticism, I'd say that at some points you could've used the motion to 'telegraph' the duck's emotions a bit better. When he was attacking the Pikmin, he could've looked a lot angrier. That kinda thing.

- The first step into the fictional world (with the duck first speaking, then us seeing the game characters as real people) seemed slightly jarring. Maybe if the other ducks had uttered a few words on-screen before, it would be less so?

++ The voice for the ending is specially great.

++ The girl in the 'teaser' picture seems full of character.

-- I think the jokes could maybe be packed in a bit thicker. I didn't chuckle at all and it was mainly the beautiful animation and voiceover that kept me interested at the start.

++ I did like a few jokes and references. Gold Zelda cart, the job he didn't get, the ease with which he got his current job...

==
Seems a great series. I'm looking forward to ep.1.

I hope the next episode has even more jokes and references packed in.

It's a beautiful piece of work.

[Mentanks]

the material and your own

++ Liked the idea.

-- Though I was hoping that the role reversal would be explored a bit more.

I actually thought it'd be about tanks controlling the men's heads or something. Something zany and surreal like that. I just felt that simply anthropomorphising the tanks was a bit 'easy' and slightly predictable.

+++ The speedy part had me chuckling slightly.

++ The ending is all you.

==
Manages to be faithful both to the material and your own style.

Wonchop responds:

They're just tanks. It's like asking a horse to fix an iPod.

[Caveman Bowling]

by the prehistoric starring character

------- Horrible hit frames for buttons. I'll assume you now understand the effect of frame 4 ('hit')? I think it should always be a filled shape that is at least slightly larger than the visible graphics. For normal buttons, a rectangle works fairly well.

+++ Fuzziness. Nice effect.

? Is it a low alpha mc of a few frames of noise, produced in Photoshop?

+ I generally like the font you use at the pre-loader.

- Though not the 't'. It looks a bit too straight for that font family. Also, I'm not keen on the 'n'. If you can be bothered, maybe edit it?

++ 1st gag (shape it was) made me smile.

- last gag (end) came as a disappointment. I was actually really rooting for the little caveman and interested in seeing what would happen next.

+++ I do love the title's font.

+++ Great music. Sets the mood perfectly and whilst it's repetitive (kinda suiting the theme well), it doesn't get too dull.

-- I think the ending 'dun' should be maybe replaced with an sfx. I think that'd up the comedy value and might have made me actually enjoy the ending.

-- The bowling arm tween is so obviously lazy. When movement looks more like a typical flash tween than what it represents, I think there's a problem.

- Feet are slightly odd-looking.

+ I do like the face.

-- I don't like the trees in the bg much. Maybe a lusher, slightly darker but more saturated green? Or maybe some texture, maybe shadows/some leaf detail?

+ Cool dino at start.

==

Enjoyed it. Short and sweet.

Made me smile and I was charmed by the prehistoric starring character.

Bad-Atom responds:

Re: buttons - I've already been lambasted about the buttons before, I've learned my lesson now. :)

Re: fuzziness - you're right.

Re: ending - I just like dark endings, that's all. I'm a sadist at heart. >:-)

Re: sfx - I wanted to keep it sound-free and let the music carry the story along by itself.

[Michael's Stand-Up]

you haven't done

Watched it. Smiled at various points. Chuckled very slightly.

Then skimmed through the reviews. Listened to it once without watching. Found it to be exactly as funny as before. Then watched it a 2nd time.

It seemed similar in style to Seinfeld (which I watched the first 4 episodes of and wasn't amazingly impressed with).

-- A lot of it is predictable stuff (though the end took me slightly by surprise).

++ The delivery is good though.

I think the pauses and the drama you inject into the mundane was the only real humour for me.

++++ I'd call the audio mixing an awesome achievement. Really clean, and the way you mixed in the laughter and kept filesize fairly small is awesome. Technically, it seems pretty much perfect.

--------- Music or sounds before we click play? Don't do it. Stuff takes time to load. Folk sometimes load stuff whilst listening to other things. Really, it's something that I hate about so many flashes.

++ I really like the bg - the wall texture in particular.

- It would have been a nice touch if you'd made yourself brighter when within the spotlight.

++ I like the title and 'comedy club' fonts.

- The other, not so much.

--- During the line about standing on a box and the 3 foot dude, you rotate yourself horribly from one angle to the next. It looks unnatural and it doesn't really fit in with your semi-naturalistic mood.

-- The lip synching is a bit wonky. Your mouth shapes are off I think.

- I agree with Skaijo - drawing frames between the various arm positions would be good.

+ I liked the attention to the eyes.

+ Also the fact that he was a lot more active than he could've been, moving around and unexpectedly moving forwards near the end.

+ Clean lines in gfx

- Shading would be nice.

==
It's a cool movie. A little slow, but brings a bit of diversity to NG and I enjoying it overall.

I hope to see a similar Flash of your best material. A little disappointed that you haven't done that yet.

Bad-Atom responds:

Yeah, there's a lot of room for improvement, huh? :)

The next one will be 24 fps, which will smooth the movements and make more room for more accurate lip-sync. I barely knew how to tween when I did this, so the movements will be SOOOOO much better. And the lighting will be interactive too.

This is why I waited to use my funniest material - I didn't want to blow it with lousy animation. :)

Glad you liked the audio. On the next one, I'll be adding the option to mute the loading theme. I just can't get rid of it completely - I like the theme and the file size is next to nothing.

P.S. I hate Seinfeld. That is all. :)

[Toe Nail Clippings]

the start made

Had a promising start. I liked the sfx and was intrigued to find out about the boy's reason for his toe-nail collection.

After it turned into a random-fest, it seemed a bit uninspired. So many other movies do randomness better.

And the final static image really left a sour taste in the mouth. Bad note to end on.

Still, the start made me smile.

[Mummy]

shorter and sweeter

----- Starts automatically. You should always at least have a play button at the start. It can be a minor inconvenience and there's no reason for it.

++ Kinda amusing

--- A lot of it seems to drag. We know where the plot's going, we know what's gonna happen... you just drag it out by repeating what's already happened or having them repeat lines.

+++ I do really love the animation of him pointing, then having his arms twist round.

++ Decent voices.

==
It was fairly interesting, with an amusing concept, but the script and movie could've been cut for a shorter and sweeter animation.

Coaly responds:

I actually did cut some. Your comments are noted, thanks for the detailed review.