Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Oooo A Tankie]

Made me smile a bit despite my grumbles.

The starting intro and purple bg work well. The buildings in the bg are nicely reminiscent of the NG header.

I'm not a fan of the art style. I like the self-shaded lines around the shirt and trousers, but black lines around the face look odd to me. And your hands need more work. I guess if you do some life-drawing, it'll eventually come to you.

Also, there was a flashing white line on the left and a white line on the bottom - make sure your bgs cover the entire stage.

Basic plot was funny. And it's cool to hear the MC.

Made me smile a bit despite my grumbles.

PostTimeskipSam responds:

Yea, I still have a problem drawing hands, anyways thanks for the review. Also thanks for pointing that out, but I guess I must have forgotten to shade the characters or something usually I shade them. The thing I really didn't like about it was the way I drew MC. I wish I worked a bit more on the character art for him.

[The Very Best of Bahamut]

I specially liked the parts that flowed

I loved the way you sorta had the clips blend with each other. Though it only really worked with the first two clips, (A_S 'responding' to you) and the 'people often ask me...' through satan though graham's present through newsreporter being thrown out. Still, that second mash was a lengthy bit and worked well.

My favourite parts were the track titles, 'you like village people' and A_S's new voice in general.

When watching this, I noticed how good the futurama parody bg was compared to other bgs. Had you traced that? I just vastly preferred your colour use and use of curves to your normal overly saturated bg colours and strictly straight lines.

This was a fun watch, but hardly had the same effect as a band's 'greatest hits' album - your movies are, for me - somewhat about the plot or element of surprise as well, after all.

-Review Request Club-

kinggila responds:

Yeah, I did trace the Futurama BG, but for the majority, I just draw on my own, so that explains why the Futurama BG looks better than my average BG.

[ÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆÆW]

Meta-humour

This and A_S's work both work on the same kinda level. It's not that anything particularly funny happens here, or in his neverending-yet-curtailed series, more that it's just funny that they even exist.

What kind of person would make a daily-updated series with 300 episodes with such minimalist elements. What kind of person would make a regularly-updated series that updates in intervals of 1 year (and manages to stick to that schedule and bring the series to a conclusion)? You two.

That's just crazy and the concept itself makes me laugh.

'Spinning the wheel'? Apt name. I wouldn't have thought you'd be a George Michael fan. That was aa cool song though - hadn't heard it before.

The series ended in probably the best way it could. Simple, minimal and conclusive.

I rewatched episode 3 before this and really got a lot out of it but can't imagine anyone who wasn't along for the ride previously enjoying it.

Well, consider this 9 more for the overall 'meta-humour' of the series rather than this particular episde in itself.

You and A_S may be pioneers! Though I'm sure there are examples, I can't think of other examples of meta humour. Maybe I should go into an open mic night and just feign death? Or maybe that'd be dickish and boring/annoying rather than funny. Hrm.

kinggila responds:

Actually, Afro_Stud suggested Spinning the Wheel song to be put on this flash. I didn't have much other song ideas, so I gave that song a try and thought it would work out. I'm not a George Michael fan, but his songs are ok.

Thank you very much for those comments Bezman. :)

[Do I eat the...? STWPT]

Made me smile

really short, but it had a couple of decent visual gags going.

I liked the koala wave, raised eyebrow, head-in-bowl, glass hitting him. Full of little touches that really matter!

The backgrounds could be better - the one when you zoom in on the koala looks specially bad - like there's something odd going on, with objects floating in the bg.

Maybe you could have taken a minute to delete those and sketch out an actual bg in the colours you use for the large symbols?

The green one looked cool though.

Lazyfeet responds:

I have to admit I'm appalling at backgrounds, I tried to get away with going for a stylized one. I guess that really didn't work. Thanks for the review blah blah :) I always appreciate them.

[.::1200 FRAMES::.]

I suggest more representational work.

Again with the autostart. Why?

No, I don't think the dot in the lower-left is cool. I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not... it just detracts from the other on-screen action. What there is, anyway.

I felt the movie used far too many non-representational lines. The lines - though ocassionally cool (like when they mix to green, change colour behind object or even in their movement) aren't as fun to watch as the representational objects in 'imagination'.

If you really wanted to have a lot of lines, drawing them more stylishly, rather than always with a fixed width brush, may make it better. Or maybe have more going on at once, with rotated mcs etc., for added visual interest.

I did like the effort, the pixellated bits were a nice change and some movement was great.

It just wasn't as entertaining for me.

RESPRiT responds:

Pshh-aw

[A Moonlight Sonata]

Heh. Unexpected, twisted and kinda funny.

The figure at the start maybe needs longer legs.

The art was simplistic but generally effective. I liked the 'speed lines' with the hand and knife.

When the singing starts, maybe it would have been good to show some surprise on the killer - a raised eyebrow or something.

Music was great.

It really reminds me of some MarcM work.

Well made, even though it happens to not be my preferred style of humour.

Markface responds:

Cheers.

[Frankenstein Trailer]

I wonder what the teacher's/class's reaction was..

I'm guessing that you were sick of this book and wanted to ridicule it a bit?

First things first - I rather like the font you use fod 'Done!' and 'Play!', as well as various other parts. What is that font?

The starting music, along with the expanding circles and foreshadowing text, was beautiful. You would have been able to pull off a more serious effort with your design skills, so it's almost a shame you didn't go this way.

The 'txt speak' joke and the modern speech in the 2nd scene rankle with me.

I chuckled at the edited frankenstein pics. ('liquify' filter in photoshop?)

For the most part though, the humour just didn't strike a chord with me.

Rammer responds:

actually, i enjoyed the book more than most books i'm forced to read in my English classes. i just thought that some characters' actions were a bit odd and overzealous, and some situations just flat out weird. this is more analogous to Egoraptor's Awesome series than the Assassin collection in terms of reasons for creation. :P

the font was "Odd Modern." if you want it, i can send it to you. just PM me your email address.

like i said in my author's comments, my first intention with this movie was to make something more dramatic, and the intro was made with that intention, but i realized that i didn't have like ANY time needed to create the art that would keep people drawn in, so i decided to make the rest of the movie a parody and keep the intro as a funny contrast.

wtf does "rankle" mean? :P

yeah, photoshop ftw :P

eh, you can't please everyone. i'm glad you enjoyed it a bit, anyway. thanks for the review

(also, my teacher and my class thought it was hilarious. at the end of the movie, my teacher said "i guess my mind's in the gutter, then" and i thought that was pretty silly. my teacher's reaction to the bleeped out part in the letter was pretty funny. it was part shock and part laughter :P)

[Beneath the Sheets]

Good work. Didn't expect that!

This wouldn't have been funny if I'd bothered reading your author's comments first.

The dark high-contrast visuals were a great look. The bgm suited the creepy vibe perfectly.

For me, the highpoint of the movie was definitely the 'replay', with the ghost, trip etc. Seriously awesome.

I think the parts after that should have been shortened as much as possible, since it seems like a let-down after that hilarious ghost.

And maybe waiting for a beat (like 1s) after the final line before the music comes in would give us more time to enjoy it.

I was caught off-guard by the juxtaposition of the ghost but even on 2nd viewing, it was still hilarious.

Fro responds:

I'm happy you enjoyed. Thanks for the review.

[When I'm Running]

A fun story.

I liked the screen shake just before the dino entrance.

In the 'intro', there's a lot of crazy stuff in the background - specially with the lorry and overturned car, I thought that was part of your imagination.

The run cycle could be a bit better - when seen from the front, don't have your arms cross over your body - they should be roughly in the same vertical plane as your shoulders.

And maybe slow down the side-on run cycle a bit. What frame rate is it running at? It looks kinda jerky and there's no change in speed - the legs should pause each time they 'kick back'.

I liked the dino though and the sound was well chosen.

It's a fun little thing. Didn't make me chuckle, but left me satisfied after watching.

OxSox responds:

Thanks for your ever observant review Bezman. Yes, the foreshadowing in the background of the intro was supposed to be caused by the imaginary dino, and would by extension also be imaginary. In the "real life" version it was all imagined anyway. The whole movie was at 24 fps, I'll keep your tips for improving my run-cycles animations in mind for next time. Your reviews are always appreciated :)

[The Last Hour: Chapter 5]

Real improvement!

No hyperbolic hype at the start!

An intro of reasonable length!

I'd suggest you take more time over your drawings. In one frame the vatican-clone has eyes at different levels. A disfigurement? Maybe just a mistake, since in the next his eyes are at the same level.

Think about the line width and draw details that matter - like a collar on the head dude.

I could make out most of the words, but some of the white-clad dude's words were still hard to make out.

Also, I'd suggest to the voice actors that you try and tone it down - currently it seems like overacting. There's no need to try and pack every word with malice. Instead, try and build semi-believable characters.

And in the scene with the followers, having all the women and men be identical looked odd.

The movie is still way too short - even though it's a serial, each episode should be satisfying in and of itself. There's been no time to build characters, no time to build up a real atmosphere - this is like

To be honest, I'm guessing that some of the flaws are due to laziness. You could easily pack 2 episodes together and submit them as one. You could surely spend more time on your work, draw mouth shapes approximating the phenomes, add shading or draw more frames, but you simply choose not to.

If you genuinely want to rival APhilips, you need to start putting in more work.

I do like the new 'play button.

Jaiba responds:

thank you. one day adam phillips will be on his knees before me. and i will reign as king of kings. these are just the earliest work of a future legend. and you are all in at it. you are all part of the evolution of jabai. you will speak to your sons and tell them of being the first to see jaiba's earliest works and to see his raise to godliness.

-jaiba the great.