Bezman's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[CC - Mozilla Ep. 1]

all chu

+++ Ending made me chuckle.

+++ I like the fact that there's a Mozilla clock.

- Slightly overly basic and unstylish graphics for house/trees.

- In a way, I'm not sure the logo is great for a clock. Whereas the fruits and whatnot work as they've got a strong outline and simple texture, the detailed 'texture' of this kinda confuses the eye and doesn't allow it to rest on the clockface at firstglance.

- Confusing ending. Why'd he have to go into the navy bit? Did he suddenly lose his free will?

?? Maybe include subtitles? Voices were too quiet so had to restart and put on headphones.

++ Glad you didn't include the full song.

==
A small chuckle.

FattyWhale responds:

I guess he just wanted to join the navy

[Textual Adventures]

do more and polish

+++++ I love to see folk using text for pictures.

---- I think you maybe should've extended that into all the spikes/rock/chainsaw etc.

+++ Start of story was interesting, with kinda-shared name.

---- I found the second act of the story a bit tiresome and confusing. I didn't realise he was on about YuGiOh until he mentioned it. It didn't amuse.

-- ugly bg. where are they meant to be anyway? Poor drawings. The KM looks good for a tutorial to give some slight texture, but not for a movie.

+++ Various stock sounds used for comic effect were interesting.

+++ Great song to finish.

++ Lovely outlines on the stressed font.

==
Interesting and kinda fun to watch.

I think you should do more and polish up your style! Tell more stories maybe? Try more things?

In any case, stay funky.

Frenzy responds:

---- I found the second act of the story a bit tiresome and confusing. I didn't realise he was on about YuGiOh until he mentioned it. It didn't amuse.

Oh, well you weren't supposed to trealize it was Yu-Gi-Oh unitl then. Anyway, thanks.

-- ugly bg. where are they meant to be anyway? Poor drawings. The KM looks good for a tutorial to give some slight texture, but not for a movie.

Yeah, the KoolMoves watermark is annoying, but what can I say? I only have the Demo! It was supposed to be an 'arena'.

Thanks for the great review!

.frenZy.

[Copy Ninja vs. Copyright]

pimp it

That's a real Naruto thing? A copying eye?

I'm sure it would be a great laugh for those who were familiar with the technique.

But I feel that for those coming to it fresh, the title basically gives away the entire plot as soon as we know about this eye-thing.

Though you make a couple of attempt at further jokes along the way, the plot failed to entertain me overall.

Animation was limited, but not much more so than most anime. The actual drawings on the other hand could have used a bit of clean-up. They did the job but were just a bit rough around the edges. And think about the way you outline stuff a bit more.

Stay funky. Hope this gets to the Naruto fans who'll appreciate it more. I think there's a Naruto club in the forums. You should pimp it there.

DannyP responds:

I tried to make the movie still entertaining for people who weren't Naruto fans (I explained the "Sharingan" before getting the movie going).
For the animation/graphics, I wasn't trying to make some exact anime thing or anything like that... I just wanted to make the characters look how they should using my normal drawing style mixed a bit with anime style. I wasn't trying to make front page or anything, just a decent Flash... like the rest of my works...
Thanks for reviewing. Good to hear from the people who know Naruto as well as those who don't know it.

[DS Birth of an Island]

ld be used again fo

++++++ Teaches me stuff I didn't know before.

+++++++ Having the quiz at the end was a great idea. Only the first question actually challenged me (I'm tired). I had to kinda think for a bit before answering. The others were rather easy, but it works well to get the stuff to stick in your mind.

-/2 The 2 screens that are displayed in 2 seperate parts (penultimate and final screen) have really short pauses between the samples. It's like you're hurrying there and it kinda breaks the tempo of your speech.

-- Gfx kinda messy in the animation.

- Kinda quiet sound,

--- In the first pic of the earth, I wasn't sure what was what. I think you could've picked better colours - maybe have actual black with white spots for the bg, then the more typical red/yellow/brown for earth, with a tiny greeny-brown line round.

---- In the first pic of the lava rising, I thought the green was water. I think you could have had labels and better colours. Maybe use scanned-in textures. That'd be a lovely effect.

--- What makes the lava rise in that particular spot? I watched 3 times, but couldn't really understand what sparks it all. I think it's just kinda chaotic and no-one really understands what these convection currents will do next. Is that right?

-- I felt the 'extra info' text was vaguely confusing and pics/diagrams could have helped me understand it without having to re-read it so many times.

- No links to further info

++ As always, I love the quick intro. Nice blackletter font with a fairly sharp dragon.

==
Really enjoyed it. As I mentioned above, the animation/quiz combo is a great idea and one that can/should be used again for sure.

Don't think bgm would be a good idea.

Looking forward to #2.

IceDragon64 responds:

Glad you liked it.
- One of the D&S suggested the quiz, I will pit in two more questions when I do the major rework in 2007.
-i will review all the naration in the rework.
-what is gfx?
-I am new to sound and I will get the D&S to help me improve it.
-I will improve the graphics of the diagrams.
-Most volcanoes are the result of friction heat from the sliding of techtonic plates past each other, but volcanic islands are usually caused by movement further down. The established description of 'hotspots' in the mantle is being questioned lately, but the way i see it, you are more or less right- its like trying to guess where the bubbles come up in boiling soup!
-I will check out the extra info text. I didn't know if people would read it, but now i understand that the kind of people I attract DO want to know more and more!
-I still dont know how to put in hyperlinks or I would! Please let me know someone? sometime!
-Very proud of our dragon
-thaks for the warning about bgm
SO glad you were kind enough to review me and take such trouble. I am determined to make improvements and I will reread all my reviews in detail when the time comes.
Humour 4? I cant offhand guess what you found funny, but I will look again!

[Tank_Sm.gif]

flash about such an

+++ The little animation you repeated was rather effective, with good manipulation on the big tank.

+ Music's tempo is fitting.

- though maybe a heavier bassline would have upped the drama?

-- I think it could have all been more dramatic with big exclamation marks.

--- Maybe have screenshots to pinpoint the actual location. As it is, it took a wee bit of searching to see what you're talking about.

++++ Crazy subject matter

==
It's all rather bizarre, making a flash about such an insignificant thing. The very fact that you made this kinda amuses me.

Maybe you could have mentioned all the good things that the icon has done. Maybe started it with a little bit of text saying something like, "Always ready to greet us to the forums... even unnoticed, it will do its work without hesitation."

"Bringing a new style to the logo and one of the smallest tanks on the internet, this is a vehicle that deserves to be awarded with medals".

Anyway. To be honest, I really don't care about this icon. Plus ca change.

Not-Stuff4u2kno responds:

Thanks for the support and the suggestions/feedback. ^^

[Random Weekend Project#1]

ques and not

+++ Cool music.

+++ Some nicely drawn vectors/shapes. In particular, I liked the car (specially when shown larger at the end), the birds, sea, lobster thing...

---- The shape-tweening sections (man to fire, that kinda stuff) looked horrible).

- When you got the car to follow the path, you should've tried to get the path to be around the line, so the wheels would be on the line rather than the centre of the car.

---------- Starts automatically. Seriously, don't do that. Have a play/replay button.

--- The thick brush 'shapes' in the boxes, with the default gradients doesn't look too good. Solid colours or custom gradients could've been much better.

+++ Constant change.

++ cool wee thing in bottom-left.

==
Kept me amused. Some simple techniques and nothing too fancy, but put it all together and it made me smile.

I'll dock a point for the auto-start though.

baomon responds:

Thanks for the review. I'll keep in mind the point about the auto-start for next time.

[Zelda: Sneaking In]

lot of sh

Watched movie, read comic, watched movie again.

I found it interesting to compare the two - a lot of the graphics are shared, but the jokes seem to work better with the animation. Perhaps partially because the computerised lettering isn't as good at getting the emotion across? (You should maybe do hand lettering) Also, in the comic, you seem inclined to use exactly one panel per scene, not varying the size. Maybe vary the number or size to help set the pacing?

Anyway, the movie:

+++ Initial reveal of what they were gonna sneak into made me chuckle.

+++ I like the direct translation of the pictorial speech bubbles.

-- Terrible colours on title screen. Green text on a green bg? Dark green on dark brown?

- Crappy 2-frame lip movement

--- When Link's looking down, that bit goes on too long. The sound is too long and maybe could/should have been cut just a tad.

-- crappy tweens (for right at start and link's head)

+++ Transvestitism amused.

++++ The ending made me chuckle on both occassions I watched.

+++ Lively voice-acting.

==
Despite a lot of shortcuts taken with the graphics, I really enjoyed watching.

LilDwarf responds:

Ok :)

[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