Score: 7

"Yeah, you pretty much nailed it. :)"

submission: Newgrounds in a Nutshell!

date: March 4, 2009

Excellent parody. I hate almost all of that stuff. Luckily, there are still some great, tasteful, artistic films that can be found, which are the main reason I still visit this site. Granted, most of them aren't as popular as the stuff you make fun of in the video (with a few exceptions, i.e. Brackenwood), but nothing's perfect, I guess.

Score: 5

"Not funny"

submission: Dubya-Doo 6: Last Episode

date: January 21, 2009

The "Obama glow" was kinda funny, but most of it was a poor attempt at humour. It reminded me of the Mallard Fillmore parody in "America the Book"; a whole bunch of other-side bashing followed by "Ooops! I forgot to tell a joke!" The main reason it wasn't funny was because the balance of truth to exaggeration was way off. The characters are no more than caricatures of their public personas, and the interaction between them does not feel real. The dialogue feels very forced, and it is too obvious that the voice acting is all by one person (Obama is particularly bad; he sounds nothing at all like Obama). Far from sophisticated political commentary, the humour is like a poorly-aimed sledgehammer, always aiming at the lowest left-wing conspiracy-theory denominator. And I say this even though I agree with many of the points in the video. Yet I still found the presentation to be very bad.

Though doubtless it works for some, particularly for the younger crowd, more of whom are likely to have a simplistic enough view to find it funny.

Score: 8

"Well..."

submission: Sealed History (Part 1B)

date: January 13, 2009

The art is fantastic. This is one of the most unique things I've seen on Newgrounds in my 5 years of visiting this site. In context, it seems like something completely out of another world. It isn't, of course, not if you've seen German expressionist woodcuts from the 1920s. But it is very unusual in this day and age. The animation was also done surprisingly well.

The music fit the film well, although I did not find it to be memorable.

I think the biggest problem here is that we are given little reason to CARE about what is happening. You introduce a bunch of unknown gods who are promptly either destroyed or transformed, and the only thing you tell us about them is that some are "good" and others are "evil". Why should we care whether the "good" ones win or lose? What hangs in the balance? Basically, who are they "good" FOR? What some may call "evil" is also beneficial for some, so it is hard to take the narrator at his word.

You've succeeded in making it be "epic", but epic things need to be grounded by something that feels real; for example, LOTR was grounded by the hobbits and Sam Gamgee in particular. The Greek and Roman gods exhibited characteristics that were well-known archetypes to the people of the time; something to relate to. Lynd Ward's woodcut novels of the 1930s, while being dramatic as hell, spoke to issues that people could relate to.

You need something similar, I think.

Also, on another note, try to not have the film automatically repeat from the beginning once it fiished.

Score: 5

"You do know your target audience..."

submission: $00pah NiN10Doh!

date: January 12, 2009

...that much is clear.

And I'm not it. While I did/do like playing Nintendo games every so often, it wasn't nearly often enough (or recently enough, anyway) to understand most of the humour and references in this collab.

Young males who have played a lot of Nintendo video games and enjoy watching Adult Swim or SpikeTV will most likely love this. And I think that describes most of the people who visit Newgrounds, so it is no surprise that this flash is doing well here. Just about every Nintendo game that I can think of is parodied, from Tetris and Duck Hunt to Zelda and SSB, and people who're familiar with them will appreciate the references. The humour is fast, extreme, in your face, and often vulgar, as seems to be the fashion these days. A lot of effort has clearly been put into the art, animation and voice acting, which are similarly devoid of subtlety; bright colours, exaggerated forms, BIG movements, deliberately over-dramatic acting, etc. And of course the sex appeal. There are some great imitations of "Girls Gone Wild" videos in here. The effort was wasted on me because I find that stuff silly and uninteresting in the first place.

So my rating is 5/10; "average". I can't give you anything less because you've all clearly spent a lot of effort on this and because you've been very successful at accomplishing what you set out to do. But I can't get away from the fact that I just plain didn't like it very much. There's no way to honestly explain the reasons in detail without sounding condescending (even without intending to), so let's just say "different strokes for different folks". Some people need big, bold strokes, while others have sharper vision.

Score: 9

"I have to say..."

submission: There She Is!! final step

date: January 8, 2009

...I never was and probably never will be partial to this style/genre of animation. Having said that, my respect for this series has grown to be quite high. I only realized this a little while ago, but I've somehow come to think of these characters as real people. That usually only happens to me when I read novels. The character development is very well-done, all without saying a word (though you have to pay attention). And the way they're drawn is fantastic... in particular, I loved the contrast between the outlaw bikers and the rich cat family.

My favourite episode remains #4, which was when the series took the leap from fun but uncomplicated films (both in terms of story and in terms of characters) to something with a more mature undertone. I think that (for me) was when the characters became something more than just lines and animation on the screen, more than disposable cartoon figures.

And this is a suitable finale. The defining moment is near the end, when the male cat for the first time openly and unashamedly shows how much he loves his rabbit partner. That was beautiful. The whole film was.

There were a two things that I didn't understand, though - what the significance of the green knots around the tree branches was, and why the cat tore up the plane ticket that he was given.

Maybe someone in a subsequent review can explain?

Score: 5

"Er. What?"

submission: Gher 2

date: January 7, 2009

It was mildly amusing in a random way (well, there were also one or two nice jokes, such as the prof rating himself), but it still wasn't a very well-made film. Animation and art were fairly good, but it felt like there wasn't a whole lot of thought in it. And a lot of things went by too fast. The newspaper in the beginning, for example, was impossible to read at the speed it scrolled down.

Score: 7

"I enjoyed watching that"

submission: Somnium

date: January 7, 2009

Although it moved a little slowly at times, I was glad that I got the chance to see it. It is indeed very dreamlike; you were very successful in capturing that feeling. I also loved the colours that you used. The weakest part of it was probably the character drawings; they didn't seem quite right most of the time. So I do feel that it's a little underdone and thus give you 7/10, but it's a "good" 7/10, if that makes sense.

And yes, all art is just stealing the best bits from life and other art. :)

Score: 8

"Super!"

submission: Frank Jones

date: January 6, 2009

That song just made my day. Excellent execution, and a good story too. The animation was also nice. On the whole, the film felt a bit unpolished in some spots, which is why I refrain from giving a perfect score. But this is certainly one of the best concepts that I've seen this on Newgrounds this Christmas season.

Score: 8

"Simply charming!"

submission: Snowbot

date: December 31, 2008

I think that this is a great little animation. I loved how many events were timed to specific notes in the music, and I loved the animated acting.

The quality was very good, and no wonder - I see that you're the author of "Sloppy Fight 2", which numbers among my favourite NG submissions.

We'll both be "competing" in the Christmas flash contest, and I wish you luck.

Score: 7

"A review of the first version"

submission: Christmas Romance

date: December 29, 2008

Well, I reviewed the "new" version already, but I'll also review this older version. I think that some things here are more effective. In particular, the film starts at a more accessible and interesting place; I think that the added-on scenes at the beginning in the new version are unnecessary; they aren't as interesting and don't add anything that isn't revealed in this older edit of the film, plus they begin without any music. Also, I liked the snowflakes in this film a lot more, as they look more interesting and it is clear that they are snowflakes. I wasn't sure what those white circles were in the new version; I thought they might've been specks of dust or something. The film doesn't have the nice animated backgrounds and some other things that the new version does, but on the whole, I think that some of the fundamental elements are stronger, and maybe this is why its rating is currently a little higher.

Also, I find it hard to believe that those extra scenes and animated backgrounds added 15mb to the file size! I have a suspicion that the new file size could've been reduced by a lot without making the film look any worse. Maybe not, but it just seems inefficient. Are all of the animated backgrounds in the newer film just vector images on another layer, or something else?