Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Robotech Episode 1 REMAKE]

Wow, amazing stars!

I can't figure out how you managed to make such a realistic background of stars... anyway, this flash is very well-made, its only downside being that it can be a little slow sometimes, and the music is sometimes too quiet. Also, there's one sound clip missing near the beginning - you should fix that.

Overall, a great space exploration adventure flash.

[Banana Fingers EP.4]

Not much graphically, but hilarious!

This is really hilarious and the voices are great. What makes it so funny is how UNLIKE David Firth's flashes they are. Nevertheless, it's a very good parody. I especially loved the Seinfeld satire - I have honestly never in my whole life heard jokes that were THAT bad - I salute you for this great accomplishment!
The musical selections were fitting as well. The only really bad thing about this are the graphics, which keep me from giving this a higher score.

This flash has about 150000 views as I'm writing this... no mean feat!

[Pallid Fingers]

Good parody

This one's a parody for those who LIKE Salad Fingers, as I doubt that those who hate it will find this very entertaining or notice the humour. What is it about SF that inspires so many parodies? Whatever it is, this one's worth seeing - you successfully made fun of most of David Firth's techniques, while at the same time being respectfull to them (in the way that Star Wars parodies are respectfull of the source material). The only thing I didn't really like was the very rough manner in which the main characters were drawn - I would've preffered a change of style halfway through the flash in the way that they were drawn, to match the surroundings.

[Taco-man: Hot Coffee]

Not bad

You're definitely one of my favourite artists on Newgrounds, along with Ola Bergner, Scarydoll and Adam Philips (strange combination, I know). This submission isn't among your best, but that's understandable since it's short and was done to fit a schedule. To be honest I thought that your previous weekly cartoon "Explosive Journalism" (only available on your website) was a lot better and should've been submitted to Newgrounds as well. Still, this is pretty good.

Good luck with the score on this submission... I hope your "fan website" + forum is up soon - your flash website makes it a little hard to find out what's new because the news is split up into so many sections. I'm looking forward to your upcoming cartoons, especially Linda's foray into "the rapture"!

[Chavs]

Good song, bad graphics.

I liked this overall - the song was pretty funny, and it's educational as well (for those who don't live in Britain). The graphics were just good enough to complement the song sometimes, but other times they were really lacking.

Mainly, they were simply too stationary: you shouldn't have been so lazy on that front and put some more animation in because it would've made a BIG difference. The Chavs were fairly well-drawn, if what I've heard about them is any indication (the only reason I know about them at all is because I read a Toronto Star article about them once) but why is everyone's mouth so far on the side? It looks really, really wrong - I'd reccommend that you move the mouth more to the centre if you ever make another flash (or perhaps fix this one up).

So overall, good job, but this could have been SO much better if only the graphics were as good as the song.

Mozer responds:

Yup, animation does lack somewhat, it was when I was starting out making flash that I made these. They will get better, I promise :)

[Zito]

I love this!

What an excellent style you have - it makes watching this cartoon so much fun! The characters are engaging, the colours just right. Good storyboarding and nice humour as well.

There were a few small things I didn't like, the biggest one being the tree-jumping sequence. It seems like your inspiration for that was Adam Phillips' flash "Prowlies at the River", except that it's not pulled off nearly as well - something else might've been better maybe, like showing Zito clambering down from the tree that he's in.

I hope to see more from you in the future!

[Decline of Video Gaming 3]

I don't know...

The graphics in this one are really good (nice animations), and the voices and music are excellent, but I just didn't find about 95% of the jokes funny (although the satires on Japan were good, as well as the Metroid thing). I haven't actually played many of the games that you mentioned, so that's probably why.

One more note: The PSP CERTAINLY has disadvantages, one of the biggest being if you're into the emulation scene (Sony forces firmware upgrades with new games, so basically every time you buy a new game all of your homebrew programs and emulators could suddenly stop working). It would've been funny if you'd mentioned that, maybe (and if you don't know about the emulation scene, then you're not really true gamers ;P).

[Patience]

Well done, but the moral is quite strange.

I don't know, maybe it's a cultural thing or something. The flash was excellently presented, with good graphics, good sound, and even nice humour (the church scene with the little old lady fervently holding the cross was a funny stereotype). However, I just don't see the moral making sense at all - instead of feeling sad and dejected you should take more of an interest in the world around you. Instead, this flash seems to advocate the opposite - DON'T take an interest in the world and people around you and BECOME sad and dejected. Seriously, I've been in those situations before shown in the flash, but most of the time they were my own fault - I certainly wouldn't advocate having the attitude of the guy in the flash (which seems to me is "hey, it's EVERYONE ELSE'S fault that everything's wrong, so screw THEM; I'm goin my own way").

[ONE GUN]

Whoa!

This is a bit strange - some parts of this flash are made extremely well, while a few others look typical of "newbie" work and cheapen the whole thing. What I really liked were part 1 (the editing and the little picture frames were great), the way you drew most of the faces, and the excellent car chase (I especially liked how you made the 3-D cars look similar to your roughly-drawn 2-D cars; even the windows on the 3-D cars are slightly out of shape, which looks great!). Now for what I didn't like: the face of the guy who was guarding the house was terribly, terribly drawn (you should really redraw it). Also, when the cars drive along the road, the lines of the road should be CURVED INWARD as they head into the distance, not straight (try it, it'll look better). The story was derivative as well, but... meh, I'll let it slide because there are so many other good things here.

I notice you made the music yourself too, which is unusual and worth giving credit for, so I gave you an extra point for that. Overall, great job - it's obvious that you spent a lot of time on this.

[B/W Cartoon About Berries]

Portrait of a serial killer?

When I look at this followed by Roof Tiling, a lot more things DO seem to make sense... was it your plan all along to have a prequel?

You basically reused most of the graphics from Roof Tiliing, but it's still quite good. I think the drawings should be a little more polished, actually - I like your style but I do think you should work on refining it & learning to draw a realistic view of your characters from any angle.

However, the voices, sound, story and editing are simply class. An excellent insight into the mind of a possible future wife-killer. Although it does make me a little scared that you should understand their minds so well... oh yeah, and the talking crow was quite funny.

One thing about the subliminal flashes that you use: I think they should sometimes be on the screen a LITTLE longer... it's not fun if they flash by so fast that the viewer gets no idea at all of what's on them. If it's a really simple shape or word then fast is ok, but if it's something more comlicated a little longer would be better.