Esn's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Le Petit Americain Ep. 2]

An excellent flash, but there's something missing:

An interesting core at the center of it all. Even though your animation, voices, music selections and pacing were really great, and certainly enough to hold my interest, I just didn't feel like there was an actual story behind it all. Although this flash is very good as it is, most of its humour relied not on what happened in the actual story but on the various colourfull diversions from it, and I think that it would be better if should you choose to make another flash, you try and make the actual story itself be the cause for more of the humour.

I also have to say that I found the whole concept to be a little... bizarre. Is it supposed to be making some point, or is it mainly for laughs?

That's all I have to say really. It's definitely better than the last episode (which was good but felt a little stretched).

epyon5 responds:

An awesome critique! Thanks for taking the time to watch and write. Their's not really a point to this episode except that we're just trying to introduce and familiarize everybody with the Youngbody family. Ep. 1 was about Robert, ep.2 the family, ep. 3 will be about an adventure with Viper (he seems to be a favorite) While ep. 4 will finally start to have more of story feel to it. It will focus on Travis coming to accept Robert as his new brother. As for the bizarre feel to it, that's what I love. My collaborator David is a fantastic writer with a whimisical and imaginative charm that is remeniscant of Wes Anderson's style of writing.

["The Mustache Contest"]

10s all around!

Wow, this is so refreshingly different from everything else! I liked the music especially - it went with the quietly funny feel of the flash so well. Everything looked really good, and I can't think of a way that you could've improved it - not because it's outstandingly awesome and ambitious, but because it does exactly what it tries to do with no missteps. That's certainly worth some praise.

I'm very curious about one thing, though: I notice that all of the lines have at least 3 frames of animation that they go through. Did you draw all of them manually (did you redraw all of the objects three times)? Or did you use some blending program to create intermediate stages between the two extreme frames?

BabyBirdComics responds:

all the graphics had a 5X (drawing) cycle in them and they were set to loop.

[Afterliving]

Oh, what the heck - perfect 10!

Although the graphics were a little rough in a few places, the sheer scope of this animation as well as its execution made it a work of absolute genious. It nearly made me cry more than once. Excellent job, submitter - this one's going into my favourites.

Anybody who liked this should also check out "Los Dias Sin Dias".

soccerlord8 responds:

Did you hold up one of those white cards with the 10 score on it? If you did, that kicks.

[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 :)

[.:FIERRAS:. Cartontown]

Wow.

I'm impressed! Couldn't you email the webmaster of Newgrounds and ask for special permission and let him manually upload it on here? It may be worth a try; there are a few files on Newgrounds that are over 5mb that were submitted on the request of the authors (look at Nim's Winter Tale or Prowlies at the River) - a few are even over 6mb. I don't know if it'll be accepted, but the image quality of the file on your website is a lot more impressive.

Anyway, what a great style! Great concept too, although I do wish it could've been a little bit longer or more polished. Still, this must've taken a huge amount of work! How did you do it exactly? Maybe you could tell us in your comments... did you actually film it in 3-D or was that done on computer somehow?

The sounds were also spot-on, except in the beginning the sound of the guy on the bycicle was a little too repetitive I thought - I could've sworn it was the same sound clip playing over and over...

Fierras responds:

I know what you mean about polishing. Maybe that's something it should be done.
Ander afterwards If the file get's a bit too big to submit I might e-mail the webmaster.

The file did repeat itself :p we had two of them but for some reason it was funny to us to leave it like that.

Cu later ;-)

[Projective Detective ep2]

Hilarious!

Oh my, this is so funny! This baby's going into my favourites! :P The guy who wrote the script is a genius (reminds me of Family Guy a little) and the voice acting is top-notch. The animations aren't super, but they're not bad either & they get the job done pretty well. They're actually not bad at all, but the frame rate is a bit choppy.

Great, great stuff! I hope you guys make more!

ayegowj responds:

We are making more, hmm it ran fine on my comp maybe you need to turn your
graphics down? This script was more voice funny then visual funny. Thanks
for the review. I do watch family guy and yes i am a genius. lol kidding.
Thanks for the review!

[Creation by Turtle]

...

The animation was alright, but there didn't seem to be much of a point to it. It didn't really go anywhere or become interesting to me...

OK, so a turtle creates the world. So what? That's IT?

Max-the-Great responds:

Of course that's it. It's in the title for crying out loud! It's not called "Creation by Turtle who does other meaningful things as well" for a REASON.

[Secret Lives of Squirrels]

Awesome!

You MUST finish this! Get Flash MX at any cost, legally or not! That was so incredible, especially the fight on the rotating tree, and how they stop everything the moment a human comes along. I've felt like squirrels are hiding something suspicious at times! :D

The soundtrack was absolutely awesome! Could you please (please) tell us all what it was?

Also, would it be possible to make the viewing area of the flash slightly smaller? It's just that it's bigger than my resolution of 800x600...

Pugchew responds:

I really appreciate all the responses about wanting to see it finished, but I think when I set myself up with a full version of Flash I'll feel like trying a new topic (lots of ideas that I havn't had time to explore).

By the way, the band's called Mad Caddies, they're one of my favorite punk bands from the 90s. Best album's probably Duck and Cover. I highly recommend picking em up if you liked the music in the movie.

[Fun With Fire]

One of your best yet!

The comedic timing was immaculate, the music was perfect (I gave it a 9 because at the end the "stop drop and roll" song skips noticeably every 10 seconds or so), and the animation was simple but on-the-spot.
Good job!

TmsT responds:

I blame the limitations of Flash :P