Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

["Heart Broke"]

Emo Emo Emo....

Well, this goes over the top and under it at the same time! I thought there would be a plot with this "Heart Broke" considering it included one voice sample, but it's just an overblown showcase of someone getting jilted real hard... and reacting to it even harder.

When do you know when to stop? I mean, even if someone saw the opening, which explains the trigger but not the cause of the resultant behavior... a good number of them would likely be disgusted, even horrified. The intentions were toward a joke, as though this stuff was nothing but a reflection on how people blow these things out of proportion. As things get blown out of proportion, the gore piles up but the laughs do not pile on. Sadly, the excessive, pointless brutality fails to get the humored reaction that it desires. It gets a bunch of blank stares instead.

Tack that on with the sensation of wasted effort. Claymation is virtually a classic animation approach without tween symbols or anything that Flash provides. Though crude in its cartoon aesthetic, the gore effects and character animation for four different figures took quite some time to complete. On top of that, Newgrounds' size restriction forces this one to be featured on YouTube for high definition (like it would get any prettier?). In short, this claymation had lots of effort pooled into it, just so people could gawk and shake their heads at it.

It's no wonder that its technical wonders and content got it Front Page status. Newgrounds tends to favor those who try to make a joke out of gore, like Assassin or Pico, All Fads Die or Madness. It's all the same to this crowd. Still, if you want a better representation of "TheSJProduction's" claymation ability, there are plenty of examples in his author profile and flash catalog than "Heart Broke".

TheSJproduction responds:

What? I have no idea what you just said, lol. The claymation HAS NO MEANING, its just simple and right to the point "broken heart". Art is art, the whole thing is made out of clay, and some hummingbird feeder for the blood. I made this because i'm showing how a person over reacts to heart break, and pretty much making fun of this pathetic planet i live in. idk if this answers your questions, i can't understand what you are saying. Can someone emphasize this for my human knowledge? lol
- thanks i guess-
~SJ~

[asdfm0vie4]

Utterly Disappointing

This is one of the biggest crews that made the lousiest garbage. I bet not even one person in this list contributed to the creation of "asdfm0vie4". There are scads of asdf shorts littering YouTube, and I suppose this is an homage to how easy they are to construct, and how awful they really are.

Which gets to the part about being utterly disappointing: if you're gunning for Turd of the Week, you might as well make something truly horrible and awful, and not just a satire that might actually have some relevance.

Heil responds:

u dont no nothing u fking moron

[random fight scene]

Question

If the material looks decent as is, why didn't the animator shove projects aside to complete it? If you're going to do something well, you might as well stick to the end. If not, edit the storyboard sections and use the finished remainder in a portfolio showcase. As it is now, the otherwise brilliant production values are wasted.

[VG Cats Animated 2]

Sound Meh, Hemerroids WHOA!

Powerglove!

Broooodal.

Yeah, uh... that was a decent adaptation, but the soundtrack needs adjusting. Click the Soundtrack Layers and see what the properties are.

Good job, overall. At some point, perhaps you could even tell the VG Cats crew all about your adaptations...?

[Physics is Phun]

Hexen was a Fun Game

I remember playing Hexen for the N64, giggling as I repeatedly sent my warrior off a cliff after learning that you can die from it. The screams and splatter got to me like an R-Rated Looney Tunes cartoon.

I get that this was a demonstration of terminal velocity, that despite differences in mass or weight, that objects eventually fall to earth at the same speed. Silly.

This was a very early piece, very crude, nowhere near the quality the author achieves today, but it's a good gauge of her understanding of Flash, animating, and of course, physics.

[Bret's Opinion on Subs]

Brought Back Memories

Messing around with a microphone and your siblings is tons of fun! Then she animated it, just to see what would happen. Flash authors release early material to the Portal to see if they can. Often, it is filled with spam, spam, spam, like what gets released through the Crews. This is an exception and is an actual test-run of the program and a work-flow.

The animation gets out of sync, a common problem. Maybe if the audio layer was set to Stream and you inserted blank frames throughout the mouth movements....

This Flash is one of those oddities where everything is improvised and done beneath a tight time limit. It's not brilliant, but now we know why "Canvas" (a later release) is so great.

[An Animation Revolution]

Looked Like Bullshit From the Start

It became apparent to me today that there is something like a console war going on between two programs. I'm not sure if Harry got his point across, though. It will probably backfire, much to our detriment.

Harry Partridge is the "typical" flash author who incorporates a snarky sensibility to every cartoon he makes. He is also British, which explains the title of this Flash. It seems unfair that everything that sucks has to have been invented in the States.

The gay lobster getting excited about the upcoming Captain America movie (wait, they're making a movie out of that?) is a big nod to Greasy Moose and Chris Voigt. Has to be, at least.

[Canvas]

My Jaw Dropped Watching This....

Despite the kinds of problems described in the comments, "Canvas" is a solid, if not ravishing, piece of work. Why? Because the author doesn't give herself enough credit for what she managed to create. EmptyBrooke has had a string of lukewarm-rated pieces on this site, but then she conceives something worthy of a Front Page, not out of its peculiarity when compared to other works on this site... but because it showcases everything you expect from a Front Page cartoon.

Some of the technical details will go against the typical Newgrounds faire, but let's list them: it's 4 MB, for one. A cartoon of this length, detail, and artistic merit often goes for more than ten, easily. The frame rate seems low and the soundtrack is compressed, which means choppy panning and muffled music. Those are drawbacks, but there once was a time when you needed permission through an admin because your Flash exceeded 5 MB. Most submissions several years ago were below that number to respect the idea behind Flash: to play on all sorts of computers, not just the elite customized ones. Thus, keeping a low frame rate and staying judicious with the animation details helped this cartoon stay in the spirit of both the program and the site.

Next, we have the cartoon itself. It's a wordless love story, sappy, but with a truth and theme behind it. Not many authors on this site will make any attempt toward a serious short, and even fewer adopt the classic romance plot. On the other hand, this was originally for a competition outside of NG; pulling any of the above "bullshit artistry" for kicks and giggles on this site just doesn't happen. If there was a word to describe EmptyBrooke's approach to the cartoon, in addition to the decision to submit it here... I can only define it as graceful.

Now, the harshest part here is that the romance story includes a special effects budget, which is where the Flash begins to shine and transcend both the Newgrounds lot and the many other romantic short films. The color transition effects are extraordinary, worth the price of time alone. Nobody in their right mind can convince me that they saw that before, but that would probably refer to the use of masking, which is foreign to casual observers. Beyond that, the animation and character design helped convey a great deal of emotion and style. The cartoon follows a soundtrack without a second guess as to how or where. Loyalists to the Audio Portal can forgive the choice of soundtrack, which complements everything like a completed jigsaw puzzle, because, again, this was presented in a competition before its release to Newgrounds.

What astonishes me is how much went wrong during the production, and Brooke is far from silent about them. Viruses, deadlines, post-production editing (does that hint at a "Director's Cut" of this? Maybe that's pushing it....), and regretting her approach to the resolving shot of the film... it is difficult to encounter an author who can be as humble or even hypercritical as she is.

Granted, this isn't a perfect entry and it is far from the distinguishing tastes of most of this site's prepubescent peanut galleries, but if you wanted a good showcase of what Flash can do, what this author can do, and what love itself can really, really do... then I hope you brought your brushes and paints.

[-Cookie-]

Hardy Har Har

This got a laugh out of me. That's rare. That's also indicative of the kind of humor this one has: dark. I love fortune cookies, by the way.

[RPG Quest The Movie EP01]

Did You Get All That? (FASTER THAN LIGHT TEXT)

Okay, lay it to me straight here: what the fuck WAS that?

Yeah, it's a brilliant web-comic, sure, but the adaptation was so piss-poor that the net nerds will think you're from Hollywood or something.