Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[George Washington]

Positive Review; Social Commentary; On "Comments"

At first, when I read the authors' comments about the Alabama State Board of Home Education dubbing this "George Washington" music video as historically accurate, I first figured a Flash author succeeded in conceiving something educational and, in some form, entertaining about the United States' first president. That is all well and good: it received positive accolades and is highly recommended by a state agency that does, in fact, NOT EXIST. (Seriously, look it up).

HURR D-D-DURR DURR HURR, DURR, D-DURR DURR (or whatever the fuck that stupid song's lyrics are)! Bullshit artistry strikes again. Another crass slap at home schooling, hicks, and Freemasonry. The cornerstones of the Goddamned country. There's got to be a clause or guideline (by threat of whistle blowing) about author comments that go out of their way to crack jokes outside of the finished product, because they're often lame or, worse, a prank to get people to click a movie that otherwise sucks or is a deliberate spam or even abusive. It's a crutch, okay? Let the flash speak for itself.

That said, this one is actually pretty decent. In fact, it's very good. Not perfect, but it follows the source material in a good way (not like some abstract or trippy or bad quality flash that just has the music in the background for some unknown reason). Of course, "George Washington" is an utterly apocryphal rendition of the titular historical personality, who has recently been accredited for the development of the Patriots' S3 Program. There, I can do it in a review. And trust me: it's not funny here, either. I know this. It never is, really, except maybe a well-educated reply by an author. They could be funny... or nerve-wracking for the reviewer. While gimmicks in authors' comments may run afoul of submission guidelines, it's never good when there are jokes in a review, because it indicates that, in the actual flash, something is wrong, and someone wants to point it out. In this case, it's that the jokes on George becoming progressively stupid as to be completely unbelievable. You'd think subtlety is a lost art at Newgrounds....

Back to topic, the story of George Washington is rendered via Music Video for "The Mange", a folk rock group, and is animated by Christian Madsen, aka Villainous Turtle. It's a great way to advertise the band but, upon reexamination, I discovered their link leads to Facebook. If it's one thing about the Internet I refuse to accept or adopt, is any sort of social networking. They're worse than the Author's Comments, worse than a lot of things, actually. They discourage the desire to contact or meet in person, which goes light-years ahead of a mere remote or epistolary correspondence. The better definition of these sites is that they're really just a crutch for recluses who are lonely and, if there's one thing I know about recluses, is that they're often recluses for good reasons. And usually, those reasons are of exterior, rather than internal origin. Forget Facebook. Put out records to promote your band. Do some gigs and concerts... do it the old fashioned way. Or make a music video out of a single! What are you, some kind of--oh, wait... you did that already. What next? Oh yeah! Wait for some poor jerk to critique it! Well... there you go. [Clears Throat]

Well then, to tell the truth, it is a good song, not outstanding or anything, but it gets the job done. While this doesn't have the pen-and-ink artwork of a modern-day political cartoon, "George Washington" could work as a mockery of the country's psyche. It goes out of its way to lampoon the mythic status of a prominent founding father, although it gets hard to determine if it's just merrymaking or something critical, or even sinister. One thing is certain: it should put a smile on plenty of irreverent punks' faces around this site.

Happy Fourth... oh, whatever. Go light some rockets. This cartoon took a bit of finesse to produce and the results are positive in general, but there are better things for us to be doing tomorrow... like go to work.

VillainousTurtleSLC responds:

I'm sorry if the description is misleading. I was more trying to point out that George Washington is surrounded by myths and legends that are often accepted and propagated. I typed that up just before I posted it, because I thought the standard, "Hi guys, this took me three months to make. I made it for fun with my friends..." would be a little boring.

Facebook does have its negative points, many of which you pointed out here. I just figured if people wanted to connect in some other way than NG, they could go there. Since you don't use social networking, you can check out my website, it's www dot villainousturtle dot com.

Also, we actually put on a block party style concert, and invited hundreds of people out to enjoy an evening of music. We premiered this animation then (2 months ago) for a decent sized live audience. The Mange plays gigs and concerts all the time locally.

The video is just merrymaking, we were all sitting around making up songs, and we started coming up with lyrics for this. There is nothing sinister intended.

Feel free to check out my older animations, and comment on them. They are a totally different style.

[The Green Travler 2]

Off-the-Wall Scratches the Surface... a Little

Now I sincerely regret clicking zero, having assumed this was some kind of spam. However, it turns out to be a ridiculous, politically incorrect spiel of absurdity. It will end up protected without a doubt.

"The Green Travler 2" [ASSUME THAT'S A TYPO] continues where the first one left off... I think. I'm not entirely sure. But a police officer wants to get his mustache back from the doughnut shop, where he traded it for a wonderful pastry, and requests the famous "Green Traveler" to perform the job.

Let your brain go on vacation for about two or three minutes. This cartoon is short, stupid, and below most people's dignity to watch. It has crude art direction, cruder writing, and some surprisingly decent voice-over work. Some of the gags make no sense or transcend our expectations of bad taste, becoming almost campy in its delivery. It's worth a quick, cheap laugh and will undoubtedly be featured in Tom's Friday Gem Hunt later this upcoming week.

So, don't forget kids: let something play out in its entirety before you cast a vote. It might just be something worth checking out... or just funny in a bad way.

[War Of Teh Worlds]

Mars Needs Bangers and Mash in Mass Quantities

Few things come through as stifling and lame-brained than a school presentation ported over to the Newgrounds audience. "Blahoink" manufactured one to showcase a literary classic in a roundabout way that tries to be funny... but really the joke is on itself. "War of The Worlds" is only marginally better than contracting ebola, but it is worse than throat cancer and then hearing about what really causes throat cancer.

"War of Teh Worlds" is based upon the H.G. Wells novel, meaning the adaptations to radio or film are excluded. This is Victorian England besieged by Martians who, feeling their planet is becoming uninhabitable, constructed and launched devices that travel to Planet Earth and, one-by-one, strike upon the surface of the world... well, actually they all hit England, one after another. Because they're that accurate. Yeah.

On that note: people adapted latter versions of "War of the Worlds" just because Martians don't hit one specific location... they hit all of them. Even if they're going to die by bacteria in the end, they wouldn't just go after rainy ol' London, that's just stupid. They'd go after the whole damn planet. Hell, they'd probably hit up the oceans well before hitting the continents. Anyway, there are plenty of reasons why "War of the Worlds" can get a bad rap... but the book report fails to include reasons why we'd want to read the book, which is what those stupid reports are meant to do! In any case, landing upon one specific location, as the summary seems to describe (with first, second, etc., strikes all within a similar vicinity without reporting on any other strikes upon the world), that's like the difference between the Watchmen comic and its movie adaptation, which features a far more feasible conspiracy plot. Even if Alan Moore doesn't support the movie version, its "MacGuffin" made greater sense. Plots and storytelling never get old, but updates and revisions to said stories occur so that the author's original concepts are expressed for a new audience that may look at old books and throw them aside. It's a shame we do that, but that's why "War of the Worlds" got revised.

The lunacy of this Flash's summary has just explained that to me; that has to mean something. Still, this is another school project rendered in Flash--a book report--that features an awful microphone and even worse narrative inflections. It isn't meant to be showy with Flash tecnniques or artistic merits, although you sort of wish it did. The sound system is provided by OGM, Obscenely Ghetto Microphone, which hasn't seen the light of day since the Cactaur & Tonberry cartoons like ten years ago.

"War of Teh Worlds" is a dismal little thing to showcase on Newgrounds, but maybe listening to it will properly clear up a literary classic and maybe spur some interest in the book itself. Or maybe we'll just turn on the radio and listen to some music....

blahoink responds:

Dear Neophyte-Ronin (that sounds like "fairy-japanese-midget", by the way),

First off, I would like to say thank you. These five elaborate, well thought out, and researched paragraphs really showed me what the original novel was trying to portray, and how I, the author of this flash animation, completely butchered it.

In hindsight, maybe I should have added more logical sequences and scenes in the animation, which would more likely happen if Martians did happen to invade our Earth. And then to appease the general Newgrounds audience, add extremely bloody stick battles, assault rifles, loud explosions, and maybe a few scattered sex scenes starring our very sexy and attractive main character, who is actually a werewolf-vampire and gets slayed by an army of Justin Biebers at the end of all of it.

But then, this being a school project, my teacher would probably fall of her rolly-office chair, puke all over the computer screen in disgust, and then give me an F-minus-minus-minus-minus. But I digress...

And then to address the issue of the bad quality of all of this. Being June and at the end of the school year, I could put my try-hard pants on and blow my half-asleep English classes' minds, but I had an Xbox 360 to attend to. And for your information, the Obscenely Ghetto Microphone brand is highly respected here in Massachusetts. All my friends have one, and we enjoy talking to each other over the internet and try to decode our dirty sex jokes over the incredible amount of static and general scratchy shit.

So, please excuse me, I have to go cry and masturbate with my tears in the corner of my bedroom now.

[Ryoga Hibiki declares]

#1 Rom-Com of the Year says Rog--ah, forget it....

A single "Fuck You" is a Teen rating, not an Everyone rating.

"Ryoga Hibiki" is a single scene in a reasonably tame romantic comedy that... well, let's face it: it's classic date movie material, or edutainment regarding the proper care and feeding of romantic passes.

I did, of course, enjoy this. Why? It's stupid, mindless fun. The one moment he needs to sing, he pulls off something far below Sinatra so much it's disturbing. Also, it is well-voiced, subtitled, and even follows the proper conventions and standards of an Anime. It could almost pass as Japanese in origin, let alone style. Of course, being that it is a romantic comedy, it could be a forgettable experience as well.

Ah well... it's worth a few good chuckles at least!

[Koit TV 2]

Leftovers Require Refridgeration

"Koit TV 2" continues the Koit tradition of harvesting incomplete or hodgepodge skit-like segments and converting them into a listless bout of channel surfing, the kind you see in "Robot Chicken" or sprite animation collaborative submissions. The trick here is that none of the segments are meant to make sense; they're just tests and experiments. Hence, they lack polish or consistency in quality.

A few skits in "Koit TV 2" are silly enough to laugh with. Take the running sequence; Koit didn't know what to do with the jogger character he composed, so he created a background that appears alien at first, but in later segments, the reality is that she is fleeing an oncoming wad of feces, only to end up splashing into the toilet. The water effects (or lack thereof) denote the segments as a flight of whimsy, picking up the scatttered remnants of once-serious projects and recycling them into something, anything, that could be presented. The "Space Chicken" skit is an actual full skit with a gag and direction to it, while most other skits are juvenile nonsense.

This isn't for anybody... in fact, it's not meant for anybody, period. This is just a test-run of Koit's capabilities. Props for the crude but creative replay screen, which showcases a link to Koit's site and evokes the feeling of having surfed channels for three or so wasteful minutes. "Koit TV 2", like its predecessor, isn't terribly good, but it isn't meant to be anyway. With any luck, Koit's serious ventures will profit from all of his practice.

[Sosachki]

SUCKER!

I used to belong to a middle school-level fraternal order called the "Suckers", where our codenames were after DumDum Lollipop flavors. I was tagged as "Mystery." The Russian word for sucker (any form of hard candy you suck on) is "Sosachki."

Ha, ha. The difference between the lyrics and what happens during the actual music video reminds me of the ones that Tool did. None of their music videos ever had anything to do with what the actual song is about. They were both creepy, of course.

"Sosachki" follows the same kind of thinking: having no understanding of the lyrics, Ashley Voortman created a music video that is sugary sweet but has none of the imagery or thematic values of the song itself. The song is a silly love song, sort of a pun if you translate the lyrics (see another review, below).

Anyway, it inspired me to do one of two things: buy a piggy bank (they were so adorable here!) or purchase some hard candies. Since I already got a ceramic jar for the coins, I'll skip straight to the candy, thank you. Anyway, most of Ashley Voortman's material centers on serious subjects, so this, in addition to being an early experiment with a tablet, is a welcome change of pace. It contains no real plot, but has lip sync and a real clean, positive vibe straight out of children's programming. If anything, it demonstrates Ashley's potential for versatility and is, in fact, more or less an abstraction as far as music videos go.

[Lazy Days]

Nostalgic (Except for Eating the Hairball....)

I used to have a whole army of cats. Had to give them all away, of course. My parents had a cat named Peanut Butter who lived for twenty-nine years! She was like a kitten until the last six months of her life. After that my mother refused to get another cat. I despise dealing with the landlord in any capacity, so I won't jump through hoops to get a pet for my apartment. It's depressing to hear about the friendships forged between pets and their owners, for me at least, because it is part of a world that for some reason I'm not a part of anymore.

WIth that said, watching "Lazy Days" put me in a melancholy mood. It contains everything you'd expect out of watching a domesticated feline: subtlety, crudity, even joy. The cat does not appear to miss the owner, knowing the owner will come home (or is already there), and goes about its business the way that any fastidious creature does.

One of the most challenging aspects of animating a cat is getting the tail down pat. Ashley had insane amounts of trouble and it shows. It's also a poor presentation, having eyeballed the frame-by-frame. It resembles a squiggly invertebrate than a prehensile tail. There is also a bone structure to a cat's tail, evident if you look long enough. One thing is for sure, though: under no condition could you just "tween" a cat's tail and live to tell the tale; the traditional method, no matter what effort or result, is the only method that can work.

Getting past that glaring flaw, the simple style, color composition, animated antics, and even the choice in music (a bit rough but passable) complement one another in a gorgeous tapestry. There's no real plot or slapstick mischief, but cheers to Ashley for never including the absurdity of those cat videos and captioned pictures you see on YouTube. Those pretty much withheld my desire to have anything to do with cats. This Flash alone stirred that desire alive again, and not in a way I find comfortable.

"Lazy Days" is a sweet, cute little cartoon when you need a break from all those "Madness" sequels and "Blacktastic" music videos (I assume someone had the nerve to try their hands at one of Stamper's songs), and maybe it might just make you nostalgic as well...!

[Kawaii Battle Stars]

Not for Everybody... Still, it's a Gag-Fest!

Few collaborations exist where the authors produce something beyond their capacity. This isn't one of them. It's polished, true, but "Kawaii Battle Stars" is sophomoric bullshit artistry that doesn't appeal to everybody, okay?

This is a satirical blend of horror and modern urban fantasy, where five sisterly youths are granted powers that help them fight crime and try to cheat their way through teen life. It is a mockery of the CLAMP-inspired Japanese Manga ribaldry that goes through a wood chipper of North American localization like that scene in Fargo. In a greater perspective, it attacks Sailor Moon almost exclusively. It also rips apart incidents of "Engrish" and baits us for an episode that WILL NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN! You know why? Because these guys have bigger fish to fry, and this material, as well as its overbearing delivery, can get old fast.

You know, this would be a fuckload more palatable if the designers decided to stray from what made that "Sailor Moon" parody so great--that was a dub over some guy's horrible voice-over spoof, where everyone got a chance to animate a small segment, much like a collab except they followed the spoof's plot--and actually conscript some goddamned women to voice the roles. I mean, come on... wouldn't they be the ones that would be more inspired or COMPELLED to destroy these cartoons from the inside out? Then again, I swear to have heard the same voice characterization nimrod who despoiled Rina-Chan's reputation in that Street Fighter Parody, so relations between the designers and other voice talents might not be peachy-keen. That's what you get for blasting one of your own and troubling your own house: you inherit the gas from your own butt.

This is actually a decent production, when you look at it. Subject matter notwithstanding, this has been a kind of collaboration that nearly mirrors the stuff they used to do in animation studios: everyone has a role. TheShadling provided background artwork and also obviously the title screen, and several good voice-over artists got scouted for roles. Animation and characterizations are top-notch. SpazKid assembled the finished product.

If GuitarmasterX7 isn't demolishing video games with his buddy Dexter in their "Sanity Not Included" series, he's found trying to establish himself in several satirical pieces on Newgrounds, including this one. Yeah... it was instant recognition with his voice. If he has a range of emotion and sound, he sure as hell doesn't bother to show it here. Only in a few spots, like when a scream breaks the register, does the voice-over or sound quality become poor.

"Kawaii Battle Stars" is a cruel, cruel dissertation on the plight of Manga and Anime that caters to the fairer sex in their youth, but it is also a cruel, cruel manifestation of the twisted minds of those who were never intended to watch such cartoons to begin with. It's one thing where you demolish a heroic epic or deride the misnomers and idiocy of the ruling party, especially if you happen to actually belong to that philosophical persuasion. It's always nice to hear the criticism from within rather than without, anyway; it pays dividends as to who is willing to listen and how they will take it. But swatting something from side to side that has little to nothing to do with you just seems... I don't know... NAGGING!

Besides, if I wanted to watch a cartoon about five girls screeching at each other over nonsense, I would head outside into the oppressive sunshine and hang out with a few. No need to barge into their conversation, just sit back and listen. Of course, given their efforts were earnest in their own way, I suppose we should just shut up and applaud Axel, TheShadling, GuitarmasterX7 and the rest of these jerks for providing us an opportunity to do that while sitting in front of the computer, eliminating the need for any female contact, period.

Personally, I prefer a day trip to Providence RI where, despite their constant chatter, the ladies are gorgeous and, of course, sane. And don't sound anything like GuitarmasterX7.

AxelTheNavy responds:

Shit man, good review lol.
And yes I am aware that it would be kosher to assign actual women to the voice roles, but I made a choice to keep the man voices. Not because I am a sexist or an autist who will pee their pants at the thought of approaching girls, but in a perfect world where I am the black-god-Adonis...all women shall be hairy with deep masculine voices.