Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[How Morons Stole X-mas]

Not Stellar, Possibly Buggy, but Okay

Sometimes it would stop for no reason. I had to click forward and click play for it to resume. It did so with the Japanese Overlord line and practically every other line thereafter. I suppose it might be because it is still under judgment, but I don't believe in coincidences. I reloaded the thing and crossed my fingers.

This is just messed up, however. It's great when it works (the second try worked). Anyway, there is a plot, barely, but the voices are muffled, mixed poorly, and the voice-overs' range is horribly limited. Still, it isn't portal trash, and perhaps the beginning of someone who could work his butt off and get into the animation industry somehow.

It's okay. Not stellar, but okay. Keep up the Flash, and consider purchasing a microphone.

Shi-Gu responds:

Thanks, yeah, our voice acting wasn't good and since it was all made in a week it didn't make it. Next time I'll start two months before -.-

[floo]

Floo is "Sick" (as in cool, and stuff... yeah...)

How adorable! The front page is filled with people satirizing Santa and quadriplegics and puke-munching doggies. This doesn't quite counterbalance all the typical NG fare, but it is a start.

This character is animated pretty well, and ought to reappear every now and then. It is utterly adorable, worthy of its own series if you're feeling up to it.

Finally, it is sort of a trip, but I suppose it has something to do with spirit being capable of warming anything up; the tree goes from snowing to glowing in a split second. This is worth its salt in the Christmas 2009 section. If I had to complain, it would be the graininess of the images (unavoidable, considering how compressed it is).

[Alfred's StoryofChristmas]

Best Christmas Submission

Nice of you to submit this at long last. It's hilarious for one. It's also ridiculous. Another thing: it encapsulates many of the popular Christmas stories, plenty of Bible stories, and picks on countless celebrities. Its scope is incredible. Too bad you didn't bother to ask Tom Fulp or another admin about submitting it back in the day, but now that it is here, it will likely get you a few good awards.

The South Park influence is there; it is both satirical and heavily topical for its epoch. It also features Alfred as a goofball with ADHD and his companion Phat Dawg, the perfect straight guy. While it is a classic foil to someone who's totally insane, it works because straight faces are perfect anchors from which to maintain a grip on reality. The best part? He's incredibly drunk by the end.

For a fifteen year-old kid, this Flash is more than mere Crunk. Despite a lack of bells and whistles (like a Replay or even a Start button, or a preloader even!), it is fleshed out and perhaps the best damned Christmas Submission to date. Thank God someone noticed it and put it on Front Page...!

[Computer Croc]

Crude, but Accurate... Oddly Enough

You make me inspired to submit something... anything... and not in a good way, either.

This thing is crude... literally. It could use some spitfire polish, or sound effects, or a script. A series of stills with no dialogue, except one poorly mixed voice-over, make for a disenchanting romp.

On the other hand, you did encapsulate the Newgrounds experience. It looks more like the storyboard for an animation that someone with greater aesthetic polish would likely remaster. Nobody here will argue that some people get enraptured by the faux glamorous fun experienced at this site as to strive to become part of it, only to be scoffed at and have their computer crash under Flash's weight. It's not easy being a flash author.

Still, this animation gives hope (in an ironic, tongue-in-cheek fashion) to people who are hesitant to submit material, fearing it might get chewed out. But this doesn't immunize this Flash from how poor it is; its reception on YouTube will likely be as icy as it is here.

On the other hand, it isn't bad like "OMGUSUXX" bad. It's the mark of someone who isn't afraid to showcase what he has. In other words, don't knock it completely folks. As crude as it is, it reflects upon a typical Newgrounds experience. Keep practicing daily and you might just have a breakthrough. (That goes for everybody here!)

Blackrhinoranger responds:

I worked really hard on this project. To prevent stress from coming. I had to do very little animation

[newgrounds xmas boner]

Worthy of Multiple Viewings

Over the top and exquisitely vulgar, Newgrounds XMas Boner (aka Santa PWNS the Internet) is just the thing for getting out a few insane laughs every once in a while.

But man... what an attitude problem! The BBS isn't a rotting cesspool of morons yet, now is it?

[Left 4 Speed 2]

No Need to Play the Game or Watch Zombie Movies!

Left 4 Speed 2 is the bastard daughter of Left 4 Speed, an Awesome-styled spoof derailing the current title in the Left 4 Dead franchise... and it is far, far improved over the original. There's a far more cohesive plot and theme to the parody as they describe the futility of the survivors' efforts to escape another ridiculous zombie apocalypse. This is Oney at his finest, folks. I sincerely doubt anybody can top this (except him... maybe).

I might sound hypocritical because I derailed the sheer stupidity of the previous spoof. The fact is: it was far too random and lacked cohesion. Also, it featured a great deal of utter crudity just for crudity's sake. Though this one is technically a sequel, I will rate this one higher for two reasons.

First, this spoof has a true straight man. The straight man is the serious one who makes an intelligent, concerted effort to guide his cohorts toward a positive resolution. Such a character archetype is applied as the necessary foil to denounce the settings' absurdity, as well as other characters. Modern examples include Thief from 8-Bit Theater and Dante Hicks from Kevin Smith's Jersey movies. Without a straight man, this lampoon would fall apart.

The ending is where I laughed the most; without the straight man, I would have rated this one rather lowly. While it ended to my satisfaction and surprise, the similarity to the previous spoof's end warrants notice, as the notion that repetition erodes creativity is among the myriad reasons why Hollywood movie sequels are frowned upon by the critics.

Still, the fact that it is a sequel doesn't erode the technical quality, of which this one is clearly superior. That brings me to the next reason why this Flash surpasses its bastard father: Oney has palpably improved over time. Take his "Grand Theft Awesome 4" Flash. However crude, it was simple, funny with flawless timing, and comprehensible. In Left 4 Speed 2, however, the use of multiple voice-overs, an extensive script, cohesive verbal jokes, and overall aesthetics each demonstrate how far Oney has gotten with his stuff. Reveling at the cartoon's polish alone is worth the price of blowing ten precious minutes of time. It is remarkable how you can gauge the guy's evolution from his old stuff to the current Flash (anybody who hasn't, please look up his Flash catalog and be prepared to laugh).

Egoraptor's Awesome series obviously inspired Oney's spoofs. It also inspired their foibles. Like the Awesome series, you have similar complaints: racy and oftentimes utterly asinine subject matter. It is hard to incorporate a thinking man's sentiment into such ribaldry, and Oney's efforts to split from the norm are barely lukewarm. He operates according to what he does, in fact, laugh with, as well as what the general Newgrounds population will laugh at. My personal misgivings about such subject matter notwithstanding (don't assume I can't stomach this stuff--I nearly died of laughter, okay? I am not above admitting to that!), the jokes work... but I still wish that we could just grow up and approach a phase in Newgrounds' history where other kinds of wit (e.g. dry) get their proper dues in the Flash scene. The overuse of stereotypes (again, big issue here) will eventually bite someone in the butt, fairly or unfairly, and it would be nice if Oney could also demonstrate any ability to change up his routine every now and then.

But I won't spoil the mood (or the end) for all of you. Oney and his stellar cast (couldn't tell who performed what without the credits; that is a good sign if you perform voice-overs) has perfectly ripped a popular game asunder, once again. One of these days, we will grow out of our fixation on boobs, rednecks, lasers and gore, but once we do, we'll secretly run a search, find this cartoon, and play it fifteen times in a row, laughing our sorry butts off. After all, the chuckles are a great laxative when you're ancient like your mom!

And yes, I voted Five. Who wouldn't?

Oney responds:

DAAWWW Thanks Bucko!

[Independence]

Decent, if Just a Storyboard

Since the art was kind of flaked (much of it was back in the day, to be utterly honest), this won't get the greatest accolades, but it is ironically an excellent storyboard if a collaboration decided to remake it. Because it was an early music video, the sequences are rushed to the point that you cannot fathom exactly what is going on. Perhaps if the flash extended itself beyond the short running time of the music, things could have been fleshed out more.

While it possesses an unusual potential to become the next big action flick (or a short indie piece), the insane chopper/aerial sequence could only happen in a cartoon. This would never be live action, unless United Artists checks it out and integrates it into the next Bond movie. Remember: this thing has "Laser Movie" potential written all over it. Somebody in this day and age could remaster the whole thing from the beginning.

Sound is another issue. You cannot hear the voice-overs over the song because nothing was ever mixed, or mixed well for that matter. That made things harder to understand.

In any case, maybe someday Independence will be remade; compared to other ancient submissions, this one looks like it could be reborn. I might not hold my breath, but for its time, Independence was among the early music videos on Newgrounds that transcended the stick figure stigma. That's got to be worth something.

MadFLeX responds:

it's being remade as we speak.=) i couldn't let the last image people knew of madflex be a horribly drawn chick with a dude's 6-pack. haha

[Karaoke Clarence]

Under 1 MB and It Made Me Laugh!

I heard MadFlex's song and realized he hadn't submitted a Flash in six years. If he persists even now (and bothers to submit), he should be able to top this. And even back then, it must have been funny. This is what a Flash under 1 MB should be: kick-ass. It is both satirical and low-tech, an excellent combination.

If MadFlex ever decides to dive back into Flash, I would certainly welcome that moment, based on this cartoon. Why hasn't this gotten the Front Page, anyway?

[The Last Gift]

Wasn't That Great....

What I don't get about this sort of satire is that none of the personalities behind the religion itself never get flamed or slapped around. Nobody makes a Flash derailing St. Thomas Aquinas, for instance, or publicly attacks a pope. Everyone assumes the clergy and papacy are rife with flaming pedophiles. People count the days of Christmas backwards. Like morons.

And few will ever go after another religion like Buddhism or Islam or Judaism, or slaps around the atheists. No. Nobody ever bothers to pick on the fallacies of ancient polytheistic religions, such as the Egyptians, or the Greeks, Romans, Celts... well, we don't know enough about exactly what the Celts worshiped in the first place. We can only make guesses. Guessing ain't that funny, I guess.

No, it's less about the funniness or the satire than it is to literally piss other people off. We can safely assume that Christianity is well-established as a religion of the west and for disenfranchised outsiders who prefer their science and their concrete assessment of existence, they assume the precepts of any religion are ludicrous, even destructive. So they satirize and mock what they don't understand. They assume that anyone following a religion is going to be twice as stupid because they must be twice as gullible to follow along with a religion in the first place, and lack the intellectual sophistication to have any real influence in our postmodern society.

I sincerely don't care about the debate between religion and science or intellectual pride against imminent doom or whatever. I seriously don't. I just find it taxing that people go out of their way to piss each other off. Sometimes I wish the suicide rate would escalate, just so I can wave goodbye and good riddance. But that's just me.

If I disregarded the obvious subjective context of the flash itself, I would shake my head and concede that it set out what it was intended to do. The dissonance between the flash's art direction and initial subtext and allegory were perfect foils from which to throw a joke on the audience. Sometimes, the best jokes are on the audience.

I suppose that's true if you were writing them, these jokes upon the audience. But that's just it. It's an inherently selfish venture to throw the wool over people's eyes. And apparently, the ones who claim that religious authorities have been doing so since their inception are the very same culprits when it comes to their black humor--throwing the wool over people's eyes at the very last minute.

As for protected speech, a lot of people will pleasantly claim that this is protected without first addressing those types of speech that the First Amendment (US Constitution) doesn't protect: threats, libel, slander... those kinds of things. Essentially, randomly slandering a religion without providing any intellectual discourse--other than claiming its adherents are all misguided fools unworthy of possessing any say to the contrary--will more than likely be perceived as a BBS-worthy episode of 'Trolling', where everyone remembers where they buried their hatchets and congregate to the nearest electronic venue to hold a tossing contest.

In other words, this Flash is something that only an atheist could love. But you can be sure that Newgrounds' Christian minority will want to ring your pencil neck for having submitted this wanton piece of slander. Congratulations.

[Check Please]

Public Service Announcements Are Funny

Why isn't this on Front Page yet?