Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

["Ice Cream"]

Licking this didn't run chills up my spine

Now, "Ice Cream" is a harsh noir of vigilantism, although I have reservations on giving this piece a perfect score like everybody else at Newgrounds. Granted, it has the technical wizardry of a professional presentation, but the plot is holey, so full of holes you'd think it was quoting scripture. It isn't, of course.
The objective of this destitute, disenfranchised widower is to stop a serial killer disguised as a neighborhood ice cream peddler. Without any help from the police, he takes matters into his own hands and swings his sharpened gavel upon his target like judge, jury, executioner.
From a detached perspective, this flick satisfies its own premise and the audience who doesn't think too hard about the particulars. For one thing, rat poison, while suitably odorless and tasteless (ideal for concealing into food), often has a unique mix of symptoms that, if correctly identified, can be treated and used to track down the origin of the poison. Since the patterns of common anticoagulants' effects are obvious and even painful, the authorities would look into these deaths and become very suspicious of food peddlers catering to children. Thus, it's unbelievable that no cops are involved at all, unless it was deliberate omission of the author to concentrate on the vigilantism alone. Though At least mentioning the apparent non-involvement of the fatty-fat pigs would constitute greater motivation to turn vigilante.
Also, it's hard to imagine (by the cinematography) that our protagonist can see through his window and spy a crate full of rat poison in the ice cream truck across the street and no-one else did. Thus, he had to have seen something up close before the cartoon begins. It's a flimsy approach that doesn't really stand up against some amount of scrutiny.
The portrayal of the character is also deceptive, and the consequences of his actions--beyond the satisfying vigilantism--are never explored. When I first watched this cartoon, I anticipated a Hitchcockian or Twilight Zone twist befitting the noir genre, like the perceptions of the widower were skewed from day one and we discover the ice cream was never laced with rat poison: he slew an innocent if slovenly man. The children's deaths were from something entirely different, and while the real killer is on the loose, the police turn their attention to this new gruesome murder. Of course, that's a bit complex for one guy developing something for his final minor at university. So instead, we just get a guy who pitches an axe down on the killer's restraints, and then his head.
There's another hole: slicing the restraints. Why the uncharacteristic generosity? This guy ain't no philanthropist! Also, it would allow the man an opportunity to escape, something they tell you in military tactics is an utterly stupid and wasteful move since the guy can be recycled back into the enemy ranks should he get away clean. It doesn't fit the widower's idiom of mercilessness and erodes at the intelligence of this cartoon. My suspension of disbelief pretty much ended at that point, especially since the scene got laced with gaudy cliched modern psycho/horror visual effects as a demonstration that, yes, the author can do that stuff (if it's ever truly necessary).
Now, all this should not discourage Jevon James from trying his hand at the gritty stuff. With a little more development of the premise and a clear head on the screenwriting and storyboards, he is prone to develop some brilliant technical masterpieces with a somewhat decent story. The level of quality in this cartoon's visuals, despite the loss of quality through the file exporting, is sick and savvy in equal proportions. So "Ice Cream" is a decent demonstration of Jevon James' ability in a digital medium. Even so, it remains horribly cliched and glitched with logical conundrums that play like a bad pulp mystery or crime drama paperback, because there was no mystery and there was no moral ambiguity (or rather complexity) to the crime. It's good but very, very far from perfect.

[Animation Transformation]

Excellent Job

For a guy just practicing different styles, constantly re-envisioning himself in different art styles, this came out pretty good. Even if it was just practice, everything clicked together.

Now, when you suggested what kinds of styles to incorporate into a "Finished Version", you're asking the wrong guy. You should never have asked me, because I want artists to push themselves above and beyond what they're comfortable with.

Okay, first off: Rick Marin is a Newgrounds artist. You know him from the Primal War series and the latest one, G.I.N.A., and that's a pretty hard order. An anthropomorphic animal you with realistic if beefy proportions is what I'd look for, although he does ordinary humans pretty well, too.

Another guy I'd vie to top is The Shadman. Why? Because he's just insane. In addition to emulating his art style, try capturing his subject matter for just a moment (nothing totally gory or sexual, but that is part of his motif). That would definitely hit a home run with the crowd.

By lower extension, this one's simple as to be avoidable, since it isn't really challenging your technique a whole lot, although for the sake of attracting and pleasing countless fans, this one's it: Krinkels' Madness style. Your duds on a character with a cross on their face. (Yeah, maybe not).

marsoupskin is another Newgrounds artist whose style you could emulate. His claim to fame is the "FAUX" digital comic series. That style shouldn't be impossible to pull off, although I haven't seen the pictures animated, which is why I figured someone worth his salt could try animating.

Jonathan Lam (nahtanojmal) is another good Newgrounds animator (notice a trend?). His cartoon style reminds me of Frank Montagna, or the people behind the E-Surance advertisements (remember the pink-haired covert agent?). Anyway, Jon is another one who could really use a tribute of some kind.

There are a few guys outside of Newgrounds whom you could try out, too:

Matt Groening authored The Simpsons. I was surprised you didn't try to emulate his stuff, no matter how simple.

Aaron McGruder is an American cartoonist and animator best known for "The Boondocks" and all the political shit it stirs. Being among the very few successful authors who adopt a Manga and Anime-inspired style on this side of the ocean, I suppose it could be a tricky venture to attempt. I actually thought--when I first saw the cartoon in the Adult Swim programming block--that it originated from Japan and was even more horrific (and hilarious) a satire for it.

Yoshitaka Amano is definitely a stretch. The wispy lines, vibrant colors, and total destruction of fashion inherent in his designs... well, if you want to give a big sendoff to the Final Fantasy crowd, look no further.

For more traditional, recognizable Manga style, try Tetsuya Nomura. Just try to keep the outfit your character is wearing consistent. No zippers or gaudy chains involved, all right?

I'm impressed you resisted the urge to try Jim Davis, of Garfield and U.S. Acres fame.

Well, that's it from me. If you're ambitious enough, try one. I don't expect you to pull off all of these suggestions, or even one, but if you wish to try, I'm pulling for you.

[Power Star 4.5]

A Spoof/Advertisement of "Power Star"

I advise viewers to watch the entire "Power Star" series before playing this Flash for the fullest effect. Under no condition will it work any other way.

JonBro made several attempts at a worthy sprite spoof that sucks up to the masters. Daniel Sun's magnum opus in terms of sprite cartoons, "Power Star", receives similar treatment here. In "4.5", JonBro makes a slaphappy out of everything that the fourth installment simply was not. In a sense, watching them one after the other is cathartic.

Okay, if you didn't get the plot of Daniel Sun's works, Mario got possessed by boos, and Luigi and the whole of Mushroom Kingdom's retainers fight a losing battle to contain the creature's insatiable appetite for Power Stars. It doesn't end well, and while it's not the first Mario sprite cartoon modeled as a tragedy, it was heart-wrenching. JonBro, having considered imitation the finest form of flattery, knew that he might not go anywhere in particular doing so, but he took us for quite a ride in lampooning every last nugget of the final episode of "Power Star".

By itself, it looks like a classic spoof of Mario that's as senseless and random as they come. JonBro's do-it-yourself voice-over venture did not fall flat on his face; it's better this way anyway, since I doubt D-Mac would have went along with this idea. The sprite customs are noticeably JonBro and lack the polish of the originals, although he can get away with it in this context. Finally, the soundtrack is goofier, almost ridiculous and totally unnecessary.

Spoofs are meant to derail or pop the inflation of ego inherent in something serious. There is always a lot of rough surrounding each diamond. Naysayers who believe that JonBro is disingenuous and irreverent towards Daniel Sun's brutal opus ought to reconsider the author's angle: yes, that's true, but it's no insult. Think about it: if you made a Flash and submitted it... would anyone want to lampoon it? This Mario spoof is unique in that it not only pokes fun at Mario, it also pokes fun at another author's dramatic vision of Mario. Besides... isn't it better to tease someone you like, rather than someone you don't?

"Power Star 4.5" ain't perfect and doesn't set out to be perfect. It's just a spoof... not to be taken seriously or out of context. In fact, had it not been for this cartoon, I never would have reviewed the "Power Star" series and recall instantly that, yes, I have seen that horrific scene before! It brought me back. If a Flash spoof can pull that off--to make you interested in reliving the source material... then that, my friend, is a Flash worth your time. Of course, "Power Star" itself is even better, though that goes without saying....

JonBro responds:

I appreciate the score but I stopped reading when you said "advertisement."

[<unfinished.swfs>]

At Least One of 'Em Ought to be Finished....

JonBro has joined the sad fraternity of nitwits who figure, for posterity's sake, they should combine all their failed experiments together into a single compilation. This is just asking for a ripping when it comes to reviews. Let's begin:

Galaxy Gags:

Thank God a third gag wasn't devised for this lackluster compilation of parodies. For one thing, Mario gets beaten senseless. Jokes based on games must not focus purely on main characters; otherwise, what's the point? You could feature Mario in a dozen different settings or games and it wouldn't make a difference, until you incorporate everything into the joke. You got to pick on everything, not just Mario. Also, the "Ride the Lightning Manta" thing is kind of obscure, even if a few of its relatives have been known since antiquity to do that. If you wanted to be picky, it doesn't even look like one of the Batoideas that have actual electric properties. Therefore, it might confuse or alienate the folks who know too little or too much. It's unlikely that the first scene would pull the audience's sympathetic attention; the others would never be watched as they click "Zero" and search the Portal for another Flash to Blam.

Sprite Movies:

Randy Solem was right to point out how using sprites from the indigenous game made things far easier to pull off, because there was no need for custom jobs to satisfy cross-over power-ups. However, most of these sprite movies are really just towing the line between homage and ripoff, strictly due to how close JonBro's vision emulates the source material. Sometimes, in the case of the Easter Egg (which I did not find), it is just done poorly. Why bother? The "K I L L I T W I T H F I R E" revisions were tongue-in-cheek, but only in a self-deprecating sense. It made me laugh, but not in a good way. Some of the ideas of parodying Randy's sprite cartoons were sound, but I can understand the lack of motivation in crafting a carbon copy if there weren't incentives toward such precision.

"Madness: Termination" Flash:

Here's where my negative sentiment fades, the Flash that made me look forward to the mid-section of crap that made me wish for a way out of watching this tripe. The secret to a good presentation is to start strong and end strong. In this case, "Madness: Termination" was supposed to contain somewhere near an actual plot, not just an action sequence that satisfies an unknown or oversimplified one. According to JonBro's designer comments, this was about a red bandana faceless man in the world of Madness who discovers the assassination for which his best friend was executed for was one of Tricky the Clown's work. It was meant to be a vengeance-driven action thriller, where the red bandana eliminates both Tricky and his gang of 1337 Crew goons. However, JonBro never got to planning an action sequence or having it make sense. While the pace is melodious at best, he does have the general concept of making a drama. The scene he established is almost a stand-alone story, a short, short film where it culminates to a final heartbreaking moment. If that was done in a universe other than Madness, it would be utterly gut-wrenching.

But if you want gut-wrenching, the beginning elements of the Cave Story "horror" tribute was beginning to look incredible. The only complaint I got here is that it never got finished, because JonBro, despite confessing to knowing little about horror through direct observation, he captures some of the tropes of shock value, as well as the underlying premise of confronting one's own darkness through an exterior, personified force, are solid. Also, when you look at a corpse that was once you, and hear it say something like your dying words... my God! The direction this was going, in conjunction with intrepid source material... to leave this unfinished is inexcusable! How many game-based flashes center around actual horror, anyway?

That's it. JonBro has improved over time and we'll leave it at that. For best viewing "experience", skip the Sprites, stick to Madness and "Cave Story Horror".

JonBro responds:

Good gracious. I'm glad I don't get more reviews from you. You're harsh even when you like something.

I don't mind constructive criticism, or even a low-scoring review, but your pessimism and insults are out of line.

[Let's Go Fly a Kite]

"...And I'm Awesome! Let's Go Get the Front Page!"

I remember watching "Trying to Make Music" a while back. It's still hilarious. After watching this and reviewing Dave Pagurek's site page, there it was. Should have been obvious about whose minds are behind this happy-go-lucky piece. For a young kid, Dave's animation skills are pretty good, even though the art direction is very simple. What kills me is that this is a fair-length cartoon with a lot going for it, even though the author(s) consider it a test of classical animating techniques. It's also very family-friendly, which is something that most cartoonists in Newgrounds cannot do and not just in a deliberate fashion--people here just don't know how to make a squeaky clean cartoon and make it funny and engaging. You could probably count the ones who can on a single hand, and at least one finger goes to Pahgawk.

In "Let's Go Fly a Kite", the young girl cons her big brother into some outside playtime, which is something he needs given that he's in front of a computer more often than not. While their father goes to the store, they try to have fun with a kite, but the classic anathema of kites, a tree, throws them into a series of attempts at recovering their little red vessel. However, their efforts soon turn to infighting, which escalates through an all-consuming water fight. Post-Script: their father is a weirdo in and out of public.

Being that this was developed by a brother-and-sister team (Dave's sister Sari co-wrote this as part of an unofficial apprenticeship), the actual coherence of a narrative very close to real and even closer to home is exemplary. Most collaborations between siblings fall flat on their faces or never see the light of day. When these kids take the stage, however, sparks fly.

The simple, simple art direction resembles Egoraptor's Awesome series, such as pupil-less eyes when really wide and general facial expressions, even the Easter Egg: how it's found and its content. Egoraptor kept his animation simple to stay ahead of deadlines when he worked for MTV--his art improved after his tenure with them ended, even though he submits Awesome and Girlchan sporadically--while Dave's emphasis on simplicity is to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Thus, he is judicious about what to work on, what to leave in, what to emphasize, and what not to include, a necessary talent for any animator. Whatever the result, he's learning. At a geometric rate, probably....

It's obvious that Dave gets cues from the raptor but remains distinct from him. For one thing, this is G-rated. It's all very tongue-in-cheek and solid humor, especially since every character manages to have a quirk about them that makes you smile at the very least. As an animation experiment, it's obvious that there are flaws, but none are glaring, and even though not every frame is used, that's what you're meant to do, considering not every frame changes. It's also fun to note that he changed the right-click menu in an inventive fashion, explaining how he tried hard to work around audio synchronization issues in a (large) project. Even though you would never see this on, say a DVD release of material, it adds another nice human touch. Of course, nothing would click without a public domain score of the William Tell Overture (Lone Ranger Theme) used in a fashion reminiscent of "Ren & Stimpy" and a stellar voice-over direction. Even though I haven't mentioned that a whole lot, without sibling rivalry and chemistry, there wouldn't be a "Let's Go Fly a Kite", period.

Not only is this family-friendly, the development was family fare, so God help me if I strongly advise getting your loved ones involved with authoring a submission. The results may surprise you. Anyway, if you want to find something of Newgrounds that isn't quite Newgrounds, look no further than "Let's Go Fly a Kite". This not getting Front Page is like Cardinal Sin.

Pahgawk responds:

Thanks for that very in-depth review and all the time that must have taken! That was a very accurate analysis. I have always found that I enjoy simply drawn but well done animations like Egoraptor's for its effective simplicity. His in particular have a sort of loose, natural feel to them that I will often try to "emulate" in my own work for lack of better full-scale animation. Obviously I'm still not at that level yet, but it is still a large inspiration for me.
As for the rating, I tend to like things that are funny out of pure, good humor more than things that are funny from their crude, dirty humor (although I will say there's a spot in my heart for both.) Also, I can't really get my sister to do those kinds of voice acting roles because I'm still supposed to be a "good role model" for her, so for a while I won't have any of that.

[Kawaii Robo Star: Xtreme]

Yeah, Whatever

Turn it down to low quality so the dot matrix printer can print that dick faster.

AxelTheNavy responds:

lol

[Stainville Episode 1]

Grotesque, Irrepressible Romp Without a Real Plot

There was this sort of recurring thought in my head when I was in high school, how I despised every moment of it. It wasn't faculty or curriculum, it was the students. The thought was that I was reliving every bad moment in my life over and over and I became convinced that my corpse was on the ground just out of my line of vision, either by suicide or heart attack. "Stainville", soon to become a series by calling itself the first episode (assuming college isn't a bother for its author, Alpha Nuva), captures that sentiment perfectly. This was what I wanted high school to be: gory. The cartoon captured everything that irked me; I even sympathized with the shooters from Columbine High School at one time, assuming they snapped after all the unchecked peer pressure they received. Though I have since amended my perspective on that event, that should explain just how estranged I was to the whole high school experience, and the leading reason in present day why I choose never to have a roommate.

However, while I can semi-identify with the source material, I am nowhere near inclined to consider this high school spoof as truly endearing or possessing of any real emotional content. Its emphasis on unchecked delinquency sort of falls in on itself, as all the characters are one-dimensional expressions of the author's exaggerated fantasy depiction of high school life. While containing tasteless humor (as the author's comments warn us), it has nothing but tasteless humor, and is rather vapid. Thanks to the Newgrounds crowd's general inclination, it is overrated in a pathetic fashion. It's good, almost incredible for a first entry even... but it's not THAT good. The main weakness is that there is no risk for the main characters in any of their endeavors, like garlic-chewing, devout Catholic vampires swimming on the beach at high noon: in other words, invincible and very unbelievable.

"Stainville" is a random assortment of pranks, snide attitude and malfeasance from three boys in Stainville High. They aim paper airplanes toward the butt crack of teachers who are wickedly ill with the flu (but still arrive on time to teach, perhaps out of commitment to their job), and they outright murder freshman students for fun and pleasure. The principal resembles and even emulates male genetalia and calls it a birth defect. This carries no conventional plot... just a trio of jerks whose aimless bitter disregard for authority culminates in them coming into school the very next day with frowns on their faces, even though the principal (who crawls in and out of a doghouse in his office) ends up decapitated after a school riot.

This is truly a juvenile male production from start to finish. The cartoon is ugly and twisted in its art direction, with brilliant expressions and constant toilet humor. The genre is labelled as "Experimental", although a better genre would be dystopian satire, with an almost Lovecraftian principal's office and a general disregard for consistent character models. Scoota Lank is a veritable violent sociopath and his buddies are little better. It's hard to tell why you would want to sympathize with anybody in this mess of a cartoon, because the script doesn't allow that. They are just manufactured caricatures so that the designers could have a cheap laugh and fantasize about getting away with anything and everything in high school.

If you're into the really gross brand of humor, you'll feel at home here. For a first effort and release by a Flash author, it is exemplary, because it is a complete cartoon, for better or worse, and not some stick figure scribble as is the case with most first efforts. Still, it's a gross-out fest without a real plot or set of memorable characters. It doesn't try to emulate a banal cartoon sit-com, it just does what it wants and gives no apology. Even though it's not the greatest experience, you have to applaud Alpha Nuva and Scotlank for immersing us in a maelstrom of misery that captures some of the darker points of high school life with an irrepressible stroke of the brush.

Alpha-Nuva responds:

You pretty much hit the nail on the head with this review. I even agree that this cartoon is overrated. Only my partners felt that it would fare this well; I expected it to have a 3.00 average and not make front page.

However, I feel you were off on a few points. For starters, there's no indication that these characters are invincible. This, like a vast majority of the toons out on television today, feature characters that are very extremely elusive (i.e. Jerry Mouse, the Roadrunner, Bugs Bunny, etc). What I am presenting here is not all too different from most other cartoons out today.

Second, I am a little unsure of where you drew that the teachers had a cold from. If you're referring to the one teacher vomiting, then I'd have to say it's of a completely different reason. The vomiting, was an attempt to purge his system after the plane became lodged in his intestinal tract.

Third, there wasn't a "disregard" for consistent character models. I constantly changed the characters' looks to reflect the situations they were in - tighter, normal looking faces for more serious scenes and disproportioned, wrinkled faces for more silly and chaotic scenes. Once again, nothing all too different from the norm of cartoons.

Also, I don't believe dystopian satire is an option for Newgrounds, not that I would have chosen it either way for this toon. This was a pilot and still has some kinks to work through before episode two, several of which you'd gone over in your review. I thank you for the detailed, Times-esque style you wrote your review in and for the honest (and in my opinion, accurate) score.