Neophyte-Ronin's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Prosnorkulus]

Prosnorkulus: Bloated with Gas and Anger Issues

Okay, so if you watched "Mike's Date" by MiddleFingerRings (this review will be waiting for you when you get back), we're on the same page. Now that you know some filaments of the guy's style, let's begin. Prosnorkulus is a mock-up of a very, very bad period piece with fantasy stereotypes and excessive gore. The plot does not need to make sense and it is a given that the audience suspends its disbelief. Yet, not everybody can do so, not to such an unrealistic extreme, anyway.

Enter Prosnorkulus, a Dwarf who never speaks, has an ambitious brown beard, and does nothing but ax anyone who disagrees with his ridiculous mission or just pisses him off in general. His eyes glow red when this happens, yet he is some kind of wonderful when it comes to personal heroism. He literally has sex with all the maidens in the region inside his war tent, and they are all piled together that the thing bursts at the seams. Anyway, uh, I didn't quite get the plot. Either that's a failing on part of the author or I just missed something. Anyway, he's doing something yet has to contend with a wiry, anachronistic sniper using a high-precision rifle, a thick contrast to Prosnorkulus' Warcraft-tinged medieval blunderbuss.

If this cartoon succeeds at one thing, it is the cartoony art design. Every character is unique and expressive, with all the class of a Chick Tract and the intellectual quotient of a mule hoof. The explicit gore is noteworthy as everything is rendered in slow motion tweens that are so over-the-top that you just bat your head from side to side in disbelief. It's hard to keep THAT suspension up, let me clue you. Ryan Maddox peppers in anachronisms such as drill sergeants, homosexual noblemen, squinty-eyed losers, and people you just know are going to die. All their faces fit.

What it fails to do is use any impressive animation. It relies upon slow-motion death sequences so much that you start to yawn with the escargot excrement that is the action sequences. The pace drags and little traditional methods exist outside of lip-synchronization for voice-overs. Oh, and a movie like this requires more than two or three voice-over talents, because even though they did a good job, they did a poor job at masking their identities between characters. I could tell Josh Tomar played the king, for instance, alongside several other characters. It's a struggle for any voice-over talent to obscure their regular voice with accents and delivery, but here, it seemed like they didn't bother trying. This movie should have had far more voice talents involved, in other words.

Other failings of Prosnorkulus include reliance upon dead air background noise and an ear-grinding dubstep soundtrack--PURE DUBSTEP--which hammers in the fact that if Hans Zimmer ain't scoring your action movie, kiss your box office earnings goodbye. The appropriateness of the soundtrack--in terms of offending every last bystander--succeeds, but it wasn't necessary since the movie already is. Instead, Prosnorkulus needs background ambience, it needs a bloated soundtrack like Skyrim: a heroic Scandinavian choir and overplayed brass segments. That way the sniper can clip this jackass in the knee and it'd be topical, though Skyrim jokes are already old.

In summary: it's badly written, badly paced, badly overdone and badly executed. The effects are cheap, laughable, the voice talents are overworked, and the jokes, while they got me to laugh with their gratuity, fail to stand up against other works, including "Mike's Date", which excels by keeping its scope in check. It's a flash that takes forever so you see once and never look back, a forgettable period comedy with obvious juvenile inspiration and irritating execution. It's meant to piss you off, but unlike Fisthead and other gratuitous gags, it wears its welcome out too soon.

If Ryan Maddox is considering a Prosnorkulus sequel or even a series, I recommend narrowing the speaking parts and overall scope down to a trickle because the only thing I remember now of Prosnorkulus is his ridiculous ponderous gait.

MiddleFingerRings responds:

Come on guys, don't vote this as a useless review. Clearly our pseudo-intellectual friend has put a lot of work into it. ;D

Just to be clear; there were some good points in there, but your choice to direct it to the audience rather than to me, while simultaneously tearing the work to pieces, is a poor one. Also, all of the good points were so overwhelmed by the 'speaking like a critic' bullshit that I found it hard to pick them out.

[Parasitemas]

Obscene Never Equates to Edgy

Inspiring isn't the word I'd use to describe it. All this did was inspire me to kneel before the toilet bowl in joyful anticipation for something that might just cure my migraine. It's ugliness like this animation that makes me wonder why I keep coming back to Newgrounds. Maybe it's because I'm the kind of guy who enjoys a good public hanging every now and then. You know, like a walk-in execution ceremony.

Yeah, uh, there is no real plot, except that tapeworms are divine, or some other stupid message that is perfect for the holidays. Merry fucking Christmas, wankers. Here's a cartoon about anal probes and other disgusting shit. Why not put up a bunch of neon lights around a life-size crucifix in your front lawn while you're at it? Cartoons like this prove Santa never existed, ever.

Anyway, it's one of those cartoons where it is technically sound, it is a finished collaboration, there are no glaring mess-ups like that "Every War in History" cartoon, and I'm pretty sure this decrepit shit is still in their hard drives for posterity. So yeah, this is a triumph by the professionals all right. It's hard to tell which animator did what since it's all a seamless blur of insanity and--and I will bet fifties on this--nobody will seriously desire to replay it to cross-reference with other selected works from each authors' catalog. I ain't doing this bull-work for you, either. This is enough to shrivel up a porno star's hard-on into a stack of dimes.

Even though this debuted during Christmas, please do not recommend this for Christmas 2011. It will end up there anyway, no thanks to the Admins, but instead, recommend that it end up in a selection like "Bastards" or something. I'll tell you one thing: the "M" rating doesn't cut it; "A" is preferable since the level of obscenity is shown and not just implied. "Parasitemas" is just another mash-up from a set of talented but cynical and juvenile misfits who enjoy shitting into everyone's stockings. Obscene is not equal to Edgy, and for that, this one gets a 3 of 10.

OrganizedApeShape responds:

MAN EPIC REVIEW!

[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.

[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.