Alter-native's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pop Team Epic but it's a Flash from 2005]

Pop Team Assasin!

As fan of Pop Team Epic, and a lurker since 2005, I can say this short really hit me in all the right places.

I remember Assasin and Joe Cartoon flashes where the gimmick was pressing buttons so that some authors made up OC can stab or punch a celebrity. It was pretty quirky, so something like Pop Team Epic, an anime comedy that's like Eric Andre meets Warioware on steroids, would fit right with the quirky oddball atmosphere that Newgrounds held back when it was dingy backwater site and less politically correct ( the "0" on the Vote Bar now says "Blam this plz" instead of "Blam this piece of Crap!" because we don't want people's feelings hurt apparently).

I kinda wish I made my start back then when standards were low enough.

[Yuki : Rise above the Deaths [ 2012 Motioncomic ]]

This Scene You Are Plotting Out Looks Cool!

Maybe, you should consider turning into a fully animated scene... Maybe.

airman4 responds:

You mean continuing it afterwards ?

[Baron Von Shakenburg's Waltz]

Hey!

You're that lizard on DeviantArt who fantasizes about murdering popular cartoon characters!

Welcome to Newgrounds! I'm sure you'll like it here, have you checked out the Assassin pages? I'd think they'd be up your alley!

[The Crucifixion of Jesus]

I Came from a liberal-ish Christian Background and I Gotta Say, I Kinda Like This

Kinda reminds me of Wil Vinton studios, specifically some of the more adult cartoons like Celebrity Deathmatch.

It's not what Jesus would do, it would not be in his demeanor, but that's the point I think.

I like to think this scenario would happen if George Carlin was God, because reminds of a segment of a rant he did about snitches. The clip is on youtube and it's called "Everyone's a Rat."

"You Know What Jesus shoulda done? He shoulda beat the shit out of Judas! But he didn't, because he believed in all that love bullshit. But get this, he didn't squeal on the Apostles! We should all learn something from Jesus."

[Telling the Truth]

I like this short, not just because it is decently animated. Which it is, but also because I find it personal. Throughout my life so many "facts" turned out to be misconceptions, and some "misconceptions" turned out to be facts.

Like I always used to think that if you put live wire in a pond full of fish, you would kill all the fish in the pond. But my father who is an engineer, told that that was not the case. I told him that he deconstructed Pokemon by demonstrated the physical fallacy of certain elemental defenses and attacks.

[A-Hole in Time]

I Could See Where This Movie Was Going A Minute Into It...

...And yet I enjoyed every second of it due to the great animation, voice acting, and funny situation.

[Scaredy Dave: Episode 1]

Clocktower Is a Bonnafide Classic.

Here's hoping you make more. This series looks really promising.

Good luck on your next entry.

[Snow Hare]

Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptence.

1. Denial. The black spot that manifests on the top of the rabbits head, and continues to grow is a manifestation of rabbit's emotions and memory of what happened. The rabbit tries to shake it all off, remembering the good times with his chubby friend, pretending and trying to believe it isn't there, that his tragedy didn't happen, and it does recede for a little bit, but it is still there. When the rabbit steps outside to take a look at the snowman, he puts the scarf onto the snowman, as if to project the memory and image of his friend onto the effigy, But once again, pretending that he is still alive does not get rid of the problem. For reality is what it is, and you can not deny that which obviously exists. Reality is, the chubby rabbit friend was swiftly killed by a hawk, for he could not outrun it, and now what remains of his corpse is being picked by crows.

2. Anger. After experiencing a horrible nightmare, the rabbits emotions swell into intensity, as the black spot grows, almost covering his entire body, giving him a beast like appearance, and manifesting as his anger. The rabbit lashes out at a crow sitting atop his snowman, the straw that breaks the camels back. The rabbit attacks with a subconscious to tear apart the crows, and make them suffer like his friend did. Yet in the wake of his hate filled trance of aggression, he come to realization that he has committed a horrible deed out of his aggression, he destroyed the effigy of his chubby rabbit friend, and that brings us to...

3. Bargaining. When people are dealt with grief, they could go in either two directions from here. They could either go back to denial, and shift the of blame their actions onto their instigators, and continuing suffering great hardships only to keep coming back to this point and going back to denial again, and let the black spot become their persona... Or they could realize at this point that they are, or at least would be no better than the adversaries or happenings that brought this grief upon them in the first place. The rabbit chooses the latter option, as now his emotional manifestation is sprouting wings, reminding him that in his actions, he has become not unlike the birds that took his friends away. This scene also has some Judeo-Christian religion metaphoric symbolism to it too, because the act of bargaining in some people is praying to God, pouring your soul out to Him, asking Him to relieve themselves of grief. So the wings can also be taken as angel wings, and the crow coming out of the rabbit can be seen as a form of exorcism. Regardless, after his bout of fury, the rabbit is kneeling down for some inner atonement for his out burst, and is now relieved of the power that has taken over him, but now he is powerless and that leads us to...

4. Depression. The ultimate feeling in sadness. It consists of combination self loathing, helplessness, but overall, a lack of motivation and empowerment. However, since the rabbit let go of the scarf, that means he overcame this stage, and that brings us to...

5. Acceptance. In the end, we might make mistakes, or bad things wll happen despite how prepared we are. One things for certain, bad things will happen, and it is up to us to overcome the grief, lest we become shadows of our former selves.

I 5'd this. I rarely give out five stars, but overall this movie was well though out, and had some theatrical style animation, which if you consider the standards of this site in general, is a rarity. Plus, it's been a while since a movie inspired me to sit down and make me give my two cents in a review.

For all intents and purposes, this movie is flawless, made straight from the soul too as evidenced by the dedication to the Author's irl friend who tragically died. This was a sincere effort.

Now I might comment on the design of the character and how they might fall into "Cal Arts style" as John K. puts it, but that's a really superficial aspect. When you get down to it, some good movies have come out of Cal Arts style, one of them being the Iron Giant, so even if the design does fit into the criteria asymmetrical appeal or might "same face" a bit at times it doesn't matter, because I felt real emotion from this. Plus, the rabbits despite looking half humanoid in appearance do have truly rabbit characteristics that I don't see in other rabbit cartoons. Like those slope like snouts. They are like a cross between a human snout, and a rabbit's actual snout, which if you look at rabbit, you notice that their nose really go down like that from their nose bridge towards their mouth. Their ears though, are certainly tinier than real rabbits but again this is superficial stuff, for the backgrounds were beautifully painted, and animation was absolutely top notch. If the animation was standardized like if characters moved like they do in Franklin or Cailou, I might raise a complaint about the design, but the animation was full of life and subtle movements, just like in a traditionally animated Disney film, making the design of characters irrelevant in that regard.

Once again, it's rare we see theatrical quality animation on Newgrounds. I recommend people take their time to check this one out.

As for the author, thank you for your these heavy 4 minutes, may your friend rest in piece, and good luck on your next entry...

ShawnBranden responds:

Wow. Thank you! I really appeciate the thought you put in to this! I did a lot of research on the stages of grief for the project which in turn helped me to better understand what i was going through when I lost my friend. The stages don't all happen in one particular order. Many happen concurrently and repeat throughout the process. Also thank you for the critique. Additionally the Snowshoe hare's fur changes color seasonally and it was that change that attracted me to use the hare as my subject. I'm glad you got a clear understanding of what I was going for. I'll do my best to add to the quality for the next.

[Omnislash FAIL]

Presentation Is Important

First things first, I usually say "don't draw sticks" because that was advice that my mother had given me ever since I was young. To this day, I still find it sound because as an artist, you can't improve on the human figure if you stick to sticks.

There are exceptions to this rule, like Krinkels and his madness animations, and some other stick artists like the fluidanims guys, and xiao xiao, but those guys are the exception because they have a good "directional sense". Like either they set their movies up like a cinematic production, or that they have so much going on that it doesn't matter that they use stick figures, because everything else is detailed or there's just a lot action or the animation so smooth that nobody cares.

Still sticks are good for roughs, but usually what I do with roughs is take the rough and draw over them(draw a more solid 3 dimensional figure in place of the stick figure)

This is not to shabby for a first run, but it needs some overhaul.

The stick fight at the begining was not well centered, and wasn't well coreographed.

However the moment where that stick on the right jumps up into the air to deliver a final strike was actually pretty cool, interesting, and partially well done. "Cloud" was pretty well drawn too. What I liked the most was how you implemented perspective. When we see these two fight as stick figures, we are seeing them from a far away point of view in context of the movie. Then, the "camera" zooms in on cloud, revealing the obscured stick figure to actually be more 3 dimensional and detailed in close up. That was really neat.

Finally the joke, the punchline.

A basic slapstick parody punchline. Cloud jumps high up to do his Omnislash, except he jumps so high he breaks gravity and enters orbit. The final scene with cloud crashing into the moon, is drawn pretty rudimentary, but... I'll let it pass because I've drawn like that too at times.

So far, it's a pretty solid idea, but the movie needs some retouching, I would suggest centering the figures, or just adding a background, and also removing those box like frames which I assume you used to guide your frame of action. Cloud should be colored in, and... I think that just about all the advice I can give.

As always, thank you for your efforts, and good luck on your next entry.

originalhobodeadfish responds:

As I do appreciate the critism, I honestly do. As I am taking everything with a grain of salt, I will improve my work for next time. The stick figure fighting was actually so I could get used to motion a bit more, though I was attempting to frame by frame the actual omnislash when I was creating it, animation is a beast that needs more finnese than I was giving it - I see that now. Thank you for your input and I will work my damndest to improve my work.

By the way, not bad for not ever using Flash right?

[Raw Latex]

The Unspoken Rule of Raw Latex Battle Trainers... Ha.

This was a swell parody of those monster shounen battle genre cartoons in my opinion. I like basic premise of replacing the monsters with magical strap on dildos(that people wear on their foreheads no less).

This actually ought to be a series, rather than a one shot joke. It could go further. You could do another and create a saga out of this. Animation was pretty standard, but the art was good as usual. Music was very bouncy and festive.