Alter-native's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Mario Meets Patrick Star]

Short, But Ultimately Enjoyable.

I really like the animation in this short, so much so that I watched it 5 times over before writing this review. It was just really super smooth, and it just tickled my nostalgic fancy seeing the Lou Albano DIC era Mario animated like that. Patrick Star also being better animated then in the actual show was also cool. Both characters are also perfectly on model, which is a cool feat to make if you didn't trace.

You also perfectly captured the personality of the characters, especially considering that Patrick did not shoot Mario on purpose, he's just stupid enough to play around with a gun.

The flaw was that is was rather short, but I don't think that can be help because it is a short gag by nature.

4/5 Stars. Good luck on your next entry.

NAveryW responds:

Thank you. I didn't trace the characters, but I did look at screenshots from the cartoons for reference. Making the DiC Mario perfectly on-model was not a real issue since he's never actually on-model in the show. I also simplified the character designs a bit to make them easier to animate; for example, I did away with Patrick's waistband and the M on Mario's hat. You can spot a few other differences if you look closely.

[All illWillPress Episodes]

Ah ha ha ha.

I remember the days when the Star Syndicate, The Barney Bunch, and the UCFD railed against this nonsense, and risked getting banned for it.

But seriously, Illwillpress and his Neurotically Yours series has been satirized to death. It's common knowledge by now that JIM puts no effort into his movies and to this day, has not improved one aspect of his writing, his animation, or his artwork. Every episode from here on out boils down to
1. Foamy rants at something

2. Germaine has something weird done to her(breast implants, shaves head, gets fat, wears floral dresses, etc.), and despite this, she still serves as back drop weird sexual object and not a fully fleshed out character.

3. Lazy, minimalistic animation utilizing frames and art since 2004 and filtered photograph backgrounds.

The best compliment I can give to him now, is that at least he finally got around to fixing his line work by smoothing it out(Foam always had a jagged iris until recently). Though now it just looks like bland. That, and maybe he experiments more visual creativity in his art portal offerings.

The most damning thing about it is that this series back in the day, was that it was overrated to the point where it would easily win awards and get front paged, shunning more talented and hardworking animators and artists.

Neurotically Yours , for a short time for Illwillpress, made NG into a merchandising vehicle for himself, as well as a wannabe gothic, hot topic brand angst hive. Sometimes it got so bad, that Illwillpress could get front paged for posting a single scene, single frame picture, opinionated audio rant on Hurricane Katrina as a movie, and have his legions of fans praising it without a single thought.

But those days are now over. I know this because I lived through them. I've seen this site change in magnificent and frightening ways.

Nowadays Illwillpress and his ilk have faded into obscurity. The cloud over shrouding his fame is Egorapter, his Awesome series, and his many clones.

Newgrounds is now a haven for an endless after endless avalanche of generic video game parodies.

But I feel fine, because even so most of these current movies aren't completely original, they are at least, for the most part, far more visually creative and done by authors who love their work and subject material, care for their fans, and put far much effort into their movies then Illwillpress ever did with his Foamy cartoons.

It's not the perfect slice of heaven, but it's manageable, and occasionally, occasionally, I still as always find something truly remarkable and awe-inspiring that truly proves that the 10% according to Sturgeon's law is still worth dying for.

But anyway, this movie perfectly emulates Neurotically Yours to a T. I honestly cannot give this higher then 3.5/5 stars because of this. It doesn't take that much effort to make Foamy cartoons. It's gotten to the point where making fun of Illwillpress and his social-political squirrel sock puppet is old hat. This guy no longer wins easy awards like he used to do. Some Foam-heads have moved on to better and brighter things, whereas the ones that still remain will do as they always do, and nothing will change their opinion. This series, for all intents and purposes, is dead, and we can let it stay dead. Still, you're kind of funny and I give you credit for that. I like your choice of posters on the wall in the background.

Good luck on your next entry as always.

BoobMarley responds:

I had never seen an IWP animation until last week. This short animation wasn't the product of years of annoyance and frustration. I was seriously just that urgently compelled after having watched his stuff to put another project on hold for the afternoon and crank this out to get it all off my chest.
It only took 4 hours.

I really do appreciate your thoughts on the whole matter, and am glad there are folks in the community who don't have a stick up their ass about seeing their beloved Foamy and Germaine get mocked. It means a lot to have the understanding and support of a member who has seen much in his time here. Thank you.

[A Tale Of Woe]

A Tale of Woe in The Middle East

This 3 minute short has a unique animation style and a very interesting one at that. It is like the characters were animated using cutouts from a sketchbook and the backgrounds were cut and pasted together from photographs of real life war sites. The the closest things I could compare to the character animation would be the character animation from Nintendo's Hotel Dusk and A-Ha's music video, "Take On Me" from the 80's. The results are very impressive, since a lot of the action in this looked hard to animate.

The story is very grim. The story mostly consists of all the horrible stuff you hear and read about in the news regarding the United State's War on Terror. The violence against women, the bombings, the collateral damage on behalf the U.S. Military, the civilian and US causalities... All through the eyes of a young orphan(?) dodging hellfire and what not. The short ends with the kid waking up in a hospital bed from a recap of everything witnessed, looking out the window, and giving a smile. I interpret this to mean the kid becoming desensitized to the violence and general horror, to the point of accepting it as if it were a natural thing.

So I ask the author, what country does this animation take place? I assume it's Afghanistan because of the early scene where the kid kicks a heroin needle on the ground.

For those who don't know Afghanistan has a problem with heroin due to the oppressive regime of the Taliban which outlawed all forms of entertainment and media, in addition to women's rights. A lot of adults in Afghanistan get high from heroin and zone out in the streets since there is nothing else to do besides praise Allah.

TaraGraphika responds:

I LOOOOOVVEEE DEDUCTIONS!

Have you seen Sherlock BBC? He asked Watson if he was posted from Afghanistan or from Iraq just by telling it from small details of his features. The same goes for your observant on the heroin needle. Amazing and Fantastic. You are right. This whole animation is taken place in Afghanistan.

Thank you for your wonderful review. I bet everyone could tell it's from Afghanistan, but to prove it, small details should be observed.

[Mind Over Monster]

MANDUCK WILL KILL YOU ALL!!!

Say,

Were those "snails" eggs by any chance?

Detectonomicon responds:

Eggs, hotdog relish, and green food coloring!

[Worst Game Trailer Ever]

I hope this isn't going to be the Wost "Game" Ever.

The environment looks fine and passable except for three details. One would be the rocks around the fire, which look too round and need to be jagged like rocks. The other problem is the lack of shading on the snowy grounds and the grassy patch. Final detail that needs work is the character model, which looks like messy patches of undefined color pallet blobs coming together. His animation is also a little glitchy what with his eyes disappearing. His concept is okay, an old warrior, but he needs better rendering.

TytanTroll responds:

Thanks for the crits mate, i know it was a bit sloppy all around but i only just started getting used to motion tweening towards the deadline. Ill try and work on it some more and up everyones opinion of it some more

[My Little Sky Craft]

Was This Flash Getting Whistled For Hateful Or Something?

I notice this flash has been lingering on the the under judgement section, and whenever I click on it, I am redirected to an error page, something that usually happens for whistled entries.

While I must applaud people for being alert, but I think they are mistaken with this entry as I do not believe the author was insensitively targeting those afflicted autistic and Aspergers, he was targeting unoriginality and lazyness.

Just to be clear, I am certain that this short is not meaning to make fun of people with aspergers or put them down. I find it to be satire of all the Skyrim, MLP: FIM, and Minecraft flashes that I see on the front page every single day I login. These flashes tend to make the same "arrow to the knee"/"I'm a 30 year old male and I ironically enjoy this show"/"CREEPERS!!!" jokes over and over. We get it, they're awesome games and properties with massive appeal, we know.

A lot of fans of these properties, especially with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, have gained infamy as they claim to have Asperger's and they defend their lazily written fanfiction by using their Asperger's as crutch, and it gives people with Asperger's syndrome a bad name in process. It is that aspect that I think the author was specifically attacking.

This flash gave me a good chuckle. I thought it was okay

Croire responds:

No I just had a problem uploading it with the original project I started so I had to make a new project. Just weird technical issues.

[Jukes&Pogo: Violent Night]

Pretty Decent For A First Submission.

The art and animation is very cartoony and the dialogue is funny. I also like how you implement music from The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening in your little twisted Christmas story featuring this clownish comic duo. However, there is one big little flaw in your flash that ruins the sequence. The sound is not quite synched, you might want to go back and fix that.

ZizzyB23 responds:

Thanks for the review. A lot of people are saying the audio's off, and doing a little testing I see that if I click away from the page and come back it will be off. Unfortunately I don't know how to make it so that's not a problem. If you have any ideas I'd be very thankful to hear them.

[Mortal Kouple]

ANDY WINS!

MISOGYNISTICALITY!

AJennyPenny responds:

Coincidentally, after posting this animation, I got back to the kitchen. Where I belong.

[The Journey of Remorse]

Lotus.

This short pretty well crafted, een if the animation can be a little questionable sometimes(smooth tweening, but sometimes the base of the guy's neck shifts around unnaturally). If there is one thing that is important in a person's moral development, it is remorse, because it is the only thing we have that will let us realize what jerks we have been. Some people don't have remorse sadly.

Vleric responds:

Glad you liked it! Animation is what we're going to focus on, and improve in future, just need more practice, so keep in touch!

Anyways, thank you for the nice review, and yes ... it is sad ...