TSRevolutionary's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Jerry]

Better than I expected, but...

Well, damn. I have to say that, at the beginning, I wasn't expecting much. I've seen plenty of TV shows, movies, and animations that use the exact same format: average Joe (or Jerry, I suppose) with an empty life goes through the exact same thing every day until he's driven to madness. I've seen plenty that use the same damn format, too. Alarm, breakfast, work, etc.; its all been done before. Even the ending was incredibly predictable.

Still, despite the lack of originality, I was laughing pretty hard. The biggest advantage was the body language and the facial expressions. The guy is just goofy (and as a result, kinda likable), and that carried over into every scene. He looks goofy when he wakes up, he looks goofy when he's having sex, and he looks goofy drunk (although, admittedly, the last two are pretty goofy in real life too). A few bursts of inspiration also helped to spice things up (the wallet bit was hilarious).

Ultimately, this flash isn't funny because of the content, per se, but because of the delivery. Use your character designs/expressions with a bit more originality, and I can definitely see some amazing flashes in the future. As of right now, this is just a really good one.

Oh, and to the guy/gal before me: a condom doesn't mean shit if it breaks. Or, if you're just plain unlucky. So, uh, keep that in mind kiddo ;)

[666BloodyFuck]

Well, that was interesting

I had a lot more fun reading through the reviews for this flash than I did actually watching the flash. There's a lot of flaming coming from both sides, but when it comes to actual critiquing, there's slim to none. The main problem I have is that you obviously have no intentions of learning from any critique given. Someone says "good, but make it longer," and you readily respond "no," or "I'm too lazy." This flash is obviously made by someone skilled, and no one can deny that; but superb production doesn't equal superb entertainment. The large, overwhemling majority of viewers are not going to be entertained by a single image; either take the advice and expand, or stop complaining when people flame your work. I think we both know that if you put some effort into this, you could have made something great; but you didn't, and refuse to do so, and as a result you're stuck with Turd of the Week, an award that's aptly deserved. But, for my review.

The name of the flash automatically had me skeptical (although, I saw "Turd of the Week" first, so I was probably already a bit skeptical). Something that you want taken seriously probably shouldn't be named "666BloodyFuck". Sort of ruins the mood, kid. The nature of the flash had me expecting a screamer, so it was a bit difficult to enjoy at first, since I had my guard up. Once I decided it'd keep looping, though, I realized it wasn't that bad. The drawing is very well done, there's a lot of detail to be observed, and the effects are slightly tantalizing, if that's the word. The music fit in nicely as well, nice to listen to. A better title might have prevented the lowered expectations, though. The real complaint, obviously, is the length of the flash; twenty seconds into it, you realize "this is it," and you exit out. Hardly entertaining.

I'm very aware of how difficult Flash is to work with, and how much work even this short, uninspired Flash must have required. As a reviewer, however, its not my duty to say "aww, poor kid, this really wasn't that great, but it must have been SO hard to do!" Every damn thing submitted to this site requires someone to work in Flash; why should anyone give your work the benefit of the doubt over anybody elses? You submit to Newgrounds, and we expect you know how to work with Flash. Its our job to determine how well you worked with it. And, as everybody's made clear, you haven't worked well with it at all.

Oh, and a final note. No, I don't use Flash. But the assertion that someone who doesn't use Flash can't critique it is ridiculous and a cop-out. Do Ebert and Roper direct films? No. But everyone shuts up and listens when they critique them. So take the hint and do the same.

Sir-CannabisClock responds:

let me start out by saying if every reviewer was like you, I would shut the fuck up and make a decent flash.

However, I'm not asking for sympathy, your taking that out of context. what I am asking for is people not to review like a retarded kid who's seen something that scared him.

Let me be frank with you. All is good an well to make a flash, but every day I see at least 5 movies that are in blue label, that are completely mind blowing, that get thrown a quick daily award and completely forgotten. Meanwhile, "Backdoor sluts 9 dress up game hentai tentacle rape" gets front page for 6 years for all the 13 year old kids to fap off to.

My point? Why bother, unless my skill is mind blowingly awesome there is no guarrentee my days of work will not be flown by as if it were nothing. I don't have a tablet, so making flash is at least 6 times harder then it would be with one.(which also explains why my character is a bit off, as some people pointed out).

Thats all, and thank you for taking the time to voice yourself.

[Santa Vs Satan]

For the love of...

...if one more person complains about the idea of Satan being nice, I'm going to tear my damn hair out. It was more than obvious that the "Satan" in your flash wasn't supposed to be a realistic depiction of the Christian antagonist. I'm willing to bet that most of you've watched South Park; how come no one has a problem with that particular "paradox," since the Satan in South Park is a nice guy too? Since this movie obviously isn't a damn theological doctrine, why should you think it "promotes" Satan in any way, shape, or form? Unlike some of these zealous idiots, I recognized that you were using the basic concept of "Satan" instead of the actual entity. Satan supposedly represents evil; Santa represents good. However, all Satan ever wanted was to be good as well; it was the cruel actions of other people which prevented him from doing so. Therefore, the message is that we, basic people, are responsible for both the evil and the good in this world; how is that message so perverse from Christianity? Of course, I could always point out that no one has any proof of Satan's existance, so marking someone down for twisting the role of an imaginary creature is pretty sad.

Now that I got that out of my system, I'll actually talk about your flash! First and foremost, I like the concept. I never really thought about it before, but the words "Santa" and "Satan" are dangerously close, they both wear red, they both know when you're "naughty or nice," and they both represent an opposite end of the spectrum. Unfortunately, plot-wise, the flash fell flat at the end. The lines about spreading love were so ridiculously corny that I wasn't sure if I heard correctly. There's more creative ways to introduce the same point.

The music was superb, and it was really your choice in music that got you a 5/5 rating from me. Even though the plot fell flat at the end of the movie, the ending music was so emotionally charged and well placed that I almost completely forgot about it. An epic song can detract from a not-so-epic plotline, apparently. Honestly, I still have the window pulled up, so I can listen to the song while I'm typing this :) The song for the fight scene was nice as well, and I liked how you synched Santa's final attacks with the music, although it did seem a bit slow.

I liked the character designs; Santa was perfect, by the way. You slimmed him down just enough so that the fight scene wasn't goofy, but not so much that he just looked goofy in general. Satan could have been a bit more evil-lookin', which would have made his good intentions even more of a twist, but right now he does just look like an imp. The design for younger Satan was perfect, though. Unfortunately, not only was the voice-acting a little off, but the voices didn't really fit the characters, if you asked me. Satan's voice desperately needs a makeover.

Not much to say about the fight scene; I enjoyed it, but I felt there could have been more real substance to it. Otherwise, it was fine, escpecially Santa's final moves.

Ultimately, though, you made an interesting flash out of an original idea with a superb production quality; hell, you made some people cry! Who on Newgrounds can honestly say they've made somebody cry? Plus, you did something with an actual, positive moral, and still managed to piss the fundamentalists off, and both of those things are bonus points in my book. Great flash, and I look forward to more.

Damn, was this review long...I need to get off the caffeine....

[A Phoenix Wrong Tribute]

Damn Good

Please, do us all a favor and keep making Phoenix Wrong flashes. With this huge flood of shitty imitations (and the newest AshfordPride take failing in my opinion as well), its nice to see someone who shows a bit more originality and technique. I noticed that a decent amount of your skits actually ditched the court setting, which I suppose was a semi-bold move. Nice job, by the way; the Clay Aiken, Siren, and Ace Ventura skits were all very well done. As a matter of fact, I loved the Clay Aiken skit (hate the music personally, but damn was it clever). In addition, just from an artistic stance, you really had to put some extra effort into some of these. The coordination for both A Few Good Men and The Simpsons was completely on que and well done; I was very impressed with A Few Good Men. And the fact that you actually used a clip that involved the court system was nice as well. Ultimately, if you do more (and I hope you do), I'd shy away from skits like Polka Power, and to an extent, even the Siren, since both seem to be over-used in other skits (a lot of people use Weird Al clips, because apparently the songs are just that hilarious?). Songs actually don't tend to be that funny (to me, anyway) unless done very cleverly, like with your Clay Aiken bit. And the siren is just overdone, although the hurricane and video camera spiced things up. I kept waiting for Solid Snake to appear with a spotlight on him saying "shit," but alas, to no avail. Anyway, keep up the good work, and I'll be looking forward to more.

Kitsunedai responds:

Thanks a lot for the review. I'm glad someone else likes it this much.

Well.. I'm still on the fence about making a second. I mean, I suppose I could since if I did I have a lot of constructive criticism now to make it better.

As for shying away from the polka and possibly Weird Al altogether? That wouldn't be too much of a problem (unless I thought of something that'd go great with it. By the way, I think more people might use Weird Al's polka stuff at least, because it's more comical than the original versions of the songs.). As for the siren? Eh, I dont have all that many ideas for it.. possibly one, but I'm not sure about how well it'd turn out.

If I do a second thing involving Phoenix Wright, however, I already have an idea for something completely different and experimental. So we'll see.

[=Phoenix Wright Tribute=]

Somebody answer a question for me

Since when does TheStarSyndicate, of all possible artists, get to determine what is and isn't good flash? I mean, honestly man, there's not a single decent submission under your name on Newgrounds. Is that intentional? I'm sure you'd say so, but to me and the rest of Newgrounds that just means you're a shitty animator with no intentions of becoming any better, and the only way you can get attention is by creating flash like this. As a matter of fact, you probably made it just so you can get reviews like this; so I guess I'm at fault for giving you what you want, huh?

My personal opinions aside, this actually COULD have been funny, because I actually do think you have a decent point. The Phoenix Wrong series was funny when it wasn't a series. Now, you can throw in whatever obscure reference you can find online and somehow get on the top 50. Most of the clips don't even have anything to do with court cases! The main thing going against this flash is the sound. I can't hear what you're saying, and it just hurts my ears to listen to it. If you fixed the sound, I'd probably give this a 5/10 and a 2/5. As of right now, you got a 0/10 and a 0/5. Big difference.

Also, I think that if you actually used the sprites with your voiceovers, it'd be pretty hilarious. If you did that with decent sound, its possible I might even go as high as an 8/10 and 4/5! But I think its pretty clear that you have no intentions of putting any effort in, so whatever.

Anyway, congratulations on getting front page. Most people do it by working their asses off and creating something decent. You were lucky enough to purposefully create something shitty and were rewarded. Nice job, administrators. Encourage him.

Starberry responds:

who are you to say that the star syndicate does not have a single good submission? besides i only tacked on the ss name for shits n giggles, this movie was all my idea with help from hlg for the audio.

everything in this movie was made this way for a reason, i appreciate the criticism but i have to tell you i'm not going to follow it

[Horny Mario]

Well...

...the actual concept isn't original at all. I find it funny that your friends found the Mario humping scene hilarious, because honestly, who hasn't seen a perverted Mario sketch? Hell, how long ago was it that VGDC had the plumber rubbin' his junk all over Peach to rap music? Of course, originality isn't always everything, but the delivery honestly wasn't that great either. The fart joke wasn't funny at all, which is even worse considering the joke was supposed to be making fun of fart jokes...don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good flatulence joke every now and then, but I don't think there is really an effective way to pull it off in a sprite flash. To be honest, your commentary points out most of this flash's weaknesses; poor spriting, horribly unoriginal backgrounds, and over-used bullet time. Now, I'm normally with you; bullettime can be cool. But its no longer a novelty; you do it, you do it right. Ultimately, the movie was just...unremarkable, to be honest. I did think the baby Yoshi scene was pretty funny, though. Not the biting or the world bit, but just seeing the egg hatch, I cracked up, cause I knew what was coming. Similarily, the delivery on the pipe scene was rather well-timed, which made it funny even though I knew it was going to happen.

However, despite all of the blah and bad parts, I must say there is one concept in your flash which kicks major, major ass: COMMENTARIES! What a brilliant fucking idea! What's funny is that the commentary was actually more humorous than the flash; regardless, it allows a whole new set of jokes and gives the viewer a reason to view it twice and see things they missed the first time. Definitely, definitely, definitely use it again in the future.

Well, good luck with future flash, man.

Arkuni responds:

I see we agree about a lots of things, we just doesn't have the same kind of humor, which is... natural enough.

I can't respond with the same amount of effort as you've just done, but thanks for it anyway.

[Phoenix Wrong: Last Stand]

Surprisingly...Not That Great?

Well, I have to say, I'm a little surprised. First and foremost, I love the whole Phoenix Wrong concept, and the previous flashes have made me laugh harder than most other shorts on Newgrounds. In particular, I look to Phoenix Wrong 2 + 3. The flashes had several things going for them. First, the audio files were hilarious, varied, and stood completely on their own. By varied, I mean, that the length of each segment was well spaced; you'd have a particularly long clip, followed by one or two short ones, and then a long one, which retained the series trademark random nature. As for "standing completely by their own," I mean that the previous installments used audiofiles that were simply funny, regardless of whether or not you had heard the clip before. In addition, the previous installments were just the right length; short enough to leave me wanting more, but long enough to keep me satisfied.

This flash hardly accomplishes any of these things. The audio files really aren't that funny, save for a few. The entire "Tribute" bit was just boring, for example, and several other pieces just seemed drawn out. This is particularly bad, considering the entire point is to be random and unexpected. I could have predicted the entire "Tribute" scene. Oh, and there was some LONG ass scenes in there, which really didn't help. There were also a few scenes that just weren't funny to me whatsoever, but that may just be because I didn't recognize them. Regardless, you should try to pick clips that will be funny no matter who hears them. For example, the clip from Anchorman was perfect. Finally, who's idea was it to do a Phoenix Wrong collab? Its actually not a horrible idea, but in this case, the flash went on WAAAAY too long; random and short is the point of the series, remember?

Ultimately, I laughed, and while I definitely concentrated on the bad in this review, I did give you a 7/10 and a 4/5, so you obviously got some things right. However, when the next Phoenix Wrong is started, try to make it closer to the originals.

(Oh, and I also noticed that the lip-synching got progressively worse as the flash continued, probably a direct result of the excessive length. Something you should watch out for.)

[10 Things To Do With...]

"Because It Doesn't Require Any Batteries!"

Well, I have to say, that was fairly entertaining. First and foremost, I have to give you kudos for actually coming up with 10 things to do with a dismembered arm. Before I watched the movie, I tried to see if I could come up with 10 myself. And, alas, my creativity failed me.

The movie itself is well done; the music (well, what music there is) was nice and fit in well, and the animation was superb. I like the way you animated Barry; he has alot of interesting facial expressions, and tons of just quirky movements. I can tell alot of detail was put into it.

The voice-acting was hit or miss. I'd tone down Barry's voice next time. Sometimes, his accent is absolutely hilarious. For instance, the way he said the batteries line (quoted above) just made me crack up. However, more often than not, I found the voice overly-annoying, and it grated on my nerves, almost to the point of distracting me from the flash. I think if you just lowered the pitch a little, or made it a little less strong, I'd be fine. Just my opinion though.

I also thought that the distribution of the jokes took away from the flash. See, you really get the funniest uses out of the way at the beginning of the flash, so that when you get to the final six (with the exception of the lamp), I'm just not laughing. I think its generally a good idea to save the funniest joke for last, or at least have them equally distributed throughout the flash. I don't know; I just felt all the funny jokes were in the first couple suggestions, and then it just falls flat from there.

Still, a great submission. I enjoyed it :)

Funky-Chickin responds:

i totaly agree with you! could have been much better, spacing out wise! and the voice can be annoying, sure huts me to do it!
thanks v much for the constructive crit! its all taken on board!

[KH: Random Crap]

Haha, Pretty Funny Stuff

To be honest, I thought the J-Lo and PBJ-Time references were a bit cliche. That didn't stop me from laughing, though, so it isn't really THAT much of a problem. My point is, if you want an outstanding score, something more original is going to be neccessary.

I liked the animation; simple, but effective. The only real problem with presentation was the sound quality; the voices were a tad fuzzy, could have been clearer. I'd work on that a bit more for your next submission.

Ultimately, however, I enjoyed it (hence the 7 rating), and I enjoy Kingdom Hearts in general. Strive for more originality and better sound quality, and I think you could really have something.

Ultimate7777 responds:

We've... quite a few more original things in mind planned for the sequel. Expect more song goodness, though. An urge to make fun of - and with - Jennifer Lopez's music was probably the reason this flash was born.

As for the animation, 'simple' was what we were going for, but not to the point that it was complete crap. Simplicity was the penultimate factor in deciding how the flash should be animated. The ultimate factor was laziness >_>

The fuzzines can be attributed to my mic, I'll keep that in mind. Must buy headset mic thing.

Thank you for the review. Glad you enjoyed it.

[Psikadalus]

Haha, interesting

To be honest, I had a bit of difficulty at first trying to figure out whether this was supposed to be a flash filled with completely random imagery, or if the girl on the bench was a chibi version of the warrior. As a matter of fact, I'm still not completely sure. But whatever!

I loved the animation, and I'll commend you on something that I don't get to commend most artists for; not only was the animation of the woman superb, but the backgrounds were wonderful as well. The sky, and the houses/etc. that you see right before she falls out of said sky; did you create them yourself? If so, bravo! I mean, that is excellent stuff. By the way, the falling animation was very fluid; I wish there was more of it throughout the entire flash. Ultimately, a lot of the flash seemed to close-ups of the warrior. That's nice, considering how well drawn she is, but it leaves a lot of desire for action throughout the flash.

I love/hate the audio, by the way. Infected Mushroom is one of my favorite bands of late, next to Mogwai and Boards of Canada, and of course the eternal Pink Floyd. And "I Wish" is one of my favorite songs of their's. But...the remix in the flash just doesn't do justice to the original song! I didn't mark you down for that, but why use a remix when the original is oh-so-much better?