Ynek's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Theodore Hour]

Whilst I rather enjoyed this animation, I felt that it wasn't half as good as it really could have been.

It seems as if the main joke that you're trying to get across here is the sudden drop of his accent to a more "lower class" accent after the hypnosis part. It's as if you made the animation expecting that sudden change in his voice to get some laughs, but really, it wasn't that funny. I certainly didn't laugh. Perhaps it was just poorly executed, but I get the impression that this sudden drop implies that Theodore is not who he seems. He seemed up until this point to be a bizzare, eccentric, and extremely creepy man with a dracula complex. Characters who are as extreme and wacky as this are often seen as being funny. However, the sudden drop of his accent to something else implies that it is all an act, which is no longer wacky and unworldly, because people do put on accents and answer phone calls in real life. Hell, you did it for the entire length of this video, so I think you'll agree that it plants the whole experience firmly in the "mundane" and stops it from having that whole "twilight zone" weirdness that you were doing such a good job of establishing in the earlier portions of the video.

The other joke that you try to get across is the whole hypnotism thing. To be honest, it felt to me as if you had simply run out of things to say by that point and were trying to insert some padding to your prank call. Did you never have a childhood? There are a thousand better ways to stretch out a prank call than going off on a bizzare monologue such as a hypnotism sequence, which only actually tells the person on the other end of the phone that you are trolling them. It's too obvious, and at that point it loses all humour because you KNOW that the person on the other side of the phone is no longer convinced. It's like any other practical joke of this type - when the 'victim' no longer believes the joke, it is no longer funny, and you might as well just stop. The 'hypnotism' portion of this just wasn't very funny and reeked of poor scripting.

However, the first few seconds of the animation are very good and your choice of music is a perfect fit. The "Yeeees, this is Theodore. Who rings?" line was just excellent and the delivery actually raised a smile on this end. The way how he calls it a "telephone system" instead of just a "phone" is the sort of creepy, slightly unusual character trait that you should have built on more heavily, instead of the Jeckyll and Cockney Joe voice change that you did at the end. His low, lazy, drawling voice is excellent and gives an impression of him being in control the whole time. However, as the animation goes on, it gets less funny with each passing moment, sadly. It appears to peak early.

However, it was still, overall, a good piece with something original to it that was well worth watching, and I wouldn't have written this lengthy review if I didn't think it was worth my time or yours.

TL:DR version - Music good. Character good. Voice good. Animation passable. Sudden accent change bad. Hypnotism bad. Brock bad.

GORGON-The-Mighty responds:

Just in case you didnt read the description or the end credits, i'll state here that I didnt record the audio. This is something I took from someones podcast and animated. As such, I didnt have any real control over what he said.

Secondly, this 'reverse prank' call was completely spontaneous. Mike David (the man doing the voice of Theodore) had no idea the woman was going to call. A fan of the show, without him knowing, put his details up on Craigslist giving away free items that he didnt actually own. He didn't know who she was, or what she was going to inquire about. He simply put on a voice he thought sounded like the name 'Theodore', and then through some very clever questioning, was able to come up with some material so he wasn't left to say nothing. You have to give the guy credit for being able to do that.

I can definitely see how some people wouldn't find this as funny as others. Especially if they're a stranger to the podcast. In context (like most things) it's much more humorous.

Cheers for spending a chunk of your time writing that essay, makes me feel important :D

[Cloud Soft]

Amusing, but there's room for improvement.

An overall amusing advert, with crisp, clean animation, good audio, and a clear, coherent direction. However, I still feel that there is plenty of room for improvement.

For example, there is no audio or voiceover until the very end, where a voice says: "Cloud soft. Wipe with a sheet of heaven." The fact that there are no voices up until this point makes it feel out of place, as if it doesn't really fit. Perhaps just a picture of the toilet roll package, with the line: "Wipe with a sheet of heaven" appearing underneath... Possibly written in poo across an unravelled section of toilet roll, if you wanted to really take the 'toilet humour' direction to the extreme.

Also, I felt that a shot of the guy actually wiping his ass on a cloud would have added a little more humour to the piece. You've already shown him having his butt wiped by a vicious mechanical toilet, so it's not as if this would be an enormous leap. Additionally, without a shot of him actually having his butt wiped by 'heaven' means that there is no real comparison drawn between the razor-robot-toilet and wiping his butt on a cloud. This makes the razor-robot-toilet shot seem a little bit needless and redundant....

Perhaps just a shot of him flying across a cloud, wings flapping madly, dragging his ass across the cloud like a dog wiping it's butt on the carpet.... leaving a stinky brown trail behind him as he goes.... You could even have had his poop-smears spell out: "wipe your ass with a piece of heaven," if you really wanted to. And from there, there are limitless directions in which you could take the humour.

For example, people looking up and seeing the cloud criss-crossed by brown lines, and being confused, or something more extreme, such as brown rain which smells bad, and someone who gets caught in the rain finds a bit of corn in their hair. Parachute jumpers, birds, aeroplanes, flying saucers, angels, God, etc could also have poopsmear related jokes made about them....

Overall, though, the animation isn't all that bad. I just feel as if the writing could have been pushed further, and you could have gotten a lot more comedy into the piece. At the moment, it feels as if the humour is being downplayed for some reason.

So, seven stars / four picos seems like an appropriate score.

[Villainy - P.I. #2]

A solid demonstration of writing and acting skills

If nothing else, this animation is an example of voice acting at it's finest. The animation was also smooth and crisp, with the vivid and clear facial expressions being a definite highlight.

The writing is excellent, and even in the short time we observe these characters, we get a very strong feeling of their personalities and personal traits. (The inflated sense of self-importance, idiocy and general unneccessary aggressiveness of the police officer, and the bored, wisecracking, smartassery of the supervillain, for instance.) Conveying a strong sense of personality in such a short time is not easy, so kudos to your writing skills here.

You also managed to crowbar in some comedy, which is always, particularly on the internet, a very strong plus.

However, as this video is only truly intended as an introduction to a character, and is only a minute or so long, I feel that it doesn't quite deserve a full ten star rating. However, if you keep up this high standard in the eventual full animation series, I would be very surprised if ANYONE would dare give you anything less than a ten star and five Pico rating.

I look forward to seeing more of your work in future.

[the Internet Pals]

A pretty decent commentary on social sites.

Overall, this movie was a very solid submission fully deserving of it's frontpage status, and I would expect nothing less from the genius mind and skilled eye of Jazza Studios.

The representation of websites as human stereotypes was actually quite a clever idea, and was skilfully executed. For example, the way that Youtube kept appearing around Facebook and Google+ was a clever analogy for youtube links continuously being posted on both sites. Additionally, little touches such as Myspace being a total outcast were rather awesome.

However, I think that there were certain elements that could have been changed, omitted or tweaked to make the movie more entertaining as a whole. Rather than having a hat within a hat, Facebook could have had a hat which he had punched a hole through, a T-shirt inside out and so on. He could have explained it as: "I decided to break my hat and turn my clothes inside out, just because I felt like a change," basically as a commentary on how Facebook insists on changing/breaking site features that didn't need changing.

Additionally, you could have included reference to Bebo (a largely now defunct social networking site which nobody uses), by showing it as a grave, or a terminally ill coma patient.

Myspace could have been more accurately represented as a band or musician with absolutely no talent. (And would probably be a bipolar emo.)

I reckon that your representation of Newgrounds after the credits was quite well executed, but to be truly accurate, I reckon an obnoxious thirteen year old running around, slapping everyone in the face with a giant dildo would probably have been more accurate, given that the vast majority of newgrounders are in their early teens, and have a strong preference for cock jokes, immaturity and generally obnoxious behaviour.

Overall, though, these aren't so much criticisms as differing ideas. You had your own vision of how these characters would be, and you followed it. I'm not criticising you for it. I reckon that there is enough mileage in a project such as this to actually make several episodes, but that's not my decision to make. ;)

In short: A good, solid movie. Decent animation, good voice acting, and a generaly excellent artistic direction. The only reason that I'm giving this movie a 9 rather than a full 10 is that I felt that another front-page animation that is on the site at this present time was of a noticeably higher quality, and I feel that my ratings should reflect that.

Keep up the amazing work, Jazza!

[Nyan Caxx]

Honestly....

I don't say this very often, but this flash movie was almost perfect.

You've done an excellent job of blending the elements of comedy and surrealism with some more sinister themes in a near-perfect balance.

The almost drug-like effect that Nyan Cat had on the protagonist was quite amusing, and the subsequent "bad trip" that it brought on was perfectly executed.

I could sit here and stroke your ego all day about this movie, but I think I'll just sum up here by saying that this is a movie which truly deserves it's front page space. Give yourself a pat on the back for this one.

[Two Persepctives II]

Very well made.

A very well made animation. The humour was well executed, and the animation was crisp and smooth. Overall, this cartoon is of a very proffessional quality, and wouldn't look out of place on TV on a Saturday Morning.

Although, on a side note... In a world where brushing your teeth can result in amputation of your penis, perhaps bad breath isn't so bad.

[Green riding hood]

Hear that?

It's the sound of Furries fapping to this.

Anyway, that aside, it's a pretty solid little animation. Made me smile in places.

[Code 125.27]

now I must kill John Lennon....

KILL JOHN LENNON!
KILL JOHN LENNON!

South Park references aside, I'm not entirely sure what I just watched. It didn't really make much sense to me at all....

But then again, I guess that was the point. Too bad it isn't very entertaining, and doesn't demonstrate any real obvious skill, otherwise, I would have voted more generously.

Virro responds:

Maybe it will become something in the future. 125.27 is the penal code for murder in the first degree. I was thinking of making a flash about experiments with thought reform on "death row" subjects.

[The Chaos Emerald King]

Sonic is tonedeaf.

Sonic was singing off-key, but other than that, it wasn't half bad.

Peda responds:

Now fixed so the music matches Sonic's pitch. Much more pleasant!

[Leo & Satan II]

The thing that I love most about Leo and Satan is-

The thing that I love most about Leo and Satan is Satan's violent bipolar personality. One moment, he's harmless to the point of appearing a little bit retarded, and at other times, he's either hammering his fist down onto a table because he isn't getting his way, or (in the first episode) screaming loudly in Leo's face because he thinks he's being laughed at. (In the bit with putting socks on his horns...) For some reason, socks seem to be something of an obsession of his. Foot-envy, perhaps?

On the whole, I really love the Leo and Satan series and hope that you continue to keep this high standard up.

One question, though... Was the drug dealer supposed to be jerking off when he was standing in the bushes at the playpark? Honestly, it was a bit hard to tell if he was jerking off or just making a face, because when people jerk off, they typically have other tell-tale signs. For example, the noise of balls slapping against gooch, or the movement of the arm at the front of the body....