TeddyReddy's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Lamesaw Man]

If you know Rubik's Cubes, you know Power is a genius for managing to bring two of the immovable pieces which are supposed to be on opposite sides to where they're adjacent.

[Despicable Bee [Trailer] 2017]

Well, this is exactly where I expected Illumination to end up. I just expected their decline to take a while longer

[Legends of the Starborn E1]

Huge fan of the establishing shot backgrounds. They're not super detailed, but they have this nice aesthetic somewhre in between a story book and that surreal overly saturated image that comes to mind when reading a book that describes fantasy lands. This rings true both for the forest and the large stone building.

BenjaminPang responds:

The backgrounds have been drawn by two friends of mine, Lilla and Nikolay. I will tell them about this comment, thank you!

[Purgatory Dreams - Choking on Plastic]

I really wish I could rate this 5, but I really can't.
Most things that make up this animation are superb, but with just one thing being out of place the entire experience is ruined. I'm not lowering my score by half just because of this one big flaw I see, rather because of how easy it could have been fixed(granted that fix would've needed to be implemented at the writing stage), because of the missed potential.

THE GOOD: Over-all presentation was superb. The art, throwbacks to popular media, voice effects, everything build up quite the uncanny imagery that I couldn't take my eyes away from and the rough audio that ressonates too strongly not to bring to life an emotion or two. Aside from that glass crack effect, everything in this department was top-notch.

THE BAD: Tiff. Oh,Gods, Tiff was terrible. It ruined the entire experience for me, made me keep looking at that 10 min timeline, that I usually see as a Godsent when it comes to NG content, but now I just wanted it to be over with, the only thing keeping me from switching to another tab being the moments when she shuts up.

-Firstly the VA work sounds very out of place, not sure if that's a fault of the actress, the director or if she was actually intended to sound like that. This would've worked so much better if she had no voiced lines. The only good moments of Tiff communicating something was when that communciation was non-verbal, the way she moves when she's on-screen, her decissions, her actions, etc. I understood so much more about her thought process by seeing her make decissions, the way she moves the cursor, the determination, the fright; than I did when I heard her talk.
Honestly there was a lot of dissonance between the way Tiff spoke and the visuals. The most striking example of this is the Panic meter. That was the moment when I decided I just couldn't suspend my disbelief for this.

-Secondly, the writing. Tiff's lines are terrible and completely ruin any of the many possible moods this animation could have created. I'm not sure if she was supposed to come off as strong or mouthy or what, and I can't pinpoint the mistakes that were made in building up her character, because I'm unsure of the mood the short was going for. It's really hard to tell. Pixel art and an uncanny setting are elements that lie in juxtaposition. YOu never know what atmosphere that's supposed to be. In order to find that out, there has to be a third element to look at. Usually, the characters in the story. But Tiff being the only relevant character makes that hard. I can't tell if she's supposed to be like that, or if the performance was done poorly and that leaves everything regarding the story's feel up in the air.

I really wanted to like this so bad, but I just couldn't. It's the same way I wanted to like SAO, but all the bajillion budget visuals and sound can't make up for such an infect story. This case is a bit different. In this case I could excuse the atmosphere if it wasn't well-executed, but the intentions were good. But I can't tell if this was the way it was intended to come out or not.

ClockworkPixel responds:

theres intended to be a disconnect between momments, tiff acting cocky and a few joking parts so that when the scares came it all the more harder but with doing that way, it hits and it misses.

i tried making this without a script, kinda story board as i go along to see where the story took me. this worked well for pacing but it not so much with dialog.

i believe piper gave a great performance and if i have to place blam on that disconnect it'd be my pixel art. i should of made sprites more expressive but it would of leas to a longer delay and at some point you have to say "this is done" and move on.

i'm proud of what i've done here even with it's flaws. with the things i've noticed and you've pointed out i know what to improve in the future and i can only hope you enjoy tape two more if you're willing to give it another shot when the time comes? :)

[Pmation: "Gold Fashioned"]

Are any of you guys exCartoonNetwork employees? The over-all smoothness, line weight and exagerations are all incredibly reminiscent of shows from CN's golden age.

If that is the truth, would you consider doing some short tutorials to share some tricks of the trade that you find lacking in the online animation communitie's content?

Hope you can find the time to respond.
Keep up the good work!

[Cream]

Now this is true art.
You take a stupidly simple tool like distorsions and bones that can be used to crap out animation, but then you use it to build something utterly beautiful through its sheer complexity.
Kudos to all of you who worked on this project.
The surrealism brought by the contrast between dark imagery and funny motions and expresions, both exagerated and crushingly realistic tweens, the real-world crimes of marketing and press coupled with the over the top fantasy plot; works very well to establish an unquieting tone. And the sfx and music really help. I get some Aperture vibes.
What I enjoyed the most was the attention to detail, like the slight head nod from the executive on the boat or the way every detail that could make cream fail as a fantastical cure-all is explained, even going as far as making it cure the loss of enthusiasm for a life without challenge(that is in the literal interpretation; I am well aware you can look at this as a metaphor for covering up symptomps of an issue and pretending everything is perfect, but I choose to go with the surface level interpretation for this review).
Some of the realities the ending makes you think about are soul-crushing(we have unlimited data to work with but we are restricted by piracy laws, when we coul be making cultural and scientific progress at an amazing rate, money might be something that will be hard to get rid of even given the possibility to surpass it, big industries have monopolized information), but I still walk away from this with a good vibe.
This was truly hypnotizing, it should be broadcast at a Film Festival.

TL;DR Great work reinventing distortion tool, bois!!!

[One moment of lucidity]

Despite your style needing a lot of work, you have my 5, because it's by no means bad just unrefined, you're clearing going in the right direction and if this is just your fourth, you're going to make it far.

Keep at it!

R-Christophe responds:

Thank you for your encouragement.
I will try !
I didn't expect that this animation is so well seen.

[A Magical Snowman]

Draws very heavily from Hellbenders.
Loved the mixing of styles.

[Goku in Super Mario World]

Your visual humour is way better than the jokes.
The voices sound bad, but the accent makes it all that funnier.

The duck hunt part was a weak ending, it could've worked without it.

All in all, this movie isn't that great, but your strong points really shine through and make it a pleasure to watch.

[NEW MIRACLE PILL - DOWNSIDER]

Marvelous style.

This is like the NG version of Unedited Footage of a Bear, except this doesn't drag out for too long and doesn't hide its meaning behind layers of artsy farstsy bullcrap, instead uses grotesque animation to make more of an impact.

Great job. Please add a play button, if possible, even a pause button would be nice.

BorderlineMaybe responds:

Yea, I should use swivel and just upload mp4 files from now on, I'm pretty sure that will give the use of a pause button