VicariousE's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[The Anonymous Frog Day Special]

It's a well told narrative that's based on the protagonist and Newgrounds, nuff said.

Well annotated, linear storytelling without all the hype and bullshit of most submissions.

Anonymous-Frog responds:

Thank you for an honest, constructive, and 'not at all affected by certain groups' review.

[WINTER IS FUN - Short]

Good take on a bad reality, impressed w/ the character animation and flow, could've used some backgrounds on the cutscene exterior shots... but wtf, hands are numb from the cold, trying to avoid bingewatching some series I loved back in better times...

Nice short, good pace and variety of action, shudder to think if this was scripted out to 4 minutes; mayhem, blood, blue digits, frozen interior windshields and pre-pubescent suicidal coco addicts running amok

MatthewLemons responds:

As someone who loathes the winter, I would not mind a feature film where 2 dudes trash the entire winter season.

[GAME & WATCH: SILVER SERIES | FRIDAY NIGHT GAMEZ | NINTENDO'S FIRST HANDHELDS!]

Decent review, animations are kinda canned, but it's an 'in' to Newgrounds, as is the subject matter... no worries there. Decent production values, though asides like the cat intermission, look like (well produced) time padding, and offer no content to the subject matter at hand - adding extra text info would've been welcome. Guys like stats, like how many sold per continent, price (then and now), price used/new today......

I had a (gold series) Popeye, could not figure out wtf they wanted me to do, likely some convoluted linear series of actions. Kinda recall the folded glossy paper/manual being of some help, but was likely badly translated... was damn near 40 yrs ago. Also recall the batteries holding up well, but not against the cold waiting for the school bus - liquid crystal froze, killing a fair number of icons, making it even harder to complete

JComX responds:

Thank you for your feedback! I'll try to add more stats! I would have liked to, but it's hard to come by concrete numbers for these things, cuz Nintendo wasn't as popular back in the day, so they weren't tracking the numbers as meticulously.
That's so cool that you had a Popeye Game & Watch! It's unfortunate that they are so sensitive to cold and heat and stuff. Shame it got ruined.
As for the animation, I draw every new frame without recycling, so it doesn't look cheap, but animating the whole thing smoothly would take up more time than I have, if I want to produce them consistently. I will keep trying to improve though! Thanks for your thoughts!

[Merry Titmas]

Looks like a lot of hours went into this, animation is smooth, linework and coloring solid. Kept waiting for the tit to self replicate, become a pair... or something. Still appreciate the animation for what it is, dunno what, but it's compelling at least.

Great first animation submission, guess I'll wander over and see how yer audio constructions sound!

JesusBuckland responds:

Yes. A lot.... *cough*like6months*cough*

Thanks, it was a lot like a crash course. I can't even believe I actually finished it... I mean, I planed to have it grow wings and fly through the ceiling but y'know... I have high standards and I constructed sooo much of it in the most inefficient ways, I was just happy to give the things any type of ending!

[Swimming]

Sharks don't have lips, what was all that gob smacking I heard? Thinking your best bet for actual bone crunching action would be LiveLeak, I'm sure some uploader rolling over a dead cow can oblige.

Visuals are fine, minimalistic into colorful, got the concept down fine, the music score made the difference and set the mood a little more than the animation. Chunky kielbasi with gristle

Foxcato responds:

Thanks for honest your feedback. I don't know where you saw lips on that shark though? I'm pretty sure I didn't draw any?

The ending is a simple joke really. Which is why I added the silly chewing-sound.

[big mama dance]

Damn fine test, reminded me of a Warner Bros. animation of dancing ready-to-be-cooked chickens I saw back in the day. Both subjects move well, and maintain the same amount of volume/anatomy, which I imagine is the hardest part of FBF.

I'd say this was more of a proper loop than a test, if ends were cleaned up a little. Still, a bangin first submission to NG,GG

jmmo responds:

thank you :D

[Parasitic Valentines Day (Animatic)]

Nice, simple story with the right amount of subtext (both in title and the ending). Have to admit, when first watching it, I didn't differentiate the 2 worms or understand the wafting ribbon above the male worm.

Maybe if there were a light pink trail the female worm left from the get-go (and in the later ribbon/scent trail), the rest would've made more sense. Also, maybe if there were more of a female worm establishing shot... eh, still worthy of 4/5, GG

MongooseMinion responds:

Thank you for the comment! Just letting you know- this is unfinished, so any ideas on how to improve it are extremely appreciated!

[Be Nice]

Short, sweet, the VA work sounded a bit muffled and under volumed, but was slight on both counts. Kind of expected a scene or a frame after the credits... did the bomb go off, and if it did, was there some poetic conclusion to the thing?

Never heard of 5 Second Day, kin u add any deets to the author description?

SethBrady responds:

This oughta answer your question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mO0LJsBh30

[Escape From The Kindergarten]

It's a good narrative/anecdote, but it feels slightly rushed. If there were a few pauses added between sentences here and there (like paragraph breaks), the listener/reader could have time to properly imagine this scene in his/her mind. It's a very minor quibble, if nothing else, imagine you're telling the story to someone.. at times you'll pause and wait for someone to react or reflect internally, if they haven't already.

The ez animation's okay, though the way the scenes were laid out on the screen, especially w/ the text below, seemed off center in some spots. Flip phone? Guess this did happen a while ago.

Yeah, add a little more time drawing per frame, I don't mind placeholder graphics, but in this case lol, some of the frames were poor. Well told story, generally well paced, graphics lame, but varied enough, what animation there was, was appropriate. 1/2 star extra, because you're in the Discord ;)

Belthagor responds:

I can kind of explain the reason for the fast pacing.

This is a story from my life, and yes I animated it well, but I drew it up and completed it in a short time, so the pacing is kind of... uncaring, not to sound rude. Maybe I should call it: I don't feel like wasting my audiences time by slowing it down, and theres a lack of movement in animation so the pace makes up for that. Most people's attention is highest during the 30 seconds first starting in a short film, animation, song, whatever, and I thought I would get the story out for my audience in an easy to understand, meaning quickly paced animation, to avoid wasting their time despite the basic drawing. Here's the story, okay, you heard it. That's not to say I don't care about views, I finished the project in maybe half a day of rapid drawing including several breaks, I guess I just wanted to get it done, and so did my voice actor who does not want to be credited due to the basic animation, so even though we did our individual parts separately we had the same thought in mind. I didn't have time to really focus on the project, and he read the script quickly so it kind of matched the whole thing. I may find more time and do a well paced, detailed, slowly spoken version of this, a final version so to say. Maybe if a bunch of people request for me to do so, even more so chance of that.

[The Wish Fish Family - Episode 18 - Fish in a Barrel]

Played out very well! I think any good comedy is gonna ruffle someone's feathers, but this has a nice middle ground; I was definitely prepared to cringe. Only gripe might be the Trump and Newscaster's voices, though they were voiced perfectly, perhaps there wasn't enough enunciation to cut through the bassy voice acting; was kinda hard to make out in spots.

This makes a wonderful edition to the Wish Fish saga, a little topical humor now and then, is just what the lobotomy doctor ordered.

fartoons responds:

I noticed Trump's voice being hard to understand sometimes. But it's hard to notice for me since I wrote it and automatically know what they're saying. I will try to mellow out the voices the next time around. It is actually funny watching me do voices because I run out of breath constantly. It's really annoying. So voice recording takes several hours for me.