TESM's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Yoshai - Part 1]

It shows effort...

And i like that. The story is what really drags this down for me, as well as the lack of originality. Seemed very similar to tamakaro (sp) legends (tired, sorry)... But you had semi-decent animation... a little simplified, but it can be improved with time.
I would like ot see you progress... and although people will say 'you suck!', don't listen... i started out similar to this, and you will get better if you work hard on it. So keep at it...

I enjoyed the music, and the effort is what really shows... and that's a major point... So work hard. I would encourage you to brush up on some anatomy and perhaps some more art and such. Study high ranked movies as well... great effort. expand on it.

I give the a 3/5

[Revolutionary war]

hm...

Not historically accurate, period... but the animation was nice along with the music, which i thought was pretty cool.
stuff like own3d and all the ... shit.... din't really work for me though. if you were trying to explain the tactics of the americans and brits (along with hessains, french, and spanish) you didn't do so well at all...

but it was smooth and worked out ok... you need to work on cleaning up that smoothness though by color and less overlapping of paint lines... this was very good in presentation. but for the material and style section.. i didn't care for it.

cool work though... i thought the music fit ur style well.. hard to do.
3/5 (close 4, very close, like 3.66)

[Wolfen]

good...

not great by all means.
the art was fantastic, and the lyrics were cool
WW500 beat me on the notice of the latin! he transtaled fairly correct, if not complete...
too bad that the singer pronounced the latin wrong!
(sil-wah in loo-min-e, loo-ni (ae) ar-cah-nah eh-st, doh-moos mie (ae is long i), sil-wah in loo-min-e (eh even), stehl-lah-room est)

Bona ars, Zebus!

Habuisti facisti bonum opum. Non optissime, tamen.

Laborabis, nonne?

TheZebu responds:

And all this time I thought people were going to critisize my german....

[Baa Baa Imperial Sheep]

ha ha...

This was pretty funny. great take on that ol' nursury (sp) rhyme! i listened to that one when i was little... good parody, and the sound was really a plus on this one. the graphics were... mostly sub-par... the still art was good, but the animation is really lacking. some parts of the song are inaudible.

good work, clean some things up, and u'll do great.
nice one. 3/5

[Auf Achse]

well done

Now that takes effort. The music and the concept were very moving indeed, and i can tell you really went the extrap mile. The animation was a little simplified, and there were some minor errors with how it was brought through, but it was still good. The character art was pretty lame, but it works well enough.

You made your biggest strengths in presentation and music (which was an excellent choice)

your biggest faults were 'still' character art and related things, and some animation qualities. The size was pretty massive too.

Other than that, I really liked it, you look like you put a lot of time and pasison into making this. That's what I look for in a good movie. Great job.

Keep at it, expand your character art, and work hard. Great job again.

AligatorHead responds:

hmm i dunno what yo umean by "still" characte rart and related things. but arightl.

[Ordinary Conversation]

a movie about nothing.

which is great. I had actually been thinking if people would do just normal (air quote) conversations and record. just today too. prior to my knowledge of this.

this animation was fairly smooth, but the audio was the best.
2 stupid dogs too huh?

carful with those tweens, and make it a little more audible in some spots. nothings perfect. good syncs and nice job.

[The Edge Of Darkness]

very good.

although sometimes simplistic on some animation, it didn't matter, you did some excellent anatomical work. Gray's Anatomy is a tough read, i should know, but has excellent visuals. grat work and excellent job on the graphics.

the ending, especially the music, seemed a little bit abrupt, which kinda sucked, but other than that, the sound and music choice was great.

the style is what the pillar of this movie is, as its ambience was spooky and downtroden. i thought it was well made there...

overall, add more animation to it and just test some new sounds out. you did excellent in graphics and style. well done.

[Slapdash Heroes Ep.4**]

hm...

not bad, improved, yes, but is the journey over yet? nooo way! You must, first and foremost work on the quality of the voice recordings. What i find best is use the windows default. go to properties, change the recording (before the actual record) to cd quality. the wav will be a 2mb file size, but is easily compressed to 10kb in flash. try that. lots of scratchyness.

the graphics are better, but try to avoid the lack of eyes (if you so choose, and also work on the backgrounds more) character art inprovement is a must, and it's always good to hone those animation skills!

sound was good, needed more music, but good.

as overall goes, you are improving, that's what counts, but make a BIG push for ep 5, should you choose. i'll be here to help ya if I can. so IM me when you need a ? aswered, or any help at all.

cool? cool. good work, but much room to improve. 3/5

[Alive]

Hm...

People probably won't like this review, but i will base it on two things. How actual movies go, and the style/theme/message.

Movie aspect: The graphics were not bad at all, however I see you used motion tweens for the joints and movements in each character, which believe me, works only a minimal ammount. Explore a little more fbf (as we all should) and that'll smooth out the graphics a bunch. It works here, but for any future works. Because i could see theoutline of the upper leg in the soccer player, and the lower leg didn't connect quite right sometimes, as with the 'night gunman', etc.
This is all ok though because it is what it is, but always try to improve. I was alittle disapointed with the 'goal scene' which was an outline of 2 ppl, and not all drawn, full body, stick figure, body... it's ok, but don't get too lazy with that.

Sound was good as far as music went and it fit the mood well enough, and no sound brought out a little more that if it had been there.

Message/Theme aspect: Good theme, well made, and emotional enough. Not exactly to my understanding all the time because you didn't portray all too much, at least not enough good in the world. The priest, homeless man, and children were excellently portrayed and the diversity was well put. However I'm not a huge fan of this particular work just because of the style, i don't condemn it at all. It was well made and you should be proud of the good effort you put into it.
Even though it's not to my liking, i give you a 7/10, and a 4/5. The effort was well displayed in landscapes and still(er) art, but improve your animation technique. Good work, and keep at it.

~TESM

AloneInTheDark responds:

Thanks alot for the review. I actually used alot of frame by frame too in the movie. Only i used it on not so obvious moments (like the guy who's head is turning, the boxer punching, the lips of bush, the insecure girl, etc etc)...

But i tried not to focus too much on the visual aspect. It would only make the filesize bigger and the purpose more confusing. But thats my opinion.

[Killing Spree V]

Gah...

The one thing I don't like about this series is that it's like a game with bad AI. Some of the people that are encountered are completely retarded and can't do shit. Impossible odds and other stuff that gets pretty annoying is just plain overworked.

The graphics were excellent, yea. Vehicles, props, etc. even the sticks were used well, however, the overuse of the matrix/alpha afterimage was really annoying throughout the entire scene.

Also, don't expect to break new grounds and feats w/flashy graphics and 'popular' music. Some may consider it cheap. If you ever want to truly break grounds, have a story-line, a more original concept (although this one works fine for most people, more innovation, and improvement of overall style.

The voice acting was bad in spots with fuzzy recording, and some bad word choices (i thought the fact the officer's wife was his partner was really lame). It wasn't bad though and works well enough, it was all audible.

In the end, I'm tired of seeing movie after movie from people thinking that midless killing is all it takes. I would like to see more story, more substance, and most of all, more all around effort. Work with new animation techniques (the ones used ARE good, but overused), try new background, don't depent on flashy 3-d effects to be a pillar of your movies.

Good work, but I like to expect more from people who build grand reputations. Keep working hard.