TuxedChicken's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[A Prank Time]

Holy Goddamned piss. I came here from a link I happened upon during an aimless twitter browsing session and hadn't expected it to entail much, but this is fucking masterful. You have to be the closest thing to the lovechild of Hayao Miyazaki and Ralph Bakshi on Earth. Instant favorite, you monster.

[Mr. Rimmer]

I usually don't bother leaving reviews for your cartoons on account of the fact that they all leave me in tears of laughter, but there's something joyous about this one. The dialogue kept playing in my head throughout the majority of my daily routine and it's strangely smile inducing. Also, I noticed that this is the second cartoon you've made with a joke involving inexplicable, rotoscoped dancing; is that your current go-to resort for occasions in which you're out of ideas? Strangely, I wouldn't mind such being the case.

[resident evil epic parody]

I lack so much as an iota of familiarity with the Resident Evil franchise and therefore didn't understand the attempts at humor, but the animation in this is amazing; gratuitous anime titty physics are all the rave.

[Meet Sig and Tessa]

Most charming toon I've seen on this site in a while. Really amazing job on the animation and general execution. I thought that the fourth wall breaking was a tad tacky, but I wouldn't know whether it fits the undertone of the general story due to a lack of having read the webcomic; I think it's all right if this is setting up for a Deadpool-esque vibe. Your hard work paid off, sir!

[Great: The Show episode 3]

The intro made me laugh way too hard, as did the Peter Sexhaver part.

[All Your Favorite Shows!]

That was goddamned great.

[Plungerdog - Episode 4: L]

Man, I completely forgot about the greatness that is this series. Great animation and story, I love how your stretchy art style complements the narrative. I'm glad to see that you're still making new installments to this!

My only criticism regarding this would be that the tweened movie clip animation from 1:36-1:40. It's not that I'd consider there to be anything awry about use of tweens, I'd opine that they're overly stigmatized and a good way to go about things economically (especially for independent animators), though, I really feel that particular instance took away from the energy of that particular scene in the cartoon. I'm not suggesting that you should completely circumvent tweens for the sake of your work, but rather that I think there are scenes where they're appropriate for conveying something and scenes where they're out of place (I'd consider your use of more flagrant tweens at 2:02 to have been just fine due to it not being part of any climax, for instance). It's a subjective nitpick, so, I'm not going to rate this lower because of it, though, I just thought I should mention it as something to consider.

Great toon!

Jae responds:

Thanks for the in depth and helpful critique! I appreciate the review!!

[Clown Robbery]

I'd imagine that the problem you're noticing with this cartoon is that you were being too formulaic in writing it. Prior to this, all of your work struck me as much more natural and genuine in terms of humor, almost as though you were sprinkling them with jokes that you had made during exchanges you had with friends of yours in Skype calls, which gave them that extra vitality that people have come to appreciate in internet cartoons.

I'm privy of the fact that you hold yourself and what you do to much more scrutiny than other cartoon men and women of the interwebs and while I think that's commendable in that it's exhausting how many internet animators approach their work with passivity, I think that it's a bit of a Goldilocks effect between too LOLFARTS uncaring and too calculated that should be juggled. This kind of mentality is appropriate when implementing a series and taking into account all of the nuances inherently associated with that undertaking, though, when it comes to individual shorts like this one, it just comes off as awkward and anemic. I feel that this kind of mindset toward production of internet cartoons is rendering the whole NG/YouTube animation scene into a diluted form of Hollywood (only with talented dudes frittering away months of their time scratching at their cintiqs in a dark room without pants on rather than soulless conglomerates hiring a plethora of people to miserably contribute their individual dash of icing to the cake). It seems that, as this quest for excellence in internet cartoons continues, people are losing sight of the novelty that caused them to deviate from that of televised cartoons. There's an energy to incorporating what you would genuinely consider funny into your work that can't be captured by going about it with an "am I funnying right?" upbringing.

Of course, all that I've ranted about here is entirely subjective and by no means concrete. Outside of, perhaps, the delivery of the final joke (as in, the conveyance of it, rather than whether or not it's funny), I'd opine that you nailed this cartoon on a fundamental level. I just felt compelled to vomit my musings through my keyboard after having listened to you rant about your loathing of this cartoon on Sleepycast 23, recalling your twitter rants that you went off on around the time that you were animating it about your premonitions of the audience hating it and finding that you posted it to newgrounds 2 months ago after querying it on Google to give it another watch. I'd completely agree with JohnnyUtah's claim that you're being too self deprecating about this, by the way. It's understandably frustrating to make something that doesn't collate with your own views on a subjective level, but, you put a lot of work into this that's very much evident in the finished product. The animation here is fluid and professional-looking, your expressions are spot on in their over-the-topness and the pacing here was really nice too.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Can't wait for Hellbenders, by the way. Keep on keepin' on, Mr. Pebbles.

[Great: The Show episode 2]

Ehh...

I enjoyed the first one, though, this one was a little bit gaudy humor wise. I understand that there's a latent, satirical meaning to these cartoons and they therefore have more substance than "lolsorandom," though, the way that you went about this one made that unclear. I feel that this one just didn't deliver.

Good art as always, though. I feel that the character modeling was an iota too sloppy in the first segment, though. I know that it is and always has been your thing to go for a bit of a John K. flavor in your cartoons and thought that it was fine throughout most of the cartoon, (I thought the lack of proportional consistency in Danielle's part of the cartoon carried the charm well, for instance) though, there's an extent at which it's to the detriment of the cartoon and I'd opine it was crossed a bit there. Definitely a bit of a nitpick, though, I think it is something to be mindful of.

[#CHANGETHEBEES]

Great animation/art assets as per usual, though, I have to say that I'm not too fond of your current way of going about story in your cartoons.

I've noticed that as of late you've had more of a penchant for trying to convey some kind of aphoristic undertone in your flashes, which, in my opinion, fell flat in this particular instance. Dr. Bees' monologue amid the cartoon was really the only reason it's even remotely clear that this cartoon was intended to have any kind of substance beyond its silliness. I think that the censuring comic book publisher's ulterior motive could have been given more emphasis to as a means of bringing into light your reason for disapproving of this mindset toward creating/releasing art.

I also feel like the delivery succeeding the climax (Dr. Bees finally having adhered to the publisher's instruction) was pretty underwhelming. Was Dr. Bees' suicide in response to feeling catatonic after having deigned to create art that doesn't express himself honestly or having felt he subtly wronged bees through a work of fiction? I feel this is a conveyance issue in that the ambiguity of it makes it unclear whether you believe works of fiction can actually cause harm to those consuming them (i.e. whether or not the SJWs this cartoon is clearly intended to criticize have a point).

I might be nitpicking a bit here, though, this is the second cartoon of yours I've felt this way about (I thought very similarly of the Kickstarter one). Just my thoughts, I'm not expecting you to go about your flashes any differently in the future in that a lot of what I've said here is rather subjective, though, maybe this kind of insight is helpful in some way none the less? I dunno.

Anyhow, I'm hyped as FUCK for Starbarians 3. Overall, keep up the good work.