JonBro's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Plungerdog - 03: Dog Day]

I can't even put my finger on what the appeal of Plungerdog is. All I know is that in the past week, I've come back and watched this animation at least six or seven times. The characters, voice acting, artwork, and pacing are all completely unnatural in a way that's very charming, oddly humorous, and somehow cohesive. The scattered background details also give this already unique animation extra personality and cause me to notice something new every time I watch it. Everything about it just miraculously fits, like a pair of pants that fell from the sky.

Jae responds:

damn thanks a lot jonbro! big fan!

[Animating Boxes at 3am]

This gets greater every time I watch it.

Most music videos are considered 'great' because they have professional artwork and are packed full of eye candy, or their animation basically sucks and the reason they receive acclaim is because of the music it's animated to.

This, on the other hand, is unlike anything I've seen. Neither the artwork nor the music is particularly impressive, yet both fit together so wonderfully. After a while, you don't see lines on a screen or hear a person singing a song anymore. Instead, you witness a powerful metaphor.

The song by itself pretty clearly portrays the kind of mind-manipulation that goes on in society, where so many people spend years developing the same interests and talents, not a single person standing out from anyone else, and they grow up just to send their children off to be slaves to the common mindset of the ideal lifestyle.

The animation visually portrays everything that the song does very clearly and brings it to a new level all at once. The whole idea of the cookie-cutter society is very crude, mostly black and white. None of the sparingly-used colors ever deviate from the green, pink, blue, and yellow. Everything seems pleasant, but you slowly begin to realize how manipulative this world is, as the music and the artwork both get creepier and more intense. Even the fact that the animation loops contributes to the message and the mood; every time a shred of creativity tries to pave its own path in life, it is terminated, and the cycle of mediocrity repeats as if nothing ever happened.

Something the song itself didn't really suggest that the animation did was the idea that being unique was simply not permissible. People are meant to have different opinions and goals from each other, but the education system seems to lead many into thinking that the only way to have peace is through sharing opinions with the rest of the world. Those who dare to be different are rejected--or worse, they are severely punished.

It was also only through the decisions with the visuals of the story that I really found meaning in the 'boxes' of the song. Everyone started out with round faces, which could very easily represent freedom, just as a round ball or balloon is free. But all the adults with the box-shaped heads seemed very restricted to their brainwashed lives, none of them truly happy, their smiling faces deceiving. And I personally loved the touch of the one student, realizing while at school that he was contained in a little box.

Of course, I could be reading too much into this, since you made this in a state of insomnia. But this is still going straight to my favorites.

Comick responds:

Wow thanks for the thoughtful comment! I'm really glad you liked it and thanks for noticing the little details I tried to include to help convey the visual cues and the timing with the song while adding in my own little plot with the 2nd half and the meanings behind them. :D I appreciate the review and thanks for watching it!

[Did You Hear That? vol 2]

History in the making.

I am truly glad I got to be a part of this freakin' awesome collab. Not only are all the parts great and quite different, but Goat-Man did a fine job with organizing everything and adding features.

My gripes are minor: occasionally you could see the outlines of the parts change a little bit like they weren't quite centered on the screen (I usually fix this by adding a slightly thick-lined border around the movie), the sounds in the menus clash together if you press a button too soon , and... you gave me a Mario sprite for an intro animation! It was a nice sprite, yes. But I'd have made an avatar animation if I had known lol

Once again, I'm grateful to have participated, and everyone did a seriously great job. 10/10

Graeme responds:

Sorry man, but I had the most trouble trying to think of what to do for your transitional animation. Not a lot to do based on "JonBro"
So instead I made you into one of the Mario bros!

Glad to have you on board! I've gotten several comments complimenting your part. I think it's easily the most insane piece of both parts of the series O_o

[Whiny the pooh]

It's not the greatest movie in the world, but...

...I really, really like the image of a grumpy, obese, distorted, unshaven Winnie the Pooh gagging and flopped onto a table making gargling bear noises.

This could have gone a more detailed direction than it did (for example, Pooh could have gotten more horribly stuck than usual in Rabbit's home hole entrance), but the more I think about it, the more this movie seems accurate as it is. Lovely work, Emanhattan.

Emanhattan responds:

GRACIAS JAMBRO

TE AMO

[Jonbro's Bday Cake]

Oh, emanhattan!

It's not entirely accurate, although there were two things in particular that I really liked: The image of me slurping up an entire cake with my mouth, and the screenshot at the very end. I was thinking about that same thing a couple of minutes ago.

- I actually had a cheesecake for my birthday, and only about two slices.
- My body doesn't allow me to be fat, for some reason.
- My hair isn't curly, it's spiky.
- I'm not a thief, I promise!

:D

Emanhattan responds:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FATTY BAGEL

["We're Starfox!"]

This was really well put together.

I could see a couple of the phrases coming, but it's impressive how well all the quotes could fit together with all the eating food and having fights in a restaurant. Some of the quotes were so perfectly paired together, such as "I'm going to crush you! ...Nooo!" and my favorite, "This is horrible." XD

PuffballsUnited responds:

Glad you enjoyed it! I tried to get as many quotes to fit as I could.

[Birthday 18]

... :(

Everything in this movie really does seem to come from the heart. I really almost shed a tear.

All I can say is, come back safe and sound... and soon, if possible.
You will be missed.

LazyMuffin responds:

WILL DO.

[FRED - Animated Series]

YESSSS

I didn't know who Fred was until after I watched this.

But that didn't stop me from laughing really hard.

Oney responds:

lol go jon go!

[Zelda: Don Keyote 4]

I just watched all the Don Keyote movies.

All right, maybe only about 2% of the graphics in the series are actually made by you. Maybe there isn't much in the way of sound effects. But the concept and the script are both brilliantly funny, and that is why the series deserves a 10.

TX2 responds:

The editing and camera control were by far the hardest parts to this. The part where link runs out the door in slow motion and buries his head in his arms took over a dozens takes to do right, and that was only after figuring out the graphic glitches I could exploit.

And that little girl who says "tax excemption" NEVER stood still. That was just... ugh. There's a reason I still haven't done don keyote 5.

[Nameless 6 Vol.3 Part 2/2]

This Nameless review has no name.

Well, I thought once this part came out, Part 1/2 would make sense, but I'm just as confused as I was yesterday.

Ah well, I still got a laugh out of several parts :)

LazyMuffin responds:

It'll make sense if you watch the whole episode. ):