OptimisticOctopus's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Spirit Train]

Very cool! I can see your vision coming through, even if there's inspirations there. The art and animation is very good and striking--I especially love those streaks of neon pink whizzing by in the tunnel. As for critiques, I'd say work on your pacing and scene clarity a bit (the part where the stranger girl gets beat up by the monster almost happens too fast to understand what's happening, esp bc there's a sudden change in medium). Also I think the movie would work WAY better if you cut out all the audio--other than the music. You kind of don't need it! Unless you want to have dialogue in your short, the visuals and camera angles do a good job of telling the story all on their own.

[Walter White VS Hand]

I like how this is basically a shitpost in video form, but there's so much obvious work, craft, love, talent, etc, etc, etc that goes into it, and it looks absolutely amazing because of it. This is a shitpost that someone could legitimately hang in the Smithsonian. This is the type of thing that they talk about when they talk about memes being left behind for future anthropologists to study and explain to a fascinated future audience.

[Rip and Wear]

The end of this video makes me really uncomfortable, and they're just damn clothes. It takes skill to provoke that reaction, even if I hate it lol. Great work.

[Backstreet Boy Concert]

Very funny, and well done, but what's the audio from? Sounds like Bill Burr, vaguely, but without the misogyny I expect from him.

[Sad Song]

Very charmingly done, and I'm glad you're not romanticizing your sadness like every goth band in the 80s. A little grammar advice though: you're using apostrophes wrong. 's turns something into a contraction--it's is "it is" while its with no apostrophe is possessive, i.e. "its destruction was massive". I wouldn't correct you just to be a dick, but I feel like having better writing is helpful when making any kind of art.

gatekid3 responds:

fair. my writing skills have diminished greatly

[Routine Stop]

Honestly, extremely deserved. Dude gave that cop a taste of his own medicine. also, great comic timing, delivery, and really fun art to boot.

[Toonami Collab]

I agree with what another reviewer said, all the little individual animations more or less are great, but the whole thing seems like it could've been put together a lot better. For one, there's no scene select, which you really should have for an almost hour long video. And then there's the fact that the last 10 to 15 minutes or so is just a pop team epic collab inside the Toonami collab? It seems very uneven and kind of like it's "hogging the spotlight".

Usually with these kinds of collabs if someone doesn't like one of the shorts it's fine because they're so…short. But here if you aren't a pop team epic fan, or if you just don't want to watch an extended animated tribute to it in what you thought was an animated tribute to Toonami in general, like I sort of didn't, then you're out of luck.

VoicesByCorey responds:

From my understanding, we had members who were going to help orchestrate a scene select menu, but it fell through unfortunately. It was a feature we were looking to have <3

[A Pizza My Heart]

Very cool, bit of a HotDiggetyDemon/Max G. vibe to the art/animation, and I mean that in a good way. Just really pleasing looking cartoon art that you can see the Newgrounds legacy in.

[Twisted Metal 2020-Musk Playthrough]

This was fun! I never had TM as a kid, but my friend grew up on it and I got a lot of exposure (esp to those cutscenes) through him, so this was right on the money in terms of style and the art is very nice and clean. And for some reason I feel it also really fits with the "Newgrounds style" somehow, like, stylized and kind of realistic, but not like anime. I can't say I know who all the people are supposed to be though. Like the old white dude with the bazooka.

[The Chaos Signals]

Got some pretty unique imagery and ideas here, and I feel like that's always something horror needs more of. In particular the part where all the blood is drawn up towards the ceiling is very strange and chilling. Great art and color work too!

ClockworkPixel responds:

Thanks!