Score: 10

"As JL as you can get."

submission: The Ugly Duck

date: August 7, 2006

Now before I start reviewing I want to adress all the people who I've read leaving reviews saying how horrible this is and that it made them sick. The point is showing the reality of the situation at hand, you feel bad for the "ugly duckling" you're made to understand his plight. The reason behind what he did was clear, his anger at his father made him into a cyclone of rage laying waste to all targets in his path.

He saves the child. But then what?

How is he supposed to care for a child? What is he going to do?Bring it back to the mother claiming that he had just found it and there was no husband attached? Maybe he could just mumble "Sorry for killing your husband." and run off, hell chances are the mother could be just as bad. Bring it to an orphanage? I think not, this is a stunted man, emotionally stunted by the hand life has delt him. He couldn't raise it, nor could he let it be subjected to anymore of, what he considers to be "this horrible life." So he does what he sees is right in his eyes, he ends the child's life.

And that's what makes him the ugly duck, not being able to see past his own issues and not being able to grasp the full scope of what is happening.

The whole character in this piece makes it shine alone for rasing moral and ethical issues while watching it. It's another gem in JL's pocket.

As normal the almost story book graphics are great, colorful and discriptive. Everything, as odd as it appears is the same style which is quite a hard task to pull off. You also managed to keep everything in a real world setting which is another added bonus. Nothing was gritty, to dark or harsh, it is as life looks everyday. Normal. I also have always liked the way you manage to keep your animation nice and simple yet have it as deep as it can get. Instead of having to sift through squiggly lines and over dramatic styles I'm given a nice plain toon. Artsy and yet not as quite.

It's just another short on top of the already huge stack of amazing shorts done by Jeremy. I hope to see another one soon.

Score: 9

"I can't find the "Auto-Win" button."

submission: Geeks In Love

date: August 6, 2006

So it's taken me a bit to actually get around to reviewing this submission. Quite truthfully the first time I listened to it, and saw it I wasn't all impessed or taken by the wonderful lyrics. I probably "X"'d out halfway through gave it a three and went on my merry way.

I can't even explain why. Maybe the tune wasn't right for me at that moment in time, maybe I just didn't need to hear a love song just then. Whatever it was it's gone now.

This is without a doubt one of the best music videos on NG.

Firstly we have the music. The song is on LD par being catchy and easily "singalongable" just about all of their songs have this infecious beat and tune that seems to linger in your head for the next week and a half. This one probably stuck more to the majority of the NG audience. I mean there's a little bit of geek in all of us but NG seems to have more that the daily amount. Since I'm not much of a music critic and know next to nothing about it there's no real nit picking. All I can say is it was another fantastic song by these guys.

TMST is one of those great animators drifting around the web. His cartoonish style and easy on the eyes animation makes watching anything he works on a joy. As in "When Robots Attack" he's managed to take the song and make it even greater. What gets me is the new and fun ways he finds to introduce us to the different aspects of the geeks within the song. The pictures on the wall were a great way not only to allow great, and unexpected scene changes but to also keep the piece running on the same track, keeping the video complete in a nice little package instead of just having a ton of different cutscenes.

Both Lemon Demon and TMST seem only to be getting better with time and I can only wait until the next video to come from the pair.

Score: 10

"A high score, all around."

submission: Weed Harmless 3

date: April 23, 2006

Well, let me first start off to saying what a fantastic piece of work this is. Putting all of my views aside, this was probably one of the best put together flashes I've seen in one hell of a long time. The menu was interactive and easy to navigate, your intro was just short enough to not get annoying, and the mini-navi bar at the bottom was nice and simple. It's rare beautiful thing to see a flash with such great navigation.

The shorts were all hilarious. Each one making me at least crack a grin as I watched it. You even managed to put some of that good ol' propaganda charm in some of them, which made it quite fun to laugh at. They were all clean and consistant, and the facts that you did provide are very true. Great work. The only real complaint (if you can call it one) was some choppy sound bites at the beginning, but it's so stupid and miniscule that you really shouldn't give it any attention.

Now a little aside for all of those claiming "weed causes schizophrenia" I will not deny that it does, because there is medical proof of this. However the major tests that have been done have proved nothing conclusive other than "don't smoke before age 21." Plus on top of that the tests subjects may have had the psychotic and schizophrenia disorders to begin with, just extreme (and I do mean extreme) cannabis consumtion during their youth cause their disorder to occur sooner. The sample that even somked at age 15 (of which were only 29) only three of them had schizophrenia/ schizophrenic symptoms by the age of 26. Which if you know anything about numbers proves nothing conclusive. So don't cling to this false notion that the moment you smoke you'll immediately become a schizophrenic cause there's such a minute chance of it ever happening to you it's barely a reason to not smoke.

How about just saying "I don't feel like smoking" instead of coming up with far-out notions and claiming that it's so harmful to your health.

10/10 - Keep up the very impressive work.