HarlequindeRustre's movie Reviews on Newgrounds

[Stainville Episode 4]

In the first couple episodes, it was a nominal reflection of actual school life.

With each successive installment, we've gone further and further towards the internal/fanciful interpretation of it. This is what you'd expect to hear in a game of telephone or read a troll post.

It's funky, it's over-the-top, and it doesn't match 1-for-1 with reality("did it ever, tho?"). This is more a reflection of a teenager's impression of high school goings on, as opposed to the (warped) reality of it.

"It's been a weird cartoon since Episode One, Harlequin!" you say

Yes, I know. Alpha-Nuva's just letting his freak flag fly a little higher. It's good stuff, especially for exercising storyboarding/keys while still letting go. I appreciate the fuck out of it, even if I'd be interested to see what AN would do animating the Prince (from Snow White).

It's a good cartoon. Frustrating that each episode takes longer and longer, but it's one dude. It takes the time that it takes and it's obvious it's being done for fun more than anything else.

Alpha-Nuva responds:

I have three zits right next to my nose and they're all really annoying

[Unprecedented]

What I Like

Is the actual historic accuracy found throughout this historic parody.

Yes, there's guitar solos, machine guns, and grenade bombs, but here's some bits to chew on:

Washington's teeth- they're brown like wood or some kinds of ivory. The fact that teeth show at all is a sign of attention to detail.

The Brit that gets his "leg" shot- he's wearing a grenadier's uniform. Grenadiers, at that time, were well noted to have, at one point or another, gotten their legs blown off by one of their one weapons, usually one with a rather fast-burning fuse. The fact that even the style of the PEG LEGS is historically accurate(at least, to illustrations of the time) is pretty damn nifty.

Just some things to think about, guys...

WooleyWorld responds:

And here I was thinking it would go unnoticed.

High marks for knowing your history and a good review.

[SS - Male and Female]

Extensive Bloviation... Geez...

As per the usual, the tone is condescending and presumptuous, and the material used has been stretched to accomodate a painfully simplistic - and most obviously naive- worldview.

The psychologies of the hemispheres of the brain, usually referred to by their placement in the sides of the cranium, are sometimes called by their "gender". Jordan decided to take this concept and run with it, stereotyping and hack-n-slashing the bits and pieces of the physical psychological studies to his advantage.

What's cute about this is that the male and female hemispheres are anthropomorphized into simplistic and somehow completely seperate things. Unlike world issues, these two things are part of the same mind, hence the complex carried out with these hemispheres in tandem.

The hilarious part is that the author blames the world's problems on the logical part of the brain, when in fact it is the sensibilities stemming from the moral psychology that cripple an otherwise smoothly running world-machine of economics and politics. Not only this, but poor Jordan actually takes the time to put in a none-too-subtle jab at his critics from previous videos. Immature? Most definitely.

But that's not the point.

The author has the delusion that if there were more right-brained people, the world would balance out like a set of scales or a third grade economics chart. However, as proven by the trials of history, this is far from the case in any situation, and any manipulation forced by politician or whomever to change it or most "natural" events or phenomena that dramatically changes the atmosphere has some very credibly detremental effects- I hope everybody here remembers the stimulus package and the redistribution of wealth ideology from two years ago? Good. That's an idea of what attempts to dramatically change something does.

Now, for the philosophy the author has likely been choking down for less than two years of his life (hopefully), it seems that hope rests in the hands of the ADD/ADHD psychopath kids, which are lovingly dubbed "Indigo Children" by the author's hippie-esque heroes.

Here's a clue about ADD- it's mainly in the male gender for a reason- IT'S A TESTOSTERONE BASED CONDITION. There's nothing mysterious about it, nor is there anything wrong with the boys who have it. The girls, however.... that's a legitimate disorder. ADHD is a legit disorder as well(but for both genders), but I've yet to meet a person with it that had actualized his IQ above that of the average human being, so tough luck there, bubbie.

The blanket statements that seem to apply to quite a few of the people watching this should not be surprised- this is adolescent youths in a nutshell. There's nothing unique or special about you being nervous or eager to make a name for yourself, because this is a healthy part of the human developmental process. However, the number of people who have already bought into this horseshit has proven to me that they are either desperate to find something to fill their empty lives... or they've forgotten what they were like whem they were young.

In the advent of parents rushing to make their kids seem special with all these cute sounding conditions and disorders and IQ ranges, this shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you. It's the culmination of the idiotic worship of the common youth with the usual subscheme of shaping said youth.

How's about we get off our asses and make our own identities, as opposed to buying into this crap? I don't care if I'm labeled a left-brained, closed-minded goon by the neophytes of the fictitious religion, because I don't need to prove that I actually gave thought and consideration, weighed the various points, and found it still came up short on a number of scales.

Now, while cutesy idealism is all well and good, this artificing an organized worldview from an essentially ignorant standpoint has got to be one of the biggest time wasting undertakings ever perceived. But this is part of the historical cycle, too, so I don't give that much of a damn.

I bid you all good day ; }

RiverJordan responds:

Oh my, where do i start.

For one, our "moral psychology" that is crippling the otherwise smoothly running world comes from our constricted left brain. Everyone has a one-track mind, so over time our web of world economics and politics have gotten very tight.

for two, the world is going to balance out because of our female side of the brain. But it's going to do so through everyone. Not just a bunch of women. More women will be taking power within the next few years though, and there will be many big changes that will take place.

for three, not all ADD kids are indigo's, and not all indigo's have ADD.

As you'll see soon enough, this isn't just some ignorant standpoint making critiques of what's going on. I am going somewhere with this, and it will be legendary. I'm happy you're taking the time to watch it.

I am that I am, there's no reason to attack. Thanks for the review :)
Jordan

[SS - Channeling]

Yet more bollocks

Empathic communication and emotional sensitivity is not particular spiritual or mystic or requiring some type of training or exercise. You only need to be emotionally alive and attentive. Nothing more.

The channeling bit I found to be bollocks because attempting to be or being a spiritual medium has always been a big bowl of bad for many reasons, prime among them being it basically makes you an irritating, self-deluded pariah, believing that communing with "spiritual beings" is of utmost importance and that it opens up a gateway to all things in a moment of complete vulnerability ("channeling" is not like dial-up internet connections, though intention is something that's focused). Channeling is an arcane practice that has lost favor in any proper mystical or spiritual society due to the fact that A: it forces things that shouldn't be forced and B: More often than not, you end up talking to some part of your mind, rather than an actual spiritual entity- "accomplished" modern channelers are likely the most psychologically dishonest people among mankind today because of this.

On the subject of convening with animals- animals are open emotionally, due to their lack of need for complex languages or codes. Dogs are intelligent(usually) emotional creatures, hence their availability. Cats are underevolved little useless pieces of fluff with no actual emotionality or thought process to speak of, not to mention they are incredibly selfish. Horses are simplistic, stupid creatures with nothing really going on in there except the instinctual drives. Channeling a "lower animal" is, in actuality, simple emotional availability and attentiveness. Nothing more.

Moving to Tobias and his removal from the Bible: The church extricates and disuses various books collected into the Holy Bible based on lack of divine inspiration and pure uselessness as a text. Even after the Protestant Reformation and King James's butchery of the sacred text, he didn't foolishly add back in defunct spiritual literature to the his text's compendium (perhaps he was having too much fun making sure the phrasing was convenient enough for him...). The clegymen of the church have and do study the sacred Scripture for most of their lives, and thus have the knowledge and intellectual authority to go into the depths of the Bible and strike out false or unrelated texts to the God of Abraham and the Messiah. Thus, Tobias, whomever he is, is irrelevant to the Church for a damn plausible reason, thought this wouldn't matter to a snobby New Ager high off his own fumes, would it?

One fallacy I noticed was that you had stated early on that words weren't used in channeling, but rather concepts, sensations, and emotions. Then at the end you backpedal to say that there are some wonky little codewords that these nebulous beings use to transmit their thoughts and ideas. I dunno how you differentiate, but this to me just says people are incredibly confused about what is actual channeling and what ideas they can sell to people so that they will buy some crappy guide to figuring it out.

This series has had all the intellectual solidity of a sugar high chihuahua, but I've been expecting it from the start, so it's past anything even vaguely new. Sheesh.

RiverJordan responds:

I disagree! In lesson 4 i talk about how you need both experience and logical understanding to understand something. It's clear you've never experienced channeling, so right there, how do you know?

Now, Channeling was once used all the time in the ancient times. Do you know what precession of the equinox is? There's a reason that we were able to channel, and then lost our intimate connection with higher realms, and are getting it back again. because of our position in the cosmos over a 26,000 year period. We were falling asleep the last 13,000 years, but right now were beginning to wake up. In the ancient times, we had a higher consciousness so channeling was normal. Then we dropped, and began to do it less and less. Now were just on the returning curve of the precession of the equinox, so were beginning to do it again. That will be in spirit science 5.

Moving on, of course animals are open emotionally. And it's those emotions that you are able to connect with mentally, and communicate as such. You say cats have no emotional or thought process, but we know that's not true. Plus then you say "are selfish", but how can they be selfish if they have no thought process? Channeling a "lower conscious animal" is very real. Until you learn to do it yourself, you won't REALLY know how real it is. But when it happens, your world opens up.

Just because the tobias book seemed useless as a text, doesn't mean it was a text. I merely brought it up because i thought it was interesting. It has nothing to do with the importance of the text itself.

This series may not have intellectual solidity that you're looking for (yet), but it's very wise. I know what i'm talking about whether you understand it or not. Besides, i don't want to be "smart" anyways. Intelligence is over-rated. Wisdom is where it's at. Wise, intuitive. It's not what you know, it's how you use what you know.

[SS - Chakras]

Wow.

You take prismatology and Oriental Mysticism, and turn them into an ideology that reaches a psychosomatic level of stupid not seen since the alien cults formed in the later 20th century (such as Scientology (oddly enough)).

Not only this, but you utilize the idiocy surrounding the fraud of "vibration therapy" and the very abstract(but nonetheless credible) studies of Siegmund Freud and combine them as if they were, somehow, compatable.

Sorry to tell you this, but the gypping of people by basically hypnotizing them into fatuously believing that whatever weird shit that's being performed on them is enacting some eldritch function (these functions only work for the grace that is the psychological placebo) and the behavorial studies of Freud are not from the same school of thought or realm of function in society. Excuse me if the fact that tricking people into handing over vast sums of money for perverse psychological manipulation and a area of study begun by a career psychological researcher are not mutually inclusive.

Come to think of it, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're a student of psychology attempting an experiment using the internet. But I have yet to see proof of such from you, and thus I must pass you off as a sucker for New Age scams.

RiverJordan responds:

You'll see in time then. The 8 chakras actually come out of the egg of life, which is an 8 cell formation within sacred geometry, and the first form that humans take after the perfect sphere. Through sacred geometry you can actually map how people grow from a level that is beyond scientific understanding. I'll be explaining it all over time, all i ask is that you keep watching :)

[Quest of the Manwhore]

Epic awesome

Fernando is the Kratos of whores. Again, epic awesome.

His eyes are haunting and impressive, his visage wild yet within his control, his voice filled with all sorts of promises and forbidden secrets, his imagination... sublime....

Sexual-Lobster responds:

fernando is hiring for PR guys right now, i think you've got what it takes.

[Castlevania Whip Crack]

Sheesh.

One thing that shoulda been done with this- the framerate should have been sped up.

Otherwise, perfect as hell.

kalabor106 responds:

Yeah thinking of going full 24 instead of the 12ish setting this was on. Seems to give it a lag look.

[Halo Reach: Armor Locked]

Its supposed to be satirical...

And it is.

The humor isn't subtle, but I suppose it wasn't overdone enough for many to "get" it.

For the most part, I thought it was a nice blend of parody and melodrama, so well done, man.

I hope to see such quality plotlines(long as it was) with such quality animation more often on Newgrounds, hopefully from you.

So cheers.

DoomzDayChikn responds:

appreciate it, you're one of the few who understood the satire of the movie.