Animated Gif Critic

[poochin]

[animatedgifcritic]

Perfect Score

[animatedgifcritic]

This gif is the debut work of a friend of mine. I want to encourage him to continue his nominal work, so to that effect I've decided to do a critique of his piece.

CATS: A pathetic lack of cats. 0/10

AESTHETIC: The otherwise thoughtful cinematography is offset by weak lighting, an incomprehensible use of lines, and a timestamp that I'm dubious lends itself to any commentary this work is trying to make. 3/10

TECHNIQUE: The gif flows nicely, but I can only attribute that to the camera work of the television production this gif come from. Allegedly, the artist added in the glasses of the gentleman on the left. You can hardly tell! 7/10

THEMATIC: What do we think about, when we see a young person taking sips of soup from an older person? We should immediately recognize that this is allegory, but to what? Animated Gif Critic suggests that this is a commentary on the Millennial generation feeding off of their Baby Boomer parents. Touché, says this Millennial critic. Scathing and accurate. 8/10

ORIGINALITY: These days, on the international informations supernet highway of dreams, you really only see six kinds of gifs: 

gifs where someone is being given an upvote

gifs where someone is being given a downvote

gifs of political candidates delivering moving speeches

gifs of old ladies eating soup

gifs from the old vaudevillian television programme "Your Show of Shows"

gifs of cats

Clearly this gif is run-of-the-mill, but here's where the auteur has taken quite a risk: a younger man takes a sip of soup! I hesitate to use the word "revolutionary"...but I will say that this gif may take old-lady-soup-eating-gifs in a whole new direction, and I like that direction. 9/10

HUMOUR: A quality of being amusing or comic is often absurdity: laughter can be created simply by exposing ourselves to the unexpected. It's not at all surprising that this old bag (no offense, you old bag, you) is impressed by soup, but then lookit this guy taking a sip of soup! How old is this guy?! Now that is unexpected and therefore it is humourous. 7/10

STYLE: The animation, timestamp, and risqué albeit banal content make this an obvious work of Pop Art. Were Roy Liechtenstein alive today, he'd probably remark something like "where are my slippers?" because he'd be 91 years old. 9/10

SCALE: It's a big gif but the clip is barely over one second long, so it's a pretty small scale. Great work on the fake glasses though. 5/10

TOTAL SCORE: 48/80

[animatedgifcritic]

CATS - none 

AESTHETIC - blurry

TECHNIQUE - average

THEMATIC - jejeune 

ORIGINALITY - derivative

HUMOUR - childish

STYLE - amateur

SCALE - miniscule

TOTAL SCORE - 80/80

[animatedgifcritic]

CATS - Honestly, it's hard to tell if they're cats or not, because of my heavy cataracts, but my nurse tells me that they aren't cats, they're meer-cats. Lady, that sounds like a goddamn cat to me. What? It's a what? Fuck it, I'm saying it's a cat. 10/10

AESTHETIC - The artist has helpfully watermarked this gif, so I can helpfully address this critique directly. "NikNaks," I think you did a swell job putting this together. You've go two sequences going here, with two cats. The first sequence seems mostly brown, and the second has a bit of aquamarine but is also mostly brown. Quite the limited palette, huh Niknaks? - 3/10

TECHNIQUE - At first glance, I was sure that these cats had some sort of significant eye-disorder. My nurse had to explain that those are CGI-enhanced googly-eyes. Well done, Niknaks, you old bean! I was certainly fooled. Excellent use of CGI, reminiscent of The Hulk (2003), The Incredible Hulk (2008), The Hulk (2013), The Hulk (2014 - In Production), and finally Hulk's Heroes (Cancelled). - 10/10

THEMATIC - The first cat has giant pupils, which implies he's probably heavily drugged. The second cat's pupils are not as big. One might digest this information, believe these to be two separate cats and misunderstand the piece entirely as an anti-drug treatise, then get indigestion as a result. Allow me to be the Pepto Bismol of your minds: like Tyler (SPOILER ALERT) Durden of the film "Dead Poet's Fighting Society" the latter cat is the former cat. Indeed NikNaks is trying to express that we are all simultaneously an intoxicated, and sober version of ourselves. Super deep stuff, NikNaks. 10/10

ORIGINALITY - 10/10

HUMOUR - Googly eyes always make me laugh, but then remind me of my cataracts and then I cry and then I need to put my eyedrops in, and let's just say I'm not laughing anymore - 6/10

STYLE - Neo-classicist gif animation at it's best. Pretty much David's Death of Marat in modern form. My nurse says "With Googly Eyes!" Waitasec, the original didn't have googly eyes? What the fu - 8/10

SCALE - The work put into the CGI googly eyes is very impressive indeed. They even account for the motion of the cats' heads and gravity. 10/10

TOTAL SCORE - 67/80

[animatedgifcritic]

CATS - Horses aren't cats, sorry. 0/10

AESTHETIC - At first glance, one's instinctual assessment might be of dismissive derision - it's a low resolution gif, what can I say? Look closer, I suggest: There's nothing the artist could have done with the resolution of the original gif, but the way the horses seamlessly appear out of the smoke cloud is wonderfully engaging, and their gaits are as beautiful as if they were galloping across a dusty plain! Magnificent! Striking! Awe-inspiring!

(Still though, pretty low-res, ugh.) - 5/10

TECHNIQUE - As described, the horses appear seamlessly from thin air as if they were there the whole time. I'm almost inclined to believe this gif hasn't even been 'doctored' and the horses were trampolines from pixel one. M Night Shyamalan said it best when he revealed his shocking twist "I am a highly paid professional director". Is he the author of this animated gif? Fuck, I don't know! I'm not a research expert, I'm an art critic. But probably, yes - 10/10

THEMATIC - To answer this question, we must first ask of ourselves: "who rides horses?"

A: Cowboys.

Then we must ask of ourselves "where do cowboys roam?"

A: Same place the Buffaloes do: on the range.

"A range is a homograph, what else does it mean?"

A: An oven. 

Now here's where it gets tricky. If you're a misogynist you've already assumed the theme of this gif is that women don't belong on trampolines, they belong "on the range," or "in the kitchen." The mirror of society has been turned right back at you, reflecting your own inner sexist turmoil.The turmoil is calling from inside the house!

If, like me, you're not a sexist, then you've already figured out that this gif has nothing to do with cowboys and everything to do with trampolines. That's right you guessed it, it's a commentary on how we view trampolines in modern gym culture. And a good one, I might add - 8/10

ORIGINALITY - 10/10

HUMOUR - 10/10

STYLE -  It's a classic absurd surrealist gif, 'and a good one, I might add,' as I have been known to say. Ceci n'est pas une trampoline - 9/10

SCALE - The fact that the artist, clearly an expert in gif-making, was working with lower resolution actually increased the difficulty of this project, as the horses needed to look as though they belonged in this world of giant pixels and yoga mats. 9/10

TOTAL SCORE - 61/80

[animatedgifcritic]

CATS - One (1) giant neon pink meowing cat. 10/10

AESTHETIC - The beautiful and vibrant pink colouring of the cat are juxtaposed against a green and cyan maze background. The use of lines and motion create an incredible three-dimensional image that makes you search around for cat treats to feed it, only to later realize that you have been throwing the treats at your inanimate computer screen (duh!) My only complaint is that the clashing of the two colours make the gif difficult to look at for an extended period of time, 8/10

TECHNIQUE - The animation of the cat’s face is done expertly, and as an original image, I am very impressed by the author’s ability to create the image of the cat using only a series of lines, two shades of pink, one shade of orange, black, and white. I’m left wanting more movement from the body and ears, but I’m not wholly disappointed by what’s lacking. 7/10

THEMATIC - I think this is more an exercise in aesthetic ideas than anything thematic. 0/10

ORIGINALITY - This is definitely new to me 10/10

HUMOUR - 0/10

STYLE - This piece blends New Media Art and Cat Gif Art with psychedelic colourings to create what I would describe as a “Modern Fauvism.” 10/10

SCALE - The author successfully and seamlessly navigates form and animation in this large and difficult gif. 8/10

TOTAL SCORE

53/80

[cineraria]

Baby Duck Slide - YouTube

[animatedgifcritic]

CATS - There are no cats in this gif. 0/10

AESTHETIC - The image is pretty dark, and there is a glut of shadow due to the direction of light at the top of the slide (the ducks waiting excitedly for their turn at the top are over-lit) and the colours are drab. 0/10

TECHNIQUE - It is simply a video clip in gif form. 0/10

THEMATIC - Ah, the story of Sisyphus - the King of Ephyra, and also a baby duck, compelled forever to repeat climbing up a hill and then sliding back down it. Albert Camus, in The Myth of Sisyphus believed this represented the absurdity of life, yet he believed that this repetitive action satisfied man. “The struggle itself toward heights is enough to fill a man’s heart.” Well how about baby ducks’ hearts? I choose to imagine they are happy ducks, and you just try to prove me otherwise! 8/10

ORIGINALITY - While a perpetual duck slide machine is an original concept, the author of the gif isn’t the inventor. In fact, the gif author does not even re-appropriate the motion in an imaginative way. This is merely a standard “cute thing happening” gif which are a dime a dozen. 0/10

HUMOUR - I laugh not. 0/10

STYLE - In the vein of “cute animal gifs” this doesn’t add anything new or interesting to the conversation - 0/10

SCALE - Very little work went into this gif - 0/10

TOTAL SCORE

8/80

[animatedgifcritic]

Hello there. It has been a long long long long time since I have critiqued animated gifs, and let's all be honest, that time was dark and empty and nobody was happy. Well get your happypants out of your closet, and put them on and take two or three selfies because the time has come for me to begin critiquing animated (probably cat) gifs again.

We need to talk though. The old scoring system was broken, and it needs to be fixed. Let's address this right now. I used to weigh everything equally among 5 categories:

1. HUMOUR

2. THEME

3. AESTHETIC

4. WATCHABILITY

5. CATS

Frankly, this taxonomy is jejune. Let's spice it up to 11. Here are the new criticism categories with brief explanations and using the above cat gif as a high scoring example (Also guess what, jerks? The categories are out of ten (10) now):

CATS - obviously this should be the first quality addressed. There is one cat in the above gif and it is jumping. Probably 10/10

AESTHETIC - I will be scoring any aesthetic qualities in this category - colours, shapes, lines and textures. Obviously the above is a beautifully captured motion, with strong coloring aspects and framing, so it would score in the 8-10 range.

TECHNIQUE - Like all art, gif animation requires technical abilities. As brushstrokes are to painting, there are many elements in the process of animating a jumping cat that can be critiqued. In critiquing technique, the main question is: does the execution achieve it's purpose? In the above, clearly a skilled hand carefully edited the slow motion mid air catch to show that cats can jump real good like. Bravo! Top points.

THEMATIC - What is the gif artist's statement? How does it make make me feel? Is there symbolism? In the above, as explained, the gif demonstrates a cat's capacity to jump. I agree! 8-10 range.

ORIGINALITY - Is the work unique? Is it derivative? I've seen lots of slow motion cat jumping gifs, so I would probably dock this one a few points. 

HUMOUR - The best gifs make us laugh. Sometimes at ourselves. Sometimes at each other. Sometimes at cats. The above example does none of these things, so it gets minimal points.

STYLE - Style is differentiated from Aesthetic and Technique in that it describes the work as it compares to other artistic movements. For example, if we were describing a Picasso, we would be critiquing it as a Cubist piece. The above is a Cat-Jumping gif, so we have to discuss how it fits within that movement. It fits pretty good if you ask me. Top points!

SCALE - How big is the work? Did the artist simply gif-ify a clip from a TV show? Or did they create it from scratch? Is it full screen? Is it tiny? The above example is pretty big and pretty hi def and probably tool a lot of work. Top points!

The final score will be out of 80. Please do not hesitate to send me gifs to critique. SFW only please.

Sincerely

  Animated Gif Critic.

[animatedgifcritic]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY A.G

It's been ages since my last post sadly, as I've been busy with other projects, but I would never miss this wonderful occasion:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/15/3089290/gif-25th-birthday

[shortvideosandstuff]

[animatedgifcritic]

HUMOUR - 2/5

THEME - 0/5: Monkeys and ducks looking at eachother is not a theme. Go back to bed.

AESTHETIC - 2/5: Nothing special

WATCHABILITY - 4/5

CATS - 0/5

MONKEY BONUS - +3

TOTAL SCORE: 44

[animatedgifcritic]

I'M SO ELECTROCUTED! I'M SO ELECTROCUTED! I'M SO....AHHHHH WHAT THE HECK AM I HUGGING?!

I don't know how to score this, it's beautiful but I have yet to understand its meaning.

I think it's a commentary on ambition and addiction.

But unlike some critics who think that despite a lack of understanding of the concept or theme of a work, they still think they are entitled to call it "Pretentious" or "Convoluted" in spite of other glaring virtues, I am just going to back off of my complicated and objective scoring system, and give this a score of:

TOTAL SCORE: Pretentious garbage.

[animatedgifcritic]

MUY BUENO

HUMOUR - 5/5

THEME - 5/5: Let's do what I do best and dissect the living shit out of this gif.

DISSECTION GLOVES: ON

DISSECTION HAT: WORN

DISSECTION PANTS: IN LAUNDRY

DISSECTION GOGGLES: THEY DO NOTHING

Okay, we're ready. Well...I'm ready. You should probably wait outside. Here, have this electronic Yahtzee game. Enjoy yourself. DON'T ENJOY YOURSELF TOO MUCH (god is always watching) but sure, try to beat my record. Won't happen, but the fun is in trying and failing at trying.

American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis - an author whose books I've never read, but the films based on those books I generally enjoy thoroughly, which is why I tell people I've read his books when I haven't so I can talk about the books (which I haven't read) and appear more literate in the process.

Anyways, I've seen the movie (AND READ THE BOOK?) with Christian Bale. It's quite an interesting commentary on 1980s materialism and narcissism and greed. And he talks about Phil Collins a lot, which is technically the main ingredient to making me fall deeply in love with anyone.

"Phil Collins' voice is fucking annoying. He's too British. And I hate his face."

"I LOVE YOU."

Now...QUESTION PERIOD TIME: which film series echoes the exact same concept of Narcissism, Greed and Materialism, only in a positive way in an effort to indoctrinate children? If you said "Harry Potter" then you're a ding-dong winner. 

First of all, Harry Potter is all about a kid who knows he's the chosen wizard, right? He goes around all day and all night thinking "I'm a the Chosen Wizard. I'm a gonna save a the princessa" (I've never seen the movies, but he sounds like Wario, right?) He also needs a wand to be successful. He's just got to have things. 

So that's what the creator of this gif is implying: he's saying, these two totally fictional characters could totally hang out together and be eating fictional tacos together and have fun together because they're essentially the same person who might as well be henceforth known as Hattrick Potbatman.

And I agree.

AESTHETIC - 3/5: Too small and I'm somewhat offended by the lack of Taco colour continuity.

WATCHABILITY - 5/5: I already enjoy watching people eat Tacos, so this is just an extension of that pasttime.

CATS - 0/5: No cats.

TOTAL SCORE: 72

[animatedgifcritic]

SOME QUICK CAT GIF REVIEWS

HUMOUR - 4/5

THEME - 3/5

AESTHETIC - 5/5

WATCHABILITY - 5/5

CATS - 5/5

TOTAL SCORE - 88

HUMOUR - 3/5

THEME - 5/5

AESTHETIC - 4/5

WATCHABILITY - 2/5

CATS - 5/5

TOTAL SCORE - 84

HUMOUR - 2/5

THEME - 5/5

AESTHETIC - 3/5

WATCHABILITY - 1/5

CATS - 5/5

TOTAL SCORE - 64

HUMOUR - 4/5

THEME - 2/5

AESTHETIC - 5/5

WATCHABILITY - 5/5

CATS - 5/5

TOTAL SCORE - 84

[animatedgifcritic]

TUPAC WANT/NEED BRAAAAAINS

HUMOUR - 3/5:

Come on come on. I see no changes

THEME - 3/5:

Come on come on. That's just the way it is

AESTHETIC - 5/5:

Things'll never be the same

WATCHABILITY - 3/5:

That's just the way it is

CATS - 2/5:

Awwww yeah (If you don't think Yoda looks feline I feel bad for you son, you've got 90 blind problems, and your eyesight is one of those aforementioned problems.)

TOTAL SCORE: 64

[knusprig-titten-hitler]

Ping pong boss

[animatedgifcritic]

HUMOUR - 5/5

THEME - 5/5

Sometimes in life, you feel like you are working as hard as you possibly can; you're taking a maximum withdrawal from your 'focus bank' and putting every ounce of strength you have into accomplishing a task. And you see someone else doing the same thing, successfully, with the amount of ease one might equate with peeling a banana (easily, unless you're missing both thumbs and all subsequently adjacent fingers.) 

When that happens you have two options. The first, and most often used is frequently referred to as: "giving the fuck up immediately and pouring a large tumbler full of scotch and reminding yourself it was never worth it in the first place." This is counterproductive, and ignores the fact that the more you do something - the more practice you have at a task - the easier it becomes over time. 

The second, and least often used option, is "stabbing Tommy Lee Jones in the top of the head."

AESTHETIC - 3/5

WATCHABILITY - 4/5

CATS - No cats

TOTAL SCORE: 68

[animatedgifcritic]

WAIT FOR IT

HUMOUR - 5/5: Remember the episode of Fresh Prince where the dog wipes his butt as he walks, and Phil is all like "Freeeeeeeeeesh Per-iiiiIIIIIIIIIINCE!" and Jazzy Fresh is all like "But Phil, it wasn't me it was....Oh...oh my, I said 'Butt!' And the dog is walking on its butt!" and Phil is like "Ha ha, good one, son of mine. You truly have done your Uncle Raphael de la Ghetto proud. If only he were still alive." And then Carlton walks in and is like "He is alive...in our hearts."*

*Direct transcript from www.sitcomdialogues.com

THEME - 1/5: Oh, so a dog wiping its butt while it walks is a reflection of our modern leftist environmental societal constructs? Is that what this gif implies, gif artist? Ha! SO wrong. If anything, it's an accurate portrayal of ethnocentricism and the ineffable didacticism of constitutional monarchy in the film "Hancock." Get it right, gif artist. I don't think I've dared call a piece Jejune before, so mark this down in your calendars, people. This gif is so fucking Jejune, it makes the late Thomas Kinkade (R.I.P, my homeboy) seem deeper than the pit in the Atari game Pitfall.

Now THAT'S some didactic shit right there. Didactic all up in that bitch.

AESTHETIC - 5/5: It's a beautiful gif. Admit it. ADMIT IT! There, it feels good to admit it, no? SAY YES.

WATCHABILITY - 2/5: Once you've seen a dog wipe its butt while it walks, you've seen them all wipe their butts while they walk.

CATS - 0/5: I'm starting to reconsider whether I should subtract points for dogs in gifs. They are so not cats, it's like they are anticatmatter. I'll consider it a little longer, but I think in order to fudge the numbers and have the universe align mathematically I have to dock points for dogs. We'll see. I'll ask Steve Hakwings. He's an expert at making shit up to sound smart.

TOTAL SCORE: 60

[animatedgifcritic]

THE THINGS WE THINK WE WANT

HUMOUR - 3/5

THEME - 5/5: Throughout life, we are presented with many options - Ice cream flavours, if you will. Some days you want Mint Chocolate Chip (If you have taste buds, then this is pretty much every day but maybe you like inferior things, I don't know. You seem pretty boring, guy.) 

Anyways, you may think you want a certain thing based on shallow, superficial, and deep-rooted-subconscious reasons. This applies to relationships, jobs, friendships, and iced creams.

For example, you can put everything you have into your education - getting the highest grades you can achieve without paying your professor in Gummy Bears and Cheap Whiskeys - followed by months carefully designing your professional resume, interviewing, following up, and sending more emails, gummy bears, whiskeys, oxford commas, and the like. You can do everything you are capable of doing to get the job you want in life, and then suddenly 2 years into it, you're like "OH SHOOT WAIT I DON'T WANT TO BE A PUBLIC POOL LIFEGUARD. It seemed like such a cool life plan at the time." but by then it's too late. You're a public pool lifeguard already, now and forever.

You thought you wanted Rocky Road, you paid for Rocky Road, but your heart needed the Mint Choco touch. And unfortunately, there's nothing that prepares you for this realization. Even worse for some people, is there's no way out.

Anyways, this cat is exemplifying this terrifying inevitability. The poor critter wants to be in that sandal SO badly. But once it's actually in the sandal, it's like "Oh. I thought this would be less...cumbersome. Meow." 

AESTHETIC - 5/5: neat gif. Good camera angles. Ya rent one them dollies for them camera angles, ya big city gif directorman?

WATCHABILITY - 5/5: Cats getting stuck in things. Can you go wrong? No. The answer is always no.

"A cat getting stuck in things is akin to a warm summer's breeze - no matter how many times your heart is drawn into its sweet caress, you can always have one more." - Nablo Peruda.

CATS - 5/5: Heck yep there's cat.

TOTAL SCORE: 92