PodBill Just what I expected

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) Usually, I'm too fond of nature documentaries, especially if they include animals, but this one just doesn't do anything for me. Of course the wild water is kinda intimidating, but even no more than 23 seconds, it's just not engaging enough to keep me interested from start to finish. I wish there would have been maybe at least one brave swimmer in there offering a welcome distraction. But nope. We also see the shore and I'm not entirely certain if there's people on it enjoying the view and the sound of the waves (which would have been a nice addition, too bad it wasn't invented yet). It's just too far away to say with certainty. Birt Acres has done better during his very prolific career from 1894 to 1900.

JoeytheBrit This film, if you'll pardon the pun, created quite a storm upon its release in the first days of the cinema, and given the turbulent thrashings of the waves here it's hardly surprising. Workers leaving a factory and men pretending to be blacksmiths against a black background tend to pale in comparison. This also succeeds in the same way that the Lumiere's films succeeded: in the way that it captures motion, something a conventional camera was incapable of doing. It was a major advantage for the motion picture, and it's perhaps not surprising that it took filmmakers so long to see beyond this to the other potential uses of cinema.

bob the moo I watched this film on a DVD that was rammed with short films from the period. I didn't watch all of them as the main problem with these type of things that their value is more in their historical novelty value rather than entertainment. So to watch them you do need to be put in the correct context so that you can keep this in mind and not watch it with modern eyes. With the Primitives & Pioneers DVD collection though you get nothing to help you out, literally the films are played one after the other (the main menu option is "play all") for several hours. With this it is hard to understand their relevance and as an educational tool it falls down as it leaves the viewer to fend for themselves, which I'm sure is fine for some viewers but certainly not the majority. What it means is that the DVD saves you searching the web for the films individually by putting them all in one place – but that's about it.I will not even try and match the excellent review written for this film by user Cineanalyst. Although he/she doesn't actually review the film per se, he/she does do a great job of setting the historical context and giving the reader an understanding of what the reaction to this film was, something the DVD collection totally fails to do. And I'll say this, the film desperately needs context. I watched it after seeing many Lumière films and it made me appreciate them more because the photography here is terrible. I don't know if it is the effect of age or just the way it always was, but the photography is chaotic and grainy, really taking away from the impact of the footage. This was a problem for me and it was why I was grateful for the wider understanding because without it there is little else.

Snow Leopard The footage in "Rough Sea At Dover" is rather unrefined, at least in its present condition, but it features some memorable views. The main footage is now rather blurry and unclear, and it's hard to tell just how realistic it may have looked originally. Again as it now stands, the movie consists of two different scenes that may have been edited together after the fact - once again, it's probably impossible to tell with certainty. But in any event, this short movie is one of the more effective examples of the type of early 'actuality' that features water in motion.The scene at Dover catches the wall of a pier as heavy waves crash against it, and the slightly diagonal camera angle adds to the power of the sea as it comes towards the viewer. If the picture were less blurry, it might be an excellent shot. The second scene must come from an entirely different, inland location, but it too shows a good view of water in motion, from a different perspective.The early cinema team of Birt Acres and R.W. Paul did not stick together very long, but this feature shows what they were capable of doing.