Skunkyrate
Gripping story with well-crafted characters
KnotStronger
This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.
Keira Brennan
The movie is made so realistic it has a lot of that WoW feeling at the right moments and never tooo over the top. the suspense is done so well and the emotion is felt. Very well put together with the music and all.
He_who_lurks
This Hepworth film does go on for a bit too long, and for a one-gag film it is stretched out a bit, but considering its time I'll still give it a 7-star rating. The story is simple but the effects and camera work which come on later look good even today.An uncle and his nephew are having dinner when the uncle starts thinking it would be funny to get his nephew to sneeze. So he throws some pepper at him and it works! The boy is so mad he lets the uncle have it bad. He puts pepper in his uncle's clothes in his bedroom and then the fun starts. The guy goes around town sneezing, and it soon becomes pretty harmful--he knocks a lamp post over, blows a woman's hair off her head, etc. And his last sneeze *is* fatal--it makes him explode!The film is silly and works very well even by today's standards. Yeah, the joke isn't very funny and seems outdated--but the way it is used makes this film very unique. There is also some ground-breaking camerawork used when the uncle causes an earthquake with his sneezes, and the camera rocks back and forth. This is something I've never seen before in early cinema and it works well.
JoeytheBrit
This early Hepworth film is fairly humorous but it carries on for far too long and drags in the middle because of the repetitious nature of its scenes. An old man plays a trick on a youngster with pepper causing the boy to sneeze uncontrollably. The boy, who, it has to be said, appears ever so slightly effeminate (and might have been played by a girl), gets his own back by peppering the old man's hairbrush, handkerchief, hat, etc while he sleeps. In the morning the old man's sneezes are so powerful that things in their path collapse and fall apart or fall off walls, etc. The sneezes keep on building until they create an earthquake and then cause the old boy to explode.The last minute or so of the film is probably the most effective. Where a filmmaker today would use a shaking motion of the camera to transmit an earthquake, the cameraman here rocks the camera back and forth, eventually slowing down to signify the passing of the quake while the old boy hangs on to a lamppost. It's still quite an effective little trick. Overall though, the film went on far too long for what is essentially a one-shot joke.
stormin_player
Since the beginning of motion picture, by the Lumière brothers in 1985, for the next decade forward films where made which where there to attract an audience, like theatre. Theses films did not have anything in the way of acting or composition but where simply there to show an artistic view to the motion picture. Almost like Photography.But this film in 1907 was one of many such as 'The Impossible Voyage' in 1904 and 'king lea' in 1910, to show a narrative which was not like theatre but more on the way of we are intruding into someone Else's life. This was the beginning of how films are seen today.Due to this films quirky camera shots and over flamboyant acting, i give this a smashing 9 out of ten. A true film from the beginning of movie making.
cmmchale2
Granted, this is not profound, earth-shattering filmmaking of the sort to change lives and open minds. It's still fun, imaginative in a way that--so early in film history--had the flavor of unknown possibilities. Now that we know we can do anything via computer graphics, there's so little joy in trick photography and special effects via rigged props. Its strength is its rough edges; this is film in evolution. And the way they chose to end this film is nothing short of priceless.
