Popular reviews

• 

  Review by theironcupcake 4

  "Though I'm a geyser/Feel it bubbling from below/Hear it call, hear it call/Hear it call to me/Constantly..."

  A week ago I was delighted to find a painting class that was supposed to be held tonight, only to find out this morning that it had been canceled since I was the only person who'd signed up. Truthfully, do you suppose a lot of people are that uninterested in - or sure that they'd be embarrassed by - the concept of "Erotic Art Night"? To me, the description was enticing: "Unleash your creativity and explore a new artistic realm at our exclusive painting event. Join us for a unique evening where you can create a risqué masterpiece in a supportive and fun…

• 

  Review by Sally Jane Black 1

  If "Regen" was a graceful and lovely observation of an element, "H2O" is an exquisite indulgence in it, a quiet (I watched it with a thrumming guitar soundtrack first, and then with none whatsoever on the sorta recommendation of the Kitchell) observation (and it's definitely merely observation at first) of one of the most fundamental parts of our world (and one of the most dominant).

  From rippling patterns to sheens of pollutants to glimpses of nature, it simply captures squarish frames of the titular substance with little to no frills. While this serves as an experiment in liquid imagery and editing (in that it combines similar images and slowly frays its reality) and as a mirror (sometimes almost literally) and…

• 

  Review by ScreeningNotes

  Early Avant-Garde: Part Twenty-Four

  Mesmerizing. This short was presented in the collection I've been watching with a quotation from film historian Arthur Knight, which I initially read with some skepticism but after watching the film I'm entirely on board and can't think of a better way to describe the film: "It is the movement of the water, the play of light and shadow on its surface that makes the film alive. And even though at all times Steiner keeps his camera objective and detached, as the film progresses we become less and less aware of water until finally we are conscious only of the rhythm of the moving lights. It has become an abstract film." These movies serve as a sort of meditation for me; they're hypnotic, transfixing. They pull me out of my body and into the screen. Pure cinema distilled to the simple duality of light and shadow.

• 

  Review by Edgar Cochran ✝️ ★★★★★

  "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."
  -Genesis 1: 6-8

  Once I made a question to my best friend, who I have now unfortunately lost, but maybe not forever. We all make mistakes and, in a way, I have hope she will return. I asked her: "If you could be an inert object, but with a conscience that you are and exist,…

• 

  Review by Jonah ★★★★

  This is my happy place

• 

  Review by Lencho of the Apes ★★★

  First-gen experimental films were inevitably modernist in conception; Mr. Steiner here seems to be interested in water mostly because he can use his camera to isolate visual elements that create painterly abstractions on the screen, constantly-evolving in real time, calligraphies of nonsigns immune from being read. Very modernist indeed.

• 

  Review by JulesLarson ★★★★

  Yeah I was bowled over by shots of water, what of it? Gorgeous.

• 

  Review by Benjamin Choate ★★★★½

  i understand 😔
  - guy who has seen Avatar: The Way of The Water (2022)

• 

  Review by evilbjork ★★½

  Sadly I'm not impressed. This is framed as an ode to water, but it comes off as an aimless assortment of shots of water. It doesn't have any feeling of artist intent, atmosphere, or experimentalism. It's not even impressive or unique for the time. If you're able to find meaning in this then cheers to you, but I'd rather watch something like Rain (1929).

• 

  Review by Walter 3

  A magnificent work of film art. Water is photographed. At first it’s familiar and comforting. And one senses the tangible outside world that can get lost in our technological miasma. Dripping water. Gentle water. Rushing waters. Babbling waters. The images build a sense narrative. We understand the surface of the water is it’s own reflective screen and the movie turns this screen into an emotional epic. We’re overwhelmed by the end. An uncommonly powerful film. 

  See this one.

• 

  Review by Emily Housel ★★★ 3

  meditative. this one’ll put u right to sleep its so relaxing lol

• 

  Review by Zoë 🐛 ★★★★

  hell yeah