i've been slowly working my way through the unseen cinema set of dvds. so far i've watched the devil's plaything: american surrealism(disc 2) and light rhythms: music and abstraction(disc 3). the devil's plaything was interesting, but somehow i guess i was expecting it to be a bit more surreal than it is. i had high expectations for the joseph cornell films as i really like his artwork. but was a bit disappointed to see that they weren't so much films he'd shot but films he'd compiled from various other sources. they aren't without their charms, but i was expecting something a little more out there. my favourite things on the disc were probably the poe adaptions.

light rhythms i liked more. i think my favourite film on this disc was ralph steiner's H2O. a film made up entirely of shots of water and abstract images contained in their reflection/movement. some shots i wanted to go on longer they were so beautiful to look at. another favourite on this disc was the excerpt from a busby berkeley film. amazing choreographed water ballet. it's a shame this sort of thing isn't really popular anymore. but of course if it was popular today it'd probably be choreographed to something horrid like celine dion or mariah carey.

some of these films also appear on the avant-garde set that was released in 2005 as well. some of the films on that set had modern music tacked on as does the unseen cinema set. but thankfully, the music tacked on the unseen cinemea set is much better than the avant-garde set. i really hated a lot of the music used on that(ag) set. too simplistic and at times unsuitable for the film it accompanied. one thing i don't understand about the unseen cinema set is why the extras on the discs are only viewable on a computer but not on your tv. was it just a space concern? if this had been watchable on my tv i would have read some, if not all, of the background information. but as it is, i'm not sure i can be bothered to put aside the time to watch it on my computer.