Surfing was the most radiantly cinematic activity to ever light up a screen, but by the early 1990s, surf movies as a rule weren’t looking much better than America’s Funniest Home Videos. Quality took a nosedive in the previous decade as movies were replaced by VHS cassettes, and as filmmakers began shooting directly to videotape.
With the release of 1992’s Momentum, San Diego’s Taylor Steele became surf videography’s accidental auteur. His pummeling 40-minute debut effort, made for just unde...
