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Review: Dogtown and Z-Boys
from the obsessives-inventing-culture dept.
Dogtown is a now-gentrified but then working-class neighborhood between Venice and Santa Monica, California. Kids there grew up obsessed with surfing, and with fighting off outsiders, especially in and around the dangerous pilings that once supported a decaying and abandoned amusement pier. A lot of kids were injured or killing surfing off of Dogtown. Since they could only surf in the morning, when the tides were right, they began filing their afternoons with an experiment: they put wheels on mini-surfboards to ride on the roadways that surrounded them. The Zephyr team -- named after a famous Dogtown surfboard store and hangout -- quickly became known for its innovative skateboarding style, much of it drawn from the techniques of the world's best ocean surfers.
Skateboarding waxed and waned in the 70's, until two developments caused the sport to take off (and, of course, this being America, to be commercially co-opted): somebody invented urethane wheels that could take the the twists, turns and leaps that the Zephyrs brought to their boarding, and California experienced a severe drought. In a wondrously American twist, hundreds of drained Southern California pools presented the Zephyr kids an enormous opportunity they instantly grasped. A new kind of skating was perfected and launched.
Usually ignoring outraged neighbors, pool owners and pursuing cops, the Z-boys (and a couple of girls) began cruising the curved sides of pools until they heard the first sirens, at which point they'd leap into some dingy car and take off for another pool. Eventually they lucked out: a terminally-ill teenager from a rich family prevailed on his father to let the Zephyrs use their enormous, empty backyard pool. Riders like Jay Adams and Tony Alva became some of the most celebrated skateboarders in the world, taking boarding to the next level. The eventual twists and turns of the lives of these young pioneers -- all interviewed in their current incarnations -- give the movie a poignant, sometimes shocking punch.
Writer Craig Stecyk wrote about the Zephyrs in a series of articles for skateboarding magazines, casting them as stylish urban guerillas exploiting and transforming American technology (neighborhood school playgrounds were concrete forms placed into the slopes of hills, perfect for illegal skating) to create both artistry and freedom. Stecyk and Stacy Peralta wrote and directed Dogtown with some funding from Vans (the Zephyr boys all wore blue Zephyr T-shirts and blue Vans sneakers).
It's a surprising film, innovative in its editing and herky-jerky flashbacks and sprinkled with great footage from the 70's and 80's. The film itself seems to replicate some of the Zephyr team moves. Peralta tracks and interviews the grown-up, middle-aged members of the original Z-boys, and while some have survived and prospered, you can't help feeling sad seeing the older images juxtaposed against the amazing energy, acrobatics and creativity of their younger selves. It's truly amazing what these kids did with some empty swimming pools and pared-down boards. Archival video and stills from the period really bring the story to life, too. We don't have to hear the saga recalled by its aging survivors; we can see the kinetic, obsessive, exciting images of the time (Jay Adams, in particular, is just astounding).
Like the creation of the Net, this is a particularly American tale, in which a handful of oddball teenagers can use their own alienation and outsiderness and create a rich -- if doomed -- culture of their own. While much of the country is off watching the latest bloated Star Wars epic, you can't do better than skip the long lines of groupies and find a theater showing Dogtown.
Ok, Whatever (Score:1)
According to what Jon writes, skating has been around since the late 70s. I know I used to skate during the 80s rage - when INXS plastered a skateboard on their Album 'kick'.
Yet the internet has been around a lot longer- altho in a more immature format than it is now. Not to say it isn't going to hell in a handbasket- because it sure seems to be (I hate pop up ads, spam email and banners that take forever to load when web surfing). If he is referring to the Open Source movement, I don't know, the jury is still out on that one- but I am sure given a few more years, Open Source will be more than equal for the challenge of the Desktop- and it already is for the Server side.
Jon, this is a nice toned down article. Please leave out the Star Wars slam next time. It makes me forget the horror that was Episode 1, and actually has me excited again in the 3rd installment.
Katz is a Locker Room Joy-Boy (Score:3, Troll)
Drop the self-important B.S. Most hackers are little bitches that go corporate as soon as the heat gets turned up. As for the "kids" that built the internet, it wasn't kids, it was government engineers. Sorry to blow your romantic fairy tale with some facts,
Ah yes... (Score:1)
Wow. I really can never get enough of your pompous, John Agar-like speculation. You've made my day.
q
Star Wats (Score:2)
Re:Star Wats (Score:4, Insightful)
I loved all the original films, and I like the new films just fine. Phantom Menace was sub-par, but I found Episode II to be at least as much fun as any of the other ones.
My theory is that a lot (not all) of the people who grew up with Star Wars in their childhoods have come to think of Star Wars as being their childhoods, and are inevitably disappointed when the new movies can't strip them of their adulthood and return them to a wide-eyed state of ten-year-old wonder.
Seeing Star Wars as a kid was a wonderful, influential experience. But I'm never going to be ten again, and the best writing / acting / special effects in the world won't change that. It doesn't mean I can't still enjoy Star Wars, including the new films, as an adult. And I don't care how "unhip" that opinion is.
And just as a side note, the acting in Star Wars has never been good. That doesn't take any of the fun out of it for me, though.
As for why the Slashdot crowd hates it -- I'm sure there are an infinite variety of reasons, but I'd put the following things at the top of any list:
Extreme jadedness (years of bigger-and-better special effects blockbusters have produced audiences that bore easily)
A habit of slamming everything for purposes of seeming hip ("Worst Episode... Ever!")
Consumerist angst over the amount of merchandising and marketing surrounding the movies (conviently forgetting, most of the time, how many Star Wars action figures, lunchboxes, etc. one owned as a child)
Just genuinely not liking it... in the case of TPM, there are quite a few things not to like (Jar Jar etc.), and leveling criticism at it isn't necessarily indicative of some greater phenomenon at work.
Is this relevant? (Score:1)
How does this come to be on /.? (Score:3, Funny)
WTF?? (Score:1)
Who wrote this? The director? The marketing agency? What kind of 'hacking' phrase is ``LA guerrilla style''??? I don't normally rip on Jon Katz, but come on! He didn't even follow Slashdot's own review form!
Inaccuracies (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think they mentioned anyone being killed while surfing in the movie.
And just so you know the tide changes everyday, so although the wind is generally offshore in the morning, creating cleaner, hollower waves, the tide is cyclical and waxes and wanes with the moon. It generally advances about a half hour a cycle, so if it's high tide at 6:30am one day, high tide is around 7:30am by the next morning. It could just as easily be high tide in the afternoon.
The reason they skated during the afternoons was because the waves blew out due to the wind. It turn from off shore to on shore as the land heats up.
It's a great movie, but you should stick to writing about geeky things that you know.
Jon Katz, a /. Hero (Score:3, Funny)
Thank you for giving us the pleasure, nay! PRIVILEGE! of reading this.
And all you katz-haters out there: my mom says you're just jealous...
no seriously for a minute: what the hell is this all about? A lack of decent articles? I'd rather watch my plants grow...
Simply Amazing! (Score:2, Funny)
Sounds like someone has a new favourite word!
How symbolic! How stunning! How repetitive.
Katz ?? What are you doing here on a Fine Sunday.. (Score:1)
You should be in Church you young man..you!
I would praying for your soul today.
I need to start looking at the author (Score:2)
Slashdot is a great place to discover cultural tidbits. Slashdot says Cowboy Bebop is neat, I watch it, it is neat. Katz says Star Wars II is bloated and not worth it, but it is'nt.
*sigh*
=
The soundtrack will be fake ! (All lies and fraud) (Score:1, Interesting)
Why?
Because as chronicled by the pages of Flipside magazine in the early years, these skaters listened to PUNK.
But theres one problem, fast conventional Punk Rock is unmarketable and cant be merchandized by the big 5 music publishers.
Thats why you always see black rap, and hip hop music on X-games oriented televisions shows ans video games, even if the skaters still prefer to listen to punk.
And most do still listen to punk.
Punk is always designed to not be marketable to the masses, and is going strong as ever, but except for a couple sellout bands of pop-punk (Rancid, Offspring, Greeday, Blink-182) most people are never exposed to punk.
And worse, the one documentary that should expose them to punk will have a major lable heavy marketing hand putting its top ponies into play for the accompanying cd sountrack of the movie.
Its all a ploy to sell black-influenced hard hip hop and rap-rock and pretend skaterz listen to that swill.
And they sure as hell don't.
I will NEVER ever see this documentary unless it has the musical integrity of the famous documentary "The Decline of Western Civilization".
Shame shame on forcing rap and hip hop over the skater world and rewriting history just because it can $ell more cds.
Soundtrack was accurate for the period. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, I missed the punk rock, because the skatepunk culture that formed in the Z-Boyz' wake had as its soundtrack stuff like Black Flag and The Minutemen and Suicidal Tendencies and The Germs....mostly the SST bands that thrived just south of Dogtown in the Pedro/Wilmas/Torrance/South Bay area.
I have nothing but contempt for Greg Ginn, but the producers of Dogtown could have done worse than to contact him and get sync licenses for some of the classic Flag stuff at least.
My big pet peeve about this movie: the stealth involvement of Sony Classics in this release. I went to see this movie because I thought, "great, this is an indie, the MPAA isn't getting their cut". However, the first fsckn thing you see when the lights go down is a slide that says "Sony Classics Pictures". I felt like such a tool. Not only was Don Valenti's hand in my pocket, so was the Evil Sony Empire.
Folks, I would recommend this movie but again, you will be putting money in the MPAA's hand if you go. If your conscience allows you to, then yeah, go ahead and check it out. There's some amazing footage in this movie....the P.O.P. footage is worth the price of admission alone.
Hacker Documentary... (Score:1)
This really does relate to us nerds... (Score:1)
I think nerds and skateboarders have the same mental scope - being truely in love with hobby. It's amazing what the love for something can lead you to do.
I urge you all to go pick up a skateboard. You'll thank me for it.
Worlds collide (Score:1)
I'm a life-long skater that grew up on the Bones Brigade vidoes. They were the defining films of the skateboard culture of those days, at least in my clique. Now there is "Z-Boys", which is in effect a prequel to those earlier videos. Now, much older, I'll get a chance to see where all those characters came from. (was that subtle enough?)
My "nerdy techy" world doesn't usually intertwine with my skater world. Growing up, I always had my computer hacking set of friends, and then my skateboarder set of friends, and I was the only overlap. I was impressed that slashdot would cover this movie, and was hoping to see other skater/techy nerds add their appreciation.
Unfortunately, all I have see so far is a bunch of nitpicking on Jon Katz. Isn't anyone else excited about this movie? Isn't anyone else impressed that JonKatz/Slashdot would review such a movie?
Is it just me (Score:2)
Pioneers (Score:1)
It also seems like this would just have been another group of kids skating who didn't go anywhere if it wasn't for Craig Stecyk. By documenting them and writing lifestyle articles for Skateboarder Magazine, Stecyk pushed the mystique of Dogtown, and put these kids in front of the world.
Anyways, what Katz said is true, it is really sad to see where some of these guys ended up. Jay Adams just recently got out of prison, and is working at a skate shop. Stacy Peralta went on to build the legendary Bones Brigade team, and Tony Alva continues to seek out pools and drainage ditches to skate.
Re:Pioneers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, you actually get to see footage of Alva's first aerial in this one. In fsckn credible.
Good to hear that Jay Adams is out of stir...he looked absolutely awful in the movie. It seemed as if maybe he was in a fight the day before he was interviewed because he had scabs on his forehead. He also sounded kind of screwed up...maybe it's the burnout thing or maybe it was taking a couple too many shots to the head...again, I have no idea if I'm right or not.
Alva seems to be the truest to the game...his skate company is still in business 20 years on, and the guy skates every day. He was the most visible of the Z-Boys, the one with the biggest mouth, the Muhammad Ali of skateboarding. He could talk smack and be arrogant all he wanted to be, because the mofo could and probably can still back it up 1000%.
One last comment: yeah, the Dogtown boyz dissed the Valley every chance they got in those days, but guess where the fsck they trolled for pools to skate in? That's right, the Valley. Say what you will about Val surfers and skaters, but we never spray-painted "Locals only! Westsiders stay out!" on walls in our part of LA. I take a fair amount of satisfaction in that fact.
Hackers don't equal Thrashers (Score:1)
Katz is right about this documentary. It's much more worth your while than that dreck Lucas is putting out these days. ( Lucas lost his vision, the franchise has been going downhill since Empire. I've seen Episodes 1 & 2, and 2 just sucks less, anybody other than a drooling fanboy knows this.)
However, I have to say, lose the references to hackers, Jon. It's just not relevant.
A note on tides... (Score:1)
Because the time of high and low tides changes every day, the above statment is patently false. You can check out a tide table for the Santa Monica Municipal Pier [tidesonline.com] and note this fact. I somehow doubt that geophysics has chanced dramatically since then.
Forget Katz, See the movie. (Score:5, Insightful)
What happened with skateboarding in the late 70's set the stage for the current hacker/boarder culture where grass-toking teens can be Olympic champions.
Skateboarders of the late 70's were outcasts, not just in Venice (CA) but just about everywhere. This included a particularly dead suburb of Toronto, CA called Markham, now the home of many tech firms like ATI. Many things changed when an old barn that used to house cows at the annual country fair was transformed into the first indoor skateboard park in Ontario. Geeks from all over congregated to this, our church of rebellion. For the first time I had a real peer group. No-one cared if you knew how to program the school's IBM 1130. No-one cared if you were one of only two out of 2,100 students who knew how to work the brand new Apple ][ and Commodore PET. But being able to axle grind around the gnarly lip of the pathetically tiny pool was enough to elicit whoops of approval from compatrates who KNEW and UNDERSTOOD. It kept some of us alive, some who otherwise would have been another teen suicide statistic.
We knew who our heroes were. We looked to the West, to Venice, to what we saw as a sun-drenched paradise of perfectly-formed concrete playgrounds. We never saw the grungy side of the culture as we eagerly flipped through the pages of Skateboarder magazine.
Then it all went wrong.
Boarding stopped being about the tricks, it became commercial, followed by the inevitable backlash, and being punk-fuelled it was a complete backlash. It became all about destruction, physically tearing down walls as well as physically wrecking yourself in as many ways as possible.
This is why some of the once-heroes in this film are so shattered now. But at least they survived.
This is not a film about skateboarding. This is about how a far-reaching culture change happens. The hip-hop-blasted half-pipe events of the Olympics trace back to here. The graffiti-covered walls of what were once pristeen communities trace back to here. The overall cynicism of the 80's and 90's that the world was a shitty place and getting worse goes back to here.
But it was also the beginning of the age where geeks made a difference. Denizens of this site marvel at the latest cool tech and wonder about what Great Things lie ahead. You feel as if you have a future, that there WILL BE a future and generally it will be a Really Cool place to be.
Growing up in the 70's, technology was not going to give you a cool future. It wasn't a ticket to a high-paying job. You had to find something to make you want to keep going.
This film is about what gave some of us that hope.
when will slashdot... (Score:1)
The Computer and the Skateboard! ;) (Score:1)
Katz is using a typewriter?! (Score:1)
already several hacker documentaries (Score:2)
Stacey Peralta's childhood friends (Score:2)
But in many ways the movie felt frustratingly self-aggrandizing. If you notice that the interviewer is always saying "you guys" and "we" to the subjects, while they're discussing the badass things they invented when they were 13, you realize that Stacey Peralta shot a movie about how cool his childhood friends were. That's great as long as the personal perspective is evident - I think my childhood friends are some of most remarkable people I know. But when you present the "we invented modern skateboarding" mantra as an impartial conclusion, it just ends up sounding pretentious.
Still the movie is a great snapshot of what came to be a big part of American pop culture. Stacey Peralta clear has some chops as a filmmaker, and this one's worth a watch.
kids who helped build the early Net? (Score:1)
Nice try Jon, but the people who helped build the early Net were almost 100% stuffy middle aged gents who were working for defense contractors. They weren't doing it because "information wants to be free" or for any other similiar cause. So once again you've made a poor analogy to try and make your point..Which makes sense because usually you have no point.
i know the real geek / skater connection (Score:2)
hes a really nice guy and has a great eye for design... and who would have thought he'd end up doing web sites after skating for so long.
(btw, dave is the guy who did the MTV logo, and most of the designs for the "jimmy Z" clothing line.
sod off katz (Score:1)
Stay tuned next week for Katz review of Peter Pan where he is sure to convince us that the lost boys are hackers.
Katz has never written a decent bit of code in his life but feels qualified to make comments on a social group he is not part of. And personally I am not even sure there is a culture. The only thing many "geeks" have in common is a love for technology, but this surely doesn't make us a cohesive sub-culture.
F!@# - Now writing the same kind of crap he does.
F*CK TONY ALVA! (Score:1)
whoa (Score:2)
This place is violent!
j/k, I liked the review, something different to check out...
Utter Bollocks (Score:2)
Skateboarding is energetic, fast, exciting and cool.
Hacking is none of the above.
A bunch of fit healthy looking people zipping around and pulling neat stunts looks good on film.
An obese guy staring at a computer screen in his parents' basement doesn't look good. On film or in real life!
Katz lives in a world of his own...
Thrasher Magazine even had a BBS (Score:1)
Deep Inside Slashdot Headquarters..... (Score:1)
How can we generate some activity???
Pudge: We could let "you know who" post....
timothy: *Gasp* Noooooo not him [slashdot.org].....
CmdrTaco: Desperate times call for Desperate measures...
CmdrTaco: michael... Let out JonKatz...
CmdrTaco: I feel so... dirty....
Re:Why the Star Wars Reference Jon? (Score:1)
No he didn't. He said that Star Wars was bloated which, AFAIK, is not insulting or uplifting to anyone's character (w/ the exception of Lucas, I guess). I don't think it was out of place at all to mention Star Wars in a film review because it's the big thing right now and he's offering an alternative to what is probably still a packed theater. You always see movie reviews bring up other movies for comparison. If you think *this* is Star Wars bashing, go spend an hour on Ain't It Cool News [aintitcool.com]. Those talkbacks can make any review look like a shining example of positive journalism.
"Groupies?" I think I've been called worse. Besides, that Natalie Portman _is_ kinda cute...
Geographically challenged moderations (Score:2)
Could those moderators who know even as little about LA as I do from the other side of the Pacific please moderate the parent, not this, at least back to it's starting level, and maybe even give it a +1 interesting.
I wouldn't be posting this except I can't find the moderation abuse link which I'm sure was in the metamoderation instructions only days ago.