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Review: Dogtown and Z-Boys 162

Posted by JonKatz from the obsessives-inventing-culture dept.
Dogtown and Z-Boys is a wonderful documentary, exactly the kind they'll be making about hackers in two or three decades. It's the very American story of the pioneering l970's Zephyr skating team, whose LA guerrilla style shook up the mainstream types, and co-opted centuries of building technology to create an appealing and enduring culture with their individualistic brand of guts, energy and drive -- much like the kids who helped build the early Net. Skip the long lines for the hypey and elephantine big epic and get to Dogtown.

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.
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Review: Dogtown and Z-Boys

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  • How can we know that documentaries 10- 20 years from now will be made like this one. That Hackers will be celebrated in the same level as skaters. Come on. Hacking and the Internet were not the product of some kids playing around in a friends' backyard and huge empty pool- er, mainframe.

    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)

    by Beatlebum ( 213957 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @11:24AM (#3587241)
    "Dogtown and Z-Boys is a wonderful documentary, exactly the kind they'll be making about hackers in two or three decades."

    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,
    • Drop the self-important B.S.

      Self-importance describes an exaggerated estimate of one's own importance, of arrogant or pompous behavior. Of self-conceit, even.

      If you think that the words that you quoted reveal even an infinitesimal amount of these qualities, then I suggest that you hone your reading skills.

      I know that Katz bashing is a sport on Slashdot, but let's be at least consistent and fair about it.

      Or are we all too self-important for that?
  • ...a wonderful documentary, exactly the kind they'll be making about hackers in two or three decades.


    Wow. I really can never get enough of your pompous, John Agar-like speculation. You've made my day.


    q

    • You can quit typing a lowercase letter L -- computer keyboards have this nifty thing called a number 1.


      Maybe it's just me, but this sticks out like a sore thumb every time I see a year in a Jon Katz piece.

  • How come Star Wars is suddenly uncool with the /. crowd (Ep 2 was quite fun)? Or maybe because Jon Katz thinks it's uncool, now it's become cool? :D

    • Why has Star Wars become uncool with the Slashdot crowd?

      My take is this: that there are those of us born before the first Star Wars and who mark one of our "cinematic moments" with the memory of going to see Star Wars in 1977. I mean, I certainly have vivid memories of the day I saw the firt Star Wars. I was ten at the time, and it was one of those "important cinematic milestones" for me. (The others were seeing 'Saturday Night Fever', 'Apocalypse Now', and 'Deer Hunter.')

      I've heard Kevin Smith mention the same films, in fact (but not the Deer Hunter) as being the films that sorta changed his life.

      And there is the post-Star Wars crowd. Those who found themselves to be born after Star Wars -- or after (ugh!) even 'Return of the Jedi'.

      I suspect -- although I have no idea -- that the crowd born before Star Wars thinks that this latest round of Star Wars films -- Eps. 1 and 2 -- to be pretty tame, tepid films. Uncool, and very unhip.

      The 70's were a great decade for film and 'Star Wars' -- strangely enough -- was sorta the 'capper'. At least I think so. Apocalypse Now and Five Easy Pieces and the King of Marvin Gardens (my other 70's faves) are in there, too -- but Star Wars seemed to come out of nowhere. Even at 10 years old, I realized it was a pretty odd, strange, but wonderful film. And later -- in 1979 -- I felt the same way about Apocalypse Now. Seeing *that* for the first time, blew my mind.

      Anyway, I don't mean to start a flame war. Just some observations.

      I saw Ep. 2 yesterday was really bored. Lucas has turned the series into some stereotype of itself. Too much eye-candy, badly acted, and devoid of the "fun" that made the first Star Wars so interesting (and good).

      • Re:Star Wats (Score:4, Insightful)

        by dswensen ( 252552 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @01:21PM (#3587578) Homepage
        I have to disagree. I was born in 1971, and have seen all of the Star Wars films at the time of their original theatrical release (although, for obvious reasons, I don't remember that much of the original Star Wars experience).

        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.

        • Re:Star Wats (Score:1, Offtopic)

          by KelsoLundeen ( 454249 )
          Ha!

          I think you're right. The idea that when we see a new Star Wars film we remember how we can never be ten again.

          I didn't think of that. Thanks for your post!
  • Is this really relevant to "news for nerds, stuff that matters" I guess I should just be thankful that you haven't posted another plug for your book which I have NO intention of reading. Hey Katz! I shot a Border Collie last week for chasing livestock. How do you feel about that?

  • How does this come to be on /.? (Score:3, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi@yahoo. c o m> on Sunday May 26, 2002 @11:27AM (#3587255) Journal
    Just Curious. Stay tuned for my review of "Gleaming the Cube" and an analysis of the Coreys [franklincoll.edu] in modern cinema.
    • Alot of you guys may remember the BBS days. (ah yes, I think i have my US Robotics 16.8 HST modem somewhere still...)

      And after seeing the Dogtown movie, I can imagine a documentary covering a hacker/warez/demo group. MoD, THP, DoD, Trinity, etc.

      Or maybe a group of Open source guys (Samaba team?), or a documentary on the original Doom 10-20 years from now. (i can already imagine the type of stories people would tell when they played doom, how it made them or their roomate drop out from college, and then go on to join the gaming industry... :)

      If anyone can identify with passionately doing something even if it maybe seen as anti-social, then go see it.

      Skating and surfing is more than just an activity. It is a way of life. And many of you agree will agree the same goes for computers. There's a difference between the techhead/hacker who programs/tweaks/overclocks and the guy who went out and got an MCSE.

      Of course, it helps to enjoy the movie more if you skateboard. BTW, for those that are interested in skateboarding, here's a great link I found useful for those in the NY area.

      http://www.skatespots.com

      BTW. THE COMPUTER AND THE SKATEBOARD ;)
      http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02 /04/ 24/222213&mode=thread&tid=97
    • Are you kidding? Gleaming the Cube was way ahead of its time with its avant-garde look at post-internet geek culture. With its insightful blend of anti-corporate undertones and a decidedly technophiliac representation of the analogs between skateboarding and modern routing protocols, Gleaming the Cube is truly a groundbreaking and prophetic vision.

      Can I have a ghostwriting job, Mr. Katz?

      -b
  • ...
    Zephyr skating team, whose LA guerrilla style shook up the mainstream types...

    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!

    • Actually, John Katz and a few other Slashdot regulars inhabit an alternate reality timeline. Occasionally there's a technobabble rift that opens up and deposits their stories into our universe's Slashdot.

  • Inaccuracies (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "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"

    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)

    by jedie ( 546466 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @11:42AM (#3587293) Homepage
    I loved your review, really honestly I loved it! It was the best arrangement of meaningful words I've read in years.
    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)

    by 1019 ( 262204 )
    JonKatz managed to fit in the word "elephantine" twice in 2 articles.

    Sounds like someone has a new favourite word!

    How symbolic! How stunning! How repetitive.
  • morning such as this..

    You should be in Church you young man..you!

    I would praying for your soul today.
  • Before I start reading stories here. With rare exception, Katz is out of touch and out of tune with the people he seems to think he's in touch with. The same thing has been said thousands of times before, and will be said thousands of times again.

    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*
    =
    • Katz says Dogtown and Z-Boys is a worthwhile movie, and he's correct. Give him a break.
      • Katz is a putz. Sorry but thats what I get. Of course he's gonna give this movie a good review. Duh. Its under the radar and hip and nostalgic etc. That pretty much adds up to all the things that /.ers are supposed to glom on to. underground oh yeah! hip, yeah I'm hip. geeks are still hip aren't they? nostalgia? got it in spades. geeks love nostalgia. even if they don't they realize that if they don't love nostalgia they shall be shunned by other higher level geeks. why does he not like star wars? its certainly not under the radar. its not hip cause now there are all these little kids seeing it or these old baby boomers seeing it and anything with kids and boomers can't be hip. nostalgic? heck they're brand new movies. the only thing they are good for is so we can say oh this would be better with the original cast. or whatever... oh I miss being able to see the wires. this isn't acting this is computer generated schlock bring back miniatures! feh. Katz just panders to what he believes /.ers will like. thats all he ever does. thats all he'll ever do. gack. oh and why did I click on this article if I don't like Katz? cause I wanted to see what everyone else thought, not what katz though. I read slashdot for the comments, not the articles.
        • Good lord. Maybe he just didn't like Star Wars.

          I'm too much of a SW fan to watch the movies objectively, but I know plenty of people who hated Episode II, and it seems perfectly reasonable for them to have an opinion that differs from mine. I certainly don't feel threatened or defensive about it.

          I don't think I'd let other movies get away with treacle like this: "I don't like sand. It's coarse, and rough, and it gets everywhere. Not like here. Everything here is smooth."

          Meanwhile, Katz reviewed a movie today that you might actually like if you can drop your cynicism for an hour or two.

  • The soundtrack will be fake ! (All lies and fraud) (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The soundtrack of this documentary will be fake ! (All lies and commercial fraud).

    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)

      by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @12:28PM (#3587432) Homepage Journal
      Actually the soundtrack was fairly accurate for its period. Lots of Zep, Ted Nugent and other "hard rock" from the mid-70s. Remember, the Z-boyz were active from about 1974 to 1977. A little before punk hit the West Coast hard.

      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.
    • I'm sick of hearing this line from punk-rawkers. The 'we're still non-commerical' line is a steaming pile of bullshit. Co-opted nearly from the beginning and never as controversial as it would like, the whole 'punk' movement was getting whiny and old ages ago. I'm completely confused as to why anyone still give and credence to the whole thing.
    • ... and I remember listening to Iggy & the Stooges followed by the Nuge, Zep, and then someof your so called Punk Rock, did that deal as well. I believe that the job Stacy did on the film is right on the money.
    • Actually, Rancid is not pop punk, it is street punk.

      As for the rest, I more or less agree, except that as another post mentioned the events in the documentary took place before punk hit the west coast (which began in 77-78, but the L.A. scene really got going in the early '80s).

      BTW, my little brother plays Tony Hawk (I don't know which one) on the N64, and the soundtrack includes Suicidal Tendencies and the Dead Kennedys. Police Truck, actually, although they didn't go so far as to actually include the words, so it's an instrumental version.
  • Katz says that this is the "exact same kind of documentary they'll be doing on hackers.." one problem. While Dogtown has lots of footage of tanned California kids skating pools, what the hell are they going to show for a hacker documentary? Greenblatt programming a chess program?
  • JonKatz made the remark that a movie will be made years from now about hackers, in the same way. He's absolutely right. Computers have effected millions - so has the skateboard. As both a nerd and skateboarder with friends in the industry, I can say there is a lot in common - you know those 3 a.m. coding sessions trying to kill one bug? Skateboarders do the same thing, trying to land one trick. They'll lose track of time just like we do. They go on a caffeine rush to keep skating like we do coding... the list goes on and on.

    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. :-)
  • I've been wanting to see this movie ever since I heard about it a few months ago. Every time it has been mentioned, it has gotten very positive reviews. I was very surprised to see it reviewed on slashdot, which is usually confined to reviewing sci-fi flicks.

    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?
    • I think this review rocks. Its something different from the usual geek/tech/sci-fi drone. I don't think I would have caught this movie down at the theatre if Katz hadn't mentioned it, and it is definately worth seeing. This kind of culture is hard to find these days, and movies like this get me excited about getting up and going. Woot.
  • or did kids not build the net, but rather government researchers?
  • To appreciate what the Z-Boys were doing, it's helpful to realize that they were trying to make tricks that had never before been landed. From simply kick-turning at the top of a pool, to Tony Alva's very first f/s air, this stuff was all new, and no one had ever done any of it before.

    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)

      by MsGeek ( 162936 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @12:42PM (#3587474) Homepage Journal
      To appreciate what the Z-Boys were doing, it's helpful to realize that they were trying to make tricks that had never before been landed. From simply kick-turning at the top of a pool, to Tony Alva's very first f/s air, this stuff was all new, and no one had ever done any of it before.

      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.

  • 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.

  • "Since they could only surf in the morning, when the tides were right..."

    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.

    ::Colz Grigor
    • while, yes he is wrong about only being able to get good surf in the morning because of the tides, it is true at least in venice/Santa monica area, that you can mostly only get anything good in the morning because of the direction of the WIND.

  • Forget Katz, See the movie. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ashitaka ( 27544 ) on Sunday May 26, 2002 @12:48PM (#3587490) Homepage
    When seeing this movie you got to look beyond just what these individuals did, but the effect on their culture beyond the empty pools of California.

    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.
    • This included a particularly dead suburb of Toronto, CA called Markham, now the home of many tech firms like ATI

      Hey, I grew up in Markham, Ontario, and it wasn't "dead", it was one of the most affluent towns in the country at that time. And where was this skate park you speak of? I've never heard of it..

      • Ah, you show your age.

        The Markham Skate Park only existed for two short years between 1978 and 1980. It was in one of a group of barns on the edge of the old fairgrounds at highway 7 and 48 east of the old arena. The barns were torn down many years ago, right after the skatepark died.

        This was before the area became a high-tech mecca and all the fields were covered in monster houses. At that time the closest mall was the Scarborough Center at McCowan and the 401. The only pool was the outdoor one just off Main road. The library was still across the stret from the station.

        And it was dead.

        I remember taking long bike rides through the farms and fields to Buttonville airport, a small airstrip on a quiet country road in the middle of nowhere. Look at it now.

  • ...stop serving as a focus group for Katz?
  • http://features.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/ 24/222213&mode=thread&tid=97
  • It's the very American story of the pioneering l970's Zephyr skating team...
    The decade beginning in ELL NINE SEVEN ZERO? Is Katz going all l33t on us or is he writing these reviews on a l97O's typewriter?
  • Revenge of the Nerds #1 and #2 have origonal historical footage (and I even appear in one spot, though dont say anything). Dogtown lucked out because thaere was guy intentionally filming the action. Lots of history is not as fortunate.
  • Dogtown and Z boys does a great job capturing the sense of the moment and place that these guys grew up in. As an East-Coaster transplanted West, I came away with a new appreciation for the beach towns in southern California. And the soundtrack itself was worth going for.

    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.
  • much like the kids who helped build the early Net.

    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.

    • 100% stuffy middle aged gents who were working for defense contractors
      Ok, you and I might remember the Net from back when we only had gopher and MUDs, but for most of the world, the "early Net" starts with the first public beta of Mosaic for Mac and Windoze.
  • dave hackett, a friend and former colleague of mine, worked as a graphic design consultant for the web consulting firm i worked for as a graphic guy as well.

    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.
    • Thanks for the insight - I wish I'd seen your comment to moderate up just now, but I've run out of points.

      That connection works closer to home for me, here in West Michigan. My 20 yr old son is a skater still (at heart), but now he maintains a very large ISP's network. His skating consists of teaching the company president's kids what he knows, which is enough to make my knees ache just to watch ;-)

      As far as Katz's correlation, there isn't much substance to it, which is why so many /.ers are bashing him. Once again, he deserves it. Do you want his job? You should have it, because you have more qualifications, obviously!

  • Why must every peice of crap you write try and draw parallels between whatever this rediculous toss you call a geek culture is, and whatever the hell it is you are reviewing.

    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.
  • Whats with this dirtbag (T.Alva, not J.Katz) claiming he's the godfather of skateboarding? Alva was just at the right place/time. Thats all.. he aint no innovator, hes a punk, thats all. If any should get credit for today's mordern skating its the likes of Gonz, J.Lee (yes, the actor), Natas and Tommy Guerrero. Those are TRUE innovators. Alva is the JarJar of skateboarding.
  • "A lot of kids were injured or killing surfing off of Dogtown."

    This place is violent!

    j/k, I liked the review, something different to check out...
  • Katz said:-
    Dogtown and Z-Boys is a wonderful documentary, exactly the kind they'll be making about hackers in two or three decades.
    Yeah. Right.
    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...
  • I spent most of my time on my C-64 on Thrasher Magazine's BBS.
  • CmdrTaco: egads its a slow day....

    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....

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