4/18/02 - BPerry

The film, directed by Stacy Peralta and narrated by Sean Penn, was the winner of the Best Director Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award. It details the birth of modern skating from surfing and how this group of kids gave skating a fuck off attitude and saved it from heading the direction of "yo-yos and hoola hoops" as Stacy says.

Early in the 1900's an archeologist named Louis Leakey found these stone tools used by early man. They were just rocks that had been chipped off on one side to give it an edge. Leakey became fascinated with this tool - the first tool ever made. Well, early man made tonz of these things and used them for thousands of years until one day some thick browed ape/man (DMC?) decided to sharpen not only one side of the stone but both sides, giving the rock an actual blade. It took thousands of years for this evolution to happen and from there it blew up into computers and rocket ships. Now when skaters evolved out of the sea (surfing) all they knew was how to ride the surface underneath them. In the film it shows almost the exact moment when Tony Alva did what no one thought possible. He did a frontside air in a backyard pool. Without that moment Tony Hawk has no 900's. You don't really think about shit like that until you see it.

As we watched we talked about how it makes you want to just go out and cruise around without doing any tricks at all. These guys would session all day long and work on style the same way people now work on flip tricks. Learn your past. It should absolutely be required viewing.

Dogtown and Z-Boys is playing again at the Uptown theater but fuck if I know when.

Official Dogtown and Z-Boys Site