Customer Rating:  
Summary: From Jan & Dead To The X Games
Comment: Ok the documentary Dogtown and the Z Boys is more historic and correct, but I enjoy watching this much more. I started skate boarding in 1965 at Collage on a flat wooden board with steel wheels. Jan & Dean's song "Sidewalk Surfing" had spread it nation wide that spring. It was fun but nothing sensational, there was no skateboard culture. This movie,and yes the documentary tells the story of how a group of teenagers changed everything. Haggling about details changes nothing, this was a radical transformation by a small group of teenagers. Eat your hearts out Hippies.
I watch this movie every year before the X Games to remind myself how they really started.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Even my Grandson Became Bored with this Movie
Comment: Okay, this movie is supposed to be about three teen boys. However, I didn't know this when I tried to watch it with my grandson, and they looked to me like twenty-somethings who had never grown up. I guess they did to my grandson as well because, although he talks frequently about skatboarding when he gets a little older, he lost interest in the movie barely a third of the way through it. I felt the same about it - it was intensely boring to me to watch what looked like a bunch of immature guys doing their thing. Maybe if one is really into skateboarding this movie might be of interest. For me, and for my grandson, it wasn't worth the time spent watching it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Thrash and Shred, Heath and Hardwicke
Comment: LORDS OF DOGTOWN is both a coming-of-age saga, exploring three young men who take three very different paths, and it is also a skate-umentary, if you will. Due to a drought in Venice, California, the teenage skateboarders discover the joys of skating drained swimming pools. This and other styles of extreme skateboarding are depicted with great care, and also sheer joy and excitement. And finally, there is also the story of the surf shop would-be mogul who forms them into a skate team, but ultimately tries to exploit their talent and is left behind. The part of Skip was played by Heath Ledger, and he really immersed himself in his role. I didn't know it was him until after his untimely death, someone mentioned it to me. He looked totally different, and, like Sean Penn will sometimes do, was bravely unconcerned about whether people would like him, or like his character, and he also didn't seem concerned with his looks. He was a skuzzy skankster, indeed.
The three main characters, Stacy Peralta (John Robinson, Elephant), Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch, The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys), and Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk, Raising Victor Vargas) are on three different paths. Stacy is very serious about the sport, and works at it. At first he isn't asked to join the team because Skip feels he is not an "outlaw." Tony Alva becomes a "star," but has to realize that his entourage of hangers-on and partyers doesn't have his best interest at heart. Jay Adams is shown as the instigator, the spark that ignited the radical new style of skating. One of the funniest moments is when an ad exec from Wham-O! tries to get him to shill for Slinky! He attempts to sing the Slinky! Theme, but quickly realizes that it is not for him. But then he becomes a thug. This may have been slanted a bit, to make for a more dramatic story. In bonus footage, the real Jay Adams complains that he actually accomplished a lot more than mere thuggery with his life. The script was written by Stacy Peralta, and his character was a hard working and dedicated skater who didn't let the temptations thrown at the young stars divert him from the path to success. I wouldn't argue with that, but since he wrote the script he could've sanitized it. I would have liked to have seen him act out a little more, maybe throw a few punches. Something to show that characters are not all good or bad, but everyone has parts of both.
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) The Lords of Dogtown shreds and thrashes, like a good skate movie should. In bonus footage it is revealed that while filming the skate sequences in the drained swimming pool, Hardwicke got so enthralled with the shredding action that she fell in, broke a few bones, and had to be rushed to the hospital. As a director she showed much better judgement in her choice of the little details that define an era. Like when the skaters are partyin' the skater girls perform a dance routine choreographed to Cher's "Half Breed." What a time it was, the mid 70s, for the sport of skateboarding. The gnarly cast includes Rebecca De Mornay (Risky Business), Johnny Knoxville (Jackass: The Movie), and Nikki Reed (Thirteen).
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Thirteen
Candy
Blackrock
Brokeback Mountain (Full Screen Edition)
Ned Kelly
Casanova
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
Elephant: A Film By Gus Van Sant
Raising Victor Vargas
Customer Rating:
Summary: Dogtown Lite
Comment: Keeping in mind that this telling of the Z-Boys tale is BASED on a true story, it wasn't bad. Being spoiled by watching "Dogtown and Z-Boys" about 10 times, had problems with some of it. For example, why was Jeff Ho a character in this movie? But since it wasn't intended to be a biographical story, guess that was Peralta's (an original Z-Boy and wrote the screenplay for this movie) call. Have to agree with one reviewer. The moves the boys in this movie are "half baked" compared to what they real boys were doing. That aside, I like this version as a "Hollywood" telling of the Z-Boys story. Heath did a great job capturing Skip's voice, but was Skip really "out of it" most of time. I would highly recommend you watch "Dogtown and Z-Boys".
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and wild, co-starring Heath Ledger
Comment: After slowly getting over the news of Heath Ledger's death, I wanted to watch him again in one of his movies. Although I like Brokeback Mountain, I prefer this one.
It's the story of the Z-Boys, four teenage surfer friends who in the mid seventies take up skate boarding and thus change the world of sports forever.
Heath is "Far Out!" Skip, a surfer and surf store owner who is the first to recognize the kids' talents. He pushes them (calling him a manager would be a little too much), and makes them grow into what they are to become.
More or less drunk for most of the time and always open for yet another trick to spin off a little cash for himself on the side, he cannot hold them once the success and fame hits.
Big managers' promises of fast cars, the prettiest girls and cash in adundance pull the boys out of his loose grip.
Their friendship starts breaking apart as ambition, jealousy, girls and greedy managers take over.
It is only when one of them (who got left behind) falls seriously ill, that the boys get back together and rediscover what their friendship is all about.
Starring Emile Hirsch as the enigmatic and anger driven Jay, Victor Rasuk as the ambitious Tony Alva and John Robinson as Stacy Peralta (who also wrote the screenplay).
Great camerawork, both on and off the skates, terrific acting, solid directing and wonderful production and set design.
The film and the actors do a great job in transmitting the fun and thrill of skating.
My favorite scene is Tyson, The Wonder Dog, the fun loving skating bulldog who simply can't get enough of the sport(also as an extended scene in the special features - he was not trained to do this but took up skating by himself!).
The dvd's picture quality is good, even in the dark and during the rides.
The extended cut has four minutes more. The only reason these were cut were probably the use of too many four letter words, but I wouldn't want to miss them.
Great movie with a wonderful sad and funny Heath Ledger.
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