April 26, 2002

12:42 PM

"What do you expect from a bunch of underprivileged, delinquent teenagers? Certainly not genius, but that's what was happening." Welcome to the Z-Boy revival. A new documentary about Dogtown opens this weekend that tells the story about how some punks from Santa Monica turned skating hardcore and along the way transformed youth culture and spawned a $3 billion dollar industry. A 1999 Spin article "The Lords of Dogtown" kicked off the current revival.
posted by euphorb (4 comments total)

I was actually thinking about posting something similar to this earlier today. I saw a half hour preview/plug for the movie on MTV. For anyone who is into skating I don't think any of this is brand new, though, Jay Adams was someone I hadn't known was so amazing, for better or worse he decided to avoid the industry thing (either too punk rawk or he just couldn't handle it) and the money that comes along with it. The saddest part is that most of his talent was wasted over the years while he was a serving time/hooked on drugs. For anyone not familiar with dogtown/z-boys at all i'd check out Glen E Friedman's (who is also featured in the film) Fuck Your Heroes, which also has some amazing photos of early hardcore and hip hop acts.
posted by m@L at 2:19 PM on April 26, 2002

Dogtown and Z-Boys won the Independent Spirit Award for documentary this year. As a fan of documentaries (particularly ones that get out from under the A&E Biography/History Channel stock footage mold), I thought this year's crop of nominees in the documentary category looked really good. But you have to be patient if you ever want to see them, because many make it to DVD slowly if at all, and theatrical showings will be sparse. Secrets of Silicon Valley, for example, looked excellent, but it's hard to find a way to see it. Startup.com, however, is available, and is a hysterical and sometimes sickening look at the ego and ignorance of dot-com failures. Sadly, really, really good documentaries like Hearts of Darkness aren't available on DVD either (although, I shouldn't complain, it's available on VHS, when so many aren't available in any format).

Anyway, I'm waiting for Dogtown and Z-Boys to get picked up by Netflix, who I'm trying to encourage to
posted by lisatmh at 2:51 PM on April 26, 2002

wonder if these punks will come across any money? if they do, i wonder if they'll to contract someone to redesign the site?
posted by Dom at 4:26 PM on April 26, 2002

I saw that special too, m@l. Good stuff. Sadly enough, these pioneers look very, very tame compared to the 920's and such you see today. It'd probably get old watching them skate "over the light" in the pool 30 times.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:16 PM on April 26, 2002