- ISBN13: 9781404977655
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
The Dogtown and Z-Boys skateboarding video chronicles the overnight impact of the Zephyr team on skateboarding in the early 1970′s and the eventual collapse of the team later in the same decade. This video is directed and co-written by skateboard legend-turned-filmmaker Stacy Peralta and narrated by actor Sean Penn. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.In the early 1970s, a group of young surfers from a tough neighborhood south of Santa Monica took up skateboards and offhandedly changed the world. At least it appears so after watching Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary about how twelve “Z-Boys” (including one girl) resuscitated a dead sport and created a lifestyle that spread infectiously to become a worldwide counterculture phenomenon, namely high-flying “vert” (i.e. vertical) skateboarding and punk rock abandon. Director Stacy Peralta, one of the original Z-Boys, and Craig Steyck, the photographer whose publicity first made them famous, would have you believe that with empty pools as their springboard, the clan single-handedly carved a niche that grew into what is now referred to as “extreme sports” (snowboarding seems particularly implicated). Degrees of accuracy aside, the hoard of original footage Peralta and Steyck have access to makes for an engaging portrait of “accidental revolutionaries” whose mythology as expressed by themselves (all but one of the original crew give extensive interviews) and those they influenced (including Henry Rollins, Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, and Sean Penn, who narrates) is far more entertaining than any evenhanded version could ever hope to be. –Fionn Meade
Rating: 
(out of 120 reviews)
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July 3, 2010
#1
Review by L. Alper
Rating:
When I first heard about this movie, back when it was debuting at Sundance, I couldn’t wait to see it. When it did finally come to my town, I dragged my husband to it; it certainly confused him, seeing his 39 year old computer nerd wife turn into a teen age skate rat overnight!In my mispent youth, I lived about 20 miles south of Dogtown & idolized Tony Alva. I had his magazine shots covering my walls; I memorized every issue of Skateboarder when it arrived in my mailbox. I also spent every available moment gonzoing the local hilly streets with my friends. As soon as I was old enough to get my own place, where did I move to? You guessed it, Dogtown. I don’t talk much about those days now, or at least I didn’t until DOGTOWN & Z-BOYS came out.This movie is wonderful. It really captures what that time felt like, when skateboarding was still closely allied to surfing & just finding it’s own identity. The archival footage is amazing, especially the P.O.P. sequence, & the early shots of the Z-Boys at Paul Revere & Bellagio. The editing is brilliant, & the music rocks! What is truly remarkable is that it manages to make skateboarding accessible & enjoyable to those who never participated, such as my husband. He’s just as blown away at some of the footage as I was.The DVD transfer is great. It’s nice to be able to slow down some of the sections, or freeze a frame to get a better look, or just repeat your fave sections over & over again. The voice-over commentary by Peralta on the bonus track adds many anecdotes that had to be left out of the film, as well as giving credit to many of the people who contributed footage the documentary relies heavily on. There’s also an additional, uncut film of today’s Tony A during a pool session, which is nice to see.The only reason this film doesn’t get 5 stars is because of some of the people it left out. Where’s Tom Inouye, of the notorious Inouye’s Pool Service? When it came to outlaw pool-finding, Tom was the man! Laura Thornhill was probably the only other hard-core girl who got attention at the time; she’s completely unmentioned. Although Stacy Peralta gets his props for modesty, he sometimes errs on the side of being TOO modest; there was a spectacular Arizona Pipe session I recall that goes unmentioned, one that Stacy made history at. It would have been nice to see some of that footage too.All in all, Dogtown & Z-Boys can’t be beat if you remember those days. If you’re at the age where all this is new to you, it’s a great way to learn where all those moves you’re busting came from. Now to dig out some OP’s & Vans, & I’ll be stylin’ again…
July 3, 2010
#2
Review by
Rating:
Although it’s been out for a number of months, it took me way too long to get to a theater to see it. I can’t tell you how important this film is. As this ground breaking documentary starts to unfold, Stacy and Craig give you a bird’s eye view of their 70′s concrete playground, complete with historical reasoning for why Dogtown ever existed (and where, exactly, it existed). The editing style is incredible. At one point, Sean Penn makes a verbal mistake yet keeps on going through his description. Any other editor would have cut it and retaped the audio but keeping it in made the whole thing way more real, like Sean was talking to YOU. In addition some of the skaters, in their interviews are “Fast Forwaded” on screen. Very slick way of clipping the bull and getting to the meat. This movie is a cultural document that should be played in schools, design studios, city halls and to every youngster who ever thought he knew everything about skating, the X games, Bob Burnquist and Tony hawk. Thank God someone caught as much 70s “film” as they did and thank God these guys got this important era of our American culture on DVD. Buy it. Show it to your kids. Make them watch it. Then… take them out, loosen their trucks and make them do berts until they get it down.
July 3, 2010
#3
Review by Ladd Wendelin
Rating:
Almost 30 years before the world had heard of Tony Hawk, three-sixties, or even Jackass, there was a place called Dogtown, a singed wasteland of ruin in Venice, California where a then overlooked group of rebellious youthful outsiders shared one passion…Skateboarding. Spearheaded by the unbelievable skating prowess of Tony Alva, Jay Adams, and Stacy Peralta (who also serves as director here), the Zephyr Team would go on to revolutionize the world of skateboarding in only a few short years, and bring what was once a passing trend into a national, and inevitably commercialized obsession. “Dogtown and Z-Boys” passionately chronicles the skyrocket rise and subsequent fame of the Zephyr Team, particularly Alva and Adams with remarkable freshness and purpose. Rare and raw footage and pictures of the infamous Z-Boys blazing the asphalt and riding the dry-bone swimming pools of the early 70′s is art in itself creating gripping visual moments set against a
soundtrack courtesey of Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, and Led Zeppelin, just to name a few. In any case, it’s hardcore…a hardcore documentary experience that effortlessly recaptures a fleeting moment in history that will never be repeated, when a group of no-account skateboard outlaws rewrote the rules of the game and changed the way the skateboard was ridden forever.Clever, engaging, and purposeful in its storytelling, “Dogtown and Z-Boys” is a fascinating documentary, and certainly worth checking out.
July 3, 2010
#4
Review by Kelly R. Smith
Rating:
This movie is a love letter to a sport that to those of us who’ve never skated, helped us understand the passion these people feel for it. With it’s absolutely breath-taking visuals, very artistic still photography, and killer sound track, who could resist but be a bit envious of these sunshine golden-boys and their awesome talent? Learning the history behind each person’s humble beginnings, and how their passion for a fading trend, helped launch a counter-culture extreme sport is exhilirating to watch. I have a lot of skater friends, and none of them are getting any younger, knees have been ravaged and bones are weary. This film allows those folks, who grew up in this era, and equally loved to skate, relive the reasons that drew them to skating in the first place. To see someone’s eyes light up, and catch a glimpse of the sparkle in them, that this awesome sport incites is really beautiful to behold. And the movie definately shows we “non-skaters” why these guys have so much love for their boards! The movie truly is a work of art, beautifully filmed, with actual footage from the era, still photograghy that any world-reknowned photgragher would envy….watching it will make you want to go and grab a board and at least TRY and feel the love!! I just had tickets to Tony Hawk’s Boom-Boom Huck Jam exhibition, and seeing this film, showed me he may be the Michael Jordan of the skate world, but he is simply carrying the torch, in a sport where it’s founding fathers were all plain old kids from middle-class neighborhoods, who loved something enough, to help turn the sport into what it is today!!!! A MUST see movie!!!!!!!
July 3, 2010
#5
Review by K. Reynolds
Rating:
If you don’t know about the Legendary Dogtown and Zephyr teams you don’t even know yourself. I’m currently 26 years old and started skating back in 1987 at the age of 11. Watching the Z-Boys from my era (the 80′s -90′s) the Bones Brigade sparked my curiosity in discovering who influenced them. I’ve heard so many stories now over the years from the older skaters about how the Dogtown skate team changed our world. I read articles and saw photos. But never was able to witness first-hand what was taking place at that time. This documentary is one of the rawest compilations of footage that I’ve ever seen. Sure, It may be self-congratulatory. But I don’t think anyone else besides the actual Dogtown team could actually convey the story more effectively. Words can’t explain how beautiful this documentary is. It covers the foundation of modern-day skateboarding beginning with the aggressive so-cal 70′s Zephyr surf team weaving in and out of Piers and metal wreckage. To the birth of modern day vertical skateboarding and early street skating, which clearly mimicked the popular 70′s surfers individual styles. This movie displays how a once decayed sport such as skateboarding was rejuvenated in the 70′s by a group of young teens. But most importantly this is an outstanding educational tool intended for those who skate and those who don’t skate. From a skateboarding standpoint this documentary will show you that the trick necessarily doesn’t make the man, but style will ultimately separate you from the rest. Style and individualism is something that is almost extinct today amongst skaters. Hopefully a film of this magnitude can save the actual soul of skateboarding. Kids with Eric Koston, Jaime Thomas, and Stevie Williams posters on their wall need to actually view the talent that emerged from this tough neighborhood and gave birth to not only a sport, but a world wide sub-culture and phenomenon that transcends age, race, and gender. This film will make you grab your board and hit the streets or the local park no matter who you are. Thank you Stacey Peralta for enlightening the world and educating the masses about yourself, Jay Adams, and Tony Alva.
Skateboarding is an art. Skateboarding is not a crime.