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THE LORDS OF DOGTOWN
Friday June 3, The Lords of Dogtown movie opens across Canada. Opening night for
a movie about the superstars of 70's skateboarding!!! Hell yeah these are the
guys that where on the posters that plastered my walls in the 70's. Skateboarder
Magazine and my slim yellow K-Mart skateboard where my life! Tony Alva, Stacey
Peralta, Shogo Kubo, Duane Peters, Steve Olson, Peggy Oki, Vicky Vickers and of
coarse Jay Adams... these where the skateboarders of my era. So there it was
opening night for the movie.... and what did I choose to do, I chose to go down
to the local skateboard park and carve the bowl with my littlest daughter Rosie!
Saturday June 4, a few phone calls where made and I managed to round up an old
Skatewave team dude from the 70's, a younger kook and my oldest daughter. We put
on our nostalgic skate gear, Craig in his Alva vest, me in a Z-Pig t-shirt, and
Coen in his Skull Skates thong, we mounted our skateboards and hit the road for
an enjoyable street push to the movie theater! The line-up was long and we where
worried we wouldn't get seats. All the normal people pointed and laughed at us
as we staggered up (we are 40 year old men!) to the ticket booth with our
skateboards to purchase our tickets. This was it we were going to see a movie
about The Lords of Dogtown. Horray for Hollywood!
This is a story crafted from the real thing. Written by Stacey Peralta himself.
It is a Hollywood movie but it still captures this cool era of skateboarding
without going overboard. The movie was filmed with the 70’s feel and the set
designs where amazing. The actors chosen to play Tony Alva, Stacey Peralta, and
Jay Adams were believable. In real life there was three surfers that created the
Zepher Team, Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom played by Heath Ledger, and Chris Stecyk.
Jeff Ho was the owner of the Zepher surf shop but his character was
non-exhistant in the movie. It seemed that Skip played both characters and again
it worked well. The introduction of the character Sid was confusing me at first
because he was never a skater that got mentioned in the old days, but as the
story went on I feel he was a nice addition to round off the story. Skip was the
guy whos parents owned the Dogbowl swimming pool that a lot of the Z-boys
skated. In real life Sid did die of cancer so the movie was a nice tribute. A
handful of the Z-boys where present in the film but the movies main focus was
Stacey, Tony, and Jay. If you look closely from time to time you can see real
skaters in this movie as bit parts Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, and even Tony Alva
and Jay Adams. Jay Adams sells beer to the guy playing Jay Adams. The real Skip
is a starting guy for a salom contest.
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The skateboarding footage was great. I only hope this movie and all it’s pool
skating footage will inspire the new skateboarding community to start ripping up
the bowls and pools more. Bowl and pool riding are still not big events at
contests. The magazine stands are full of great skateboard magazines but again
pool and bowl coverage is very minimal. Maybe this movie will change all this.
My suggestion is that you watch the Z-boys and Dogtown documentary before you
see the Lords of Dogtown. This movie was good but I still like the documentary
better. If you want the ultimate coffee table photo book track down Dogtown -
The Legend of Z-Boys by Stecyk & Friedman. I think the Z-boys have been
exposed!!! I wonder what’s next on Stacey’s plate! Us 40 year old kooks give
the movie two broken thumbs up!
-rickylong jak.
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/lordsofdogtown/
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