Dogtown and z-boyz movie review

Ryan Wayne Dobies
139413
04/27/10

Dogtown and Z-boys

In the 2001 rebel-underdog true story of “Dogtown and Z-boys”, The director and writer Stacey Peralta -owner and creator of PowellPeralta Skateboards, takes us on a journey back to a past his dearest friends and himself formed part of, all of whom form part in this radical documentary. In the mid-'70s when skateboarding was widelyseen as a fad of the 1960s that had all but died out, except for a handful of committed fans in California. But that began to change with the emerge of Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Stacey Peralta and theZ-Boys, a team of teenaged skateboarders who emerged from a decaying urban community in Santa Monica, CA.

In the mid-70s, the Z-boys and many other surfers from the Venice-Santa Monica area who hung outat the Zephyr Surf Shop would skateboard when the surf was quiet. They used to build there skateboards out of a piece of wood plank from a cabinet and 4 clay wheels, which proved to be very difficultwith small rocks and such on the asphalt roads. Over the course of a few heady years, and once rubber hit the skateboarding world in the late sixties, riding on polyurethane wheels and copying thesurfing moves of Larry Bertleman, the Z-Boys invent and polish their style on a hilly street near the shop, on the asphalt slopes, ringing school playgrounds and then in swimming pools empty duringCalifornia's drought. The Z-Boys astound upright skateboarders at the 1975 championship in Del Mar not long after. Within a year, the team splinters as some players join better financed pro teams. Thefilm ends with profiles of the stars, Jay Adams, Stacy Peralta, and Tony Alva, a dear friend of our family.

This documentary hits a soft spot for me as a skateboarder and surfer. Its a very inspiringtrue story of skateboardings beginnings and a group of dedicated kids that turn a rebel sport into an international phenomena, which today has become a massive enterprise. It motivates its viewers...