Dogtown and Z-Boys movie review (2002)

Surfing was the definitive lifestyle, the Beach Boys supplied the soundtrack and tough surfer gangs staked out waves as their turf. In the afternoon, after the waves died down, they turned to skateboards, which at first were used as a variation of roller skates. But the members of the Zephyr Team, we learn, devised a new style of skateboarding, defying gravity, adding acrobatics, devising stunts. When a drought struck the area and thousands of swimming pools were drained, they invented vertical skateboarding on the walls of the empty pools. Sometimes they'd glide so close to the edge that only one of their four wheels still had a purchase on the lip. One day a Z-Boy went airborne, and a new style was born--a style reflected today in Olympic ski acrobatics.

I am not sure whether the members of the Zephyr Team were solely responsible for all significant advances in the sport, or whether they only think they were. "Dogtown and Z-Boys" is directed by Stacy Peralta, an original and gifted team member, still a legend in the sport. Like many of the other Z-Boys (and one Z-girl), he marketed himself, his name, his image, his products, and became a successful businessman and filmmaker while still surfing concrete. His film describes the evolution of skateboarding almost entirely in terms of the experience of himself and his friends. It's like the vet who thinks World War II centered around his platoon.

The Southern California lifestyle in general, and surfing and skateboarding in particular, are insular and narcissistic. People who live indoors have ideas. People who live outdoors have style. Here is an entire movie about looking cool while not wiping out. Call it a metaphor for life. There comes a point when sensible viewers will tire of being told how astonishing and unique each and every Z-Boy was, while looking at repetitive still photos and home footage of skateboarders, but the film has an infectious enthusiasm and we're touched by the film's conviction that all life centered on that place, that time and that sport.