Dogtown and Z-Boys is directed by Stacy Peralta, a
legendary skateboarder and a member of the original Zephyr Skate Team at the center of
this film. Peralta’s the perfect person to make this because he not only understands
the topic, he lived it too, and he has the talent to pull off an ambitious project like
this.
Dogtown was an area in California between Santa Monica and Venice. At the time it was
dirty and grungy -- perfect for the urban revolution of the mid ‘70s that was
skateboarding. The Z-Boys were a ragtag skateboard team spawned from a surf shop. They
were kids, essentially, but they became well known enough in a short time to become
legends of the sport.
I suspect this film will be a history lesson for the many kids today skating on the
street. Tony Hawk didn’t invent the sport, many of the players in this film did, and
that is its focus. I particularly like the way this films zeroes in on two of the most
influential skaters of all time: Jay Adams and Tony Alva.
Jay Adams was a defiant original, but with narcissistic tendencies. According to his
friends and teammates, Adams could have cared less about the money he was earning in his
teens as a professional skateboarder. He just wanted to skate. And skate he did. He
defined the aggression and style that’s prevalent in modern-day skating. Seemingly,
that aggression followed him to adulthood. We’re told at the end of this film that
Adams is currently spending time in jail for drug-related charges.
Then there’s Tony Alva, skateboarding’s equivalent of boxing’s Muhammad
Ali and bodybuilding’s Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m not sure that Alva was really
ever "the best" skateboarder, but he carried himself like he was and that’s
how he’s remembered, and that’s all that really matters. Ali and Schwarzenegger
were much the same.
This film spoke to me because in the ‘70s and ‘80s I was a skateboarder and
these guys were my heroes. By 1981, in my hometown, I was the last of a dying breed.
Skateboarding’s boom was ending and there were just four of us left. I was the one
with the ramp at the end of my parents’ driveway. In the 20 years that followed, I
never dreamed a film like this would be made. I thought it was a time forgotten, but Dogtown
and Z-Boys captures that era magically.
When I saw this in the theater it was half-full with young skaters, many of them with
their parents. At the end, most of the audience clapped and I suspect that most of the
parents now understand why their kids are so taken by the street, and those kids now
understand the history of what brought them there. This is one of the best films of the
year, and it gets a ****1/2 rating.
Any sport worth anything has its Golden Age -- a time and a place that
defines and immortalizes it. Whether it’s simply looking to the past with
rose-colored glasses or, in fact, the time and place really did epitomize the ideals of
the sport, it’s a moment that captures the essence of the sport. If there’s
someone who cares, they’ll capture it in a film like this one. Boxing had When We
Were Kings, bodybuilding had Pumping Iron, and skateboarding now has Dogtown
and Z-Boys.