Dogtown and Z-Boys movie review

Dogtown and Z Boys is a documentary from 2001 that tells the story of the legendary Dogtown skateboard team based out of Venice California. The Dogtown team is the most influential skate team in the history of skateboarding. This team took surfing from the ocean to the streets, creating a surf style on the streets. This is the team that discovered pool skating, and basically invented vert skating. This is the team that changed what skateboarding looked like, and took it from this rigid flat-land style and created a style of skating that took the aggressive surfing styles that the kids were inspired to and brought those tricks to the streets, they had more style and aggression than any team of the time. Long before Santa Cruz had the punk rock aesthetic in their skate team, there was Dogtown, and long before the Bones Brigade would push skateboarding to new levels, there was the Dogtown team. This is the first team to not only skate pools and invent vert skating, but to take it to a new level and get air above the coping of the pool. Seriously modern skateboarding exists because of the Z-Boys. The Zephyr skate team based out of "Dogtown" Venice CA is made up of Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams, Peggy Oki, Jim Muir, Sogo Kubo, Wentzle Rumi, Nathan Pratt, Chris Cahill, and was founded by Skip Engblom and Jeff Ho out of the Zephyr Surf Shop. The documentary was directed by Stacey Peralta and written by Peralta and Craig Stecyk. The film talks about the history of Dogtown, and how it became the seedy slum that it was, and goes through the aggressive locals only surf scene that developed on the beaches of Venice. The kids on the Zephyr team come from broken homes and rough lives, but they found family at the Zephyr shop, and they pushed each other on their skateboards to grow and get better, and style was a huge aspect of their skating. This documentary is an important snapshot of the history of skateboarding, and how this group of outcast outsiders would shape the future of skating. Not only is this documentary interesting, but it is also an important historical look at the history of skateboarding, which is something that has really shaped my own life, as I have been skateboarding since 1989. The production is well done, and along with the great music chosen from the era that the documentary takes place in, works really well in creating the perfect vibe and setting for the documentary. The film also features some of the people who were influenced by the Dogtown/Z-Boys such as Ian MacKaye, Henry Rollins, Tony Hawk, and Jeff Ament to name a few. Would I recommend this film? Definitely, not only to fellow skaters, or fans of skateboarding, but I think it would help anyone to better understand the impact that skateboarding has had and that it is more than just a hobby but a way of life, and which has deeply impacted and created a counter culture. This is just a really well done documentary that is compelling and interesting, it also inspired a movie that would come out later starring Heath Ledger called Lords Of Dogtown, which I highly recommend as well, but we shall be talking about that in the future.