Dogtown and Z-Boys (Deluxe Edition)

This documentation is done very true and entertaining to watch

I'm not a skateboarder--I never have been. So my review of this film is from a truly "outsider" position. I'll skip making comments about the wonderful aspects of this film as a documentary about skateboarding, because to me what makes this a truly remarkable work of art has to do with being a documentary about life and truth and beauty and all that.This movie is about hope. It paints a picture of young kids growing up in an incredibly harsh environment (the film goes out of its way to portray Venice of the early '70's in practically post-apocalyptic images) who see in the concrete wasteland nothing but ocean waves of endless promise. They craft, as artists, a new ballet amidst the rubble. They are obsessed with skating the perfect run, not necessarily to be better than their friends, but just for the sake of perfection. In this pursuit of perfection, I see hope. I see a vision of a recreated world where there are no barriers based on class or empty swimming pools surrounded by fences and patrolled by police. But there's also an irony in the hope, in that the Zephyr boys have an exclusivity about them--they are fiercely elite in their rejection of conventionality.The story of one of the top two skateboarders, Jay Adams, provides the heart to this film. His story provides a balance to the narrative of corporate greed, which ultimately destroyed the Zephyr team (but which also made the film possible and the story relevent). He is shown as a very young and, though violent and utterly contemptous, innocent boy oozing with natural talent. He's interviewed several times as an adult who, we find out, is doing time for heroin-related charges in Hawaii. Next to the brilliance of the Jay Adams the boy, in Jay Adams the man we see a dark shell of regret and pain. His fellow riders lament the fact that Jay's life is so tragic and unfair--there's a sense of complete injustice "he should have had it all" "Jay's had the hardest life of anyone I know who's still alive" "you only get one shot at this...once it's gone it's gone." So within this movie about beauty and hope, we meet Jay Adams and see tragedy and injustice. There's an absolutely beautiful and haunting scene at the end of the Jay Adams excurses in which the beautiful young Jay, maybe 12 years old, with long sun-bleached hair, is skating in an empty pool and falls on his way down one side. His board continues through the bottom of the pool, up the other side, and straight up into the air about 10 or 15 feet. The scene is in slow motion and freezes the board mid-air. Then, there's a fade to a still of Jay at about 25 years old holding a picture of himself as a cute, innocent boy of about 7. Then another fade to Jay as a hard, broken man in his 30's, with a crew but, what seems to be a black eye and bruised nose, and tattoos running up his throat. Eyes like empty holes. This is the filmmaker's art at its finest. A scene like this says so much more than words ever could.Some of the reviews on this film have complained that the film was too short--that it left too many questions unanswered. I couldn't disagree more. This film is all about the questions, not the answers. As a Christian, I see this film as a commentary on humanity and our longing for beauty--our hope for a future that includes a recreated world where architecture is no longer purely utilitarian, where there are no longer divisions between north Malibu and the southern beaches. Where everyone has access to a perfect wave. A future in which greed no longer robs us of our innocence, and Jay Adams is once again that strikingly charismatic and beautiful blond-headed boy writing profound poetry with his skateboard, poetry that destroys the walls of violence and drugs and elitism, that opens his soul to ours and ours to him. In the words of U2, a future "where the streets have no name." Our souls groan for a better place, and this film captures that emotion as well as any I've ever seen. This is an amazing film!

"Dogtown and Z-Boys" is a documentary on the Z-Boys of Venice, California from the tough Dogtown neighborhood. The Z-Boys aka the Zephyr team literally revolutionized skateboarding with an aggressive in-your-face style that shredded the competition. Growing up in the 1970's, the documentary is blessed with old school footage (that is great quality compared to many surfing films that came out in the early 90's) that I just kept repeating... "sick". The documentary shows the kids skating as well as a few classic clips of other competitors of skateboarding in the 50's and 60's and how the Z-Boys just came in and shattered the image of what skateboarding was all about with their freestyle surfing way on a skateboard. Also, footage of the group skating in emptied pools brought upon the California drought. Also, how the friends became rivals as skateboard manufacturers started to offer contracts and get a hold of a Z-Boy and make money off them. Naturally, the talents of the kids of that time earned them great money but not all were able to overcome the limelight that introduced a few to drugs and hard tmes. From the awesome freestyle of Jay Adams, the competitor and uber talented Tony Alva (aka godfather of skateboarding) and talented Stacy Peralta (who gone on to create Powell-Peralta Skateboards, the Bones Brigade which led to some guy named Tony Hawk), we are reminded of what these three and other members of the Zephyr team brought to skateboarding. My favorite part of the film which I can't stop watching is the 1975 Del Mar Invitational where people saw the Zephyr team debut and saw a new style that no one has seen before. What makes it even more exciting was the footage of the skateboarding competitiors of that time and then the entrance of the Zephyr team and seeing how the competitors were frustrated by the Zephyr team. That was a definite, classic moment in my opinion from yesteryear and to see the footage today is just incredible. As for the video quality of this documentary, it was expected that certain footage (being very old) would be grainy and we would see some artifacts but a lot of those messes were cleaned up and look great on this DVD. As for the DVD, this is the second release of the DVD (Deluxe Edition) which features a sneak peak at the theatrical release of "Lords of Dogtown", two webisodes of "Lords of Dogtown", "Alternate Ending", Director and Editor commentary and extended raw footage. Footage includes Stacy Peralta visiting the original Zephyr store owner Jeff Ho shaping some surfboards in Hawaii and even Stacy Peralta and film crew skateboarding at an old Z-Boy hangout/skateboard spot. Awesome footage of the group and competitions combined with a cool soundtrack, cool interviews of most of Zephyr team and a lot of cool, in-depth information of the past and what happened to the members of the team now. Suffice to say that this film has done really well on the film festival circuit especially at Sundance and AFI and Stacey Peralta continues to show his talent as a director.

watch an average street and the trend in skating and skateboard fashion is obvious. Its just cool. but theres so much more depth to the sport than that. this film makes it clear exactly when skating crossed the line from athletic aftersurf balance training to a life of its own, to the speed and agression that inspires us today. You see, Alva, Adams, Peralta and the like didnt just start modern skating. they started modern youth culture.And they did it without trying, or even realising. After watching this film, you'll believe that a handfull of men can redirect music, fashion and the minds of generations. Sure they're arrogant, loud, crude and aggressive. So's the world today. They're also something that everyone wants to be- new, fresh, cool and very, very talented. Watch the film, get on board. And to those kids who are already on boards, watch it too. Itll teach you about your roots and it'll teach you about style. Its simply a very thought-provoking, downright cool film.

This was a birthday present from my man, she knows I like skateboarding. It's a fantastic documentary.

Such an interesting and yet overlooked part of history. Fascinating interviews and insights into the skate team. Very interesting to watch having watched the movie Lords of Dogtown, having grown to understand the story and see how it relates to real life. Recommended to fans of Bones Brigade.

My son is into skateboarding at the moment in what presumably is the latest in a long line of hobbies. That said, he appears to be sticking with it and so I bought this DVD for him. The reviews on here are accurate - this is THE tale of the origins and growth of skateboarding. For the used price of 1p you just cannot go wrong!

I bought this having seen "The Lords of Dogtown" and having read the Dogtown articles (Craig Stesyk).The movie itself far surpasses anything that Hollywood could have cooked up. Dogtown and the Zboys is one of those examples of the truth far surpassing the fiction. Sean Penn, not only the narrator but also a Santa Monica skater himself adds an extra element to the documentary, with his deep and emotionally void voice.The DVD itself is pretty standard. You get extras (not many) and the odd other option, but to be honest, who cares? The film your getting is so much better than anything else about it, which is, after all, how it should be.