Dogtown And Z-Boys

Year: 2001

Grade: B

Country: USA

Director: Peralta

Review

a good documentary for a lot of reasons. it’s well put together, it highlights a small, but important segment of the population, it educates the viewer on a little known part of our history, it’s a good document of a certain part of l.a. at a certain point in time, and it’s also partly a cautionary tale. i felt that the film did dip into hagiography and unrealistic hero making at times, but i’ve come to expect that from films like these and peralta was pretty good about framing opinions as such. ultimately the major contribution of the z-boys was their half-pipe (vertical) skateboarding. their surf style boarding never really caught on and is more an interesting artistic note than it is a contribution to skating. also, some of the z-boys helped popularize the sport, but they weren’t single-handedly responsible for the popularity of the sport, as the film sometimes might imply.