Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown

[Chris Knipp]

Catherine Hardwicke: Lords of Dogtown (2005)

Gnarly live

Review by Chris Knipp

Movies of this kind aren't usually this good. They tend to look cheesy and have corny plots that slink toward clichéd payoffs. Lords of Dogtown instead has compelling cinematography and staging, a dynamic, non-stop physicality, and consistently fine acting. In the end, don't expect profundity or perfection, but do look for the strong evocation of a lifestyle and an era. In the Seventies when skateboarding first exuded magic and became a maverick sport with stars, a whole school of wide angle photography grew up to do justice to their gravity-defying feats for skateboard magazines, and this film is shot with wide angle lenses to evoke that look and capture the feats appropriately.

Front and center there's a cast that delivers. As Skip, the gnarly, drunken surfboard shop owner who starts the Venice Zephyrs team on the path to skateboard greatness, Heath Ledger, out of chain mail and away from romantic lighting, is deep into his character and evidently having lots of fun. In fact it's clear everybody working on the picture had a ball. Emile Hirsch, playing badboy spark to the whole sport Jay Adams, shows again what a gifted actor he is: his pouting, sensuous performance is something to watch. John Robinson, the poster boy for Van Sant's Elephant, is Stacy Peralta, the straight-arrow of the trio of stars who emerge, whose real life counterpart wrote the film script and made the earlier documentary Dogtown and Z Boys. With his gorgeous long straight blond hair, peaches-and-cream cheeks, and Colgate smile, he's a perfect skateboarding valedictorian and a commanding and deft physical presence in what is totally a movie about balls, individualism, and grace. Victor Rasuk, who starred in the lovely little coming of age film Raising Victor Vargas, rises to the very different task here of being the bold, commercial, flashy Mexican American Tony Alva, skateboarding's first world champion. As Jay's sad surf sister burnout mom, Rebecca de Mornay is brave and believable. Ledger and Hirsch walk away with the acting prizes but John Robinson and the other principals are striking presences. These strong, distinctive performances are part of an energetic ensemble piece with many minor unnamed characters seamlessly filling in the background.

In her debut Thirteen, director Catherine Hardwicke showed her ability to eavesdrop realistically on at-risk teenagers and their maturity-challenged parents. Dogtown isn't such a different milieu, but it's also a history of how skateboarding became popular and, for some, worth a lot of money.

Hardwicke famously did a literal headbanger in an empty swimming pool while directing the movie and was out for several minutes, scaring skateboarding crew members, who afterward declared, "Now you're one of us."

Lords of Dogtown is a direct companion piece to Peralta's documentary, whose story it brings to vivid life. The decaying Venice pier looms over the early scenes. It's a kind of off limits surfing slum where the boys and their chicks dash to ride waves between pylons and rocks. They jump off a roof, stop traffic, and skateboard down to the ocean in the first high-kinetic shots with long Seventies surfboards in hand. Only Peralta, excluded from the Zephyrs at first for having a job, drives his own car. Their parents are alcoholic burnouts and they come from sleezy little surfside broken homes except for young Sid, a baby-faced poor little rich boy and "maggot," the dedicated dogbody and punching bag at the surfboard shop, with an inner ear problem, a camp follower who turns into the "family's" beloved mascot and martyr.

Once they enter competitions with an earthy new style of skateboarding and athletic gifts that blow away the crowds and turn on the girls, one by one the Zephyr's stars are lured away from the "family" by well funded promoters. Jay rejected that path. One day Jay shaves off his bleach-blond tresses and becomes a punk. Ultimately he went to jail like later skateboard stars Mark Anthony 'Gator' Ragowski, who was documented in Helen Sickler's Rise and Fall of Gator, and the once dashing Christian Hosoi. Jay lures away Stacy's foxy Latina girlfriend in a stunning sequence of coy playfulness and sinuous movements: the dudes' physicality flows out of their derring-do on wheels into their moves with the girls.

There are accidents, beatings, triumphs, and a tragic death. Through it all Heath Ledger as Skip is a buzzing obligato, crazy, stoned, funny but also threatening. Another thread in the film is the raids on rich people's empty pools to skate them in long, flowing, interwoven infinity signs, till little lookouts yell "pig" or "dog" and they all flee, knocking down cops in their path. These bold dangerous runs, worth it for the thrill of the concrete curves and the challenge to explore new shapes, are a badge of the Z Boys' "pirate" outlaw identity and Tony Alva, a closing title declares, continues to raid pools today as an enduring star and amazing lifelong athlete.

I don't know if the actors do a lot of their own skateboarding but if they don't Hardwicke sure makes it look like they do. She also has a way of jumping into sequences already in progress, thus avoiding clumsy exposition, except for a few titles for landmark competitions. The movie escapes the stilted flavor of its genre and gets in a lot of real-sounding dialogue and facial expressions instead. The final sequence is a touching reunion that's both funny and sad.

[wpqx]

Just saw the film last night, and I can't say the acting was good. In fact that was one of the flaws of the movie. Like Thirteen, this film did have a distinct visual style, which makes it exciting to watch. Can't say I care about skateboarding, which may have effected my particular opinion of the film. Never did manage to see Dogtown and Z-Boys, but I most likely will pick it up soon. I found Heath Ledger's performance irritating and overdone, but that could be more his character than the acting. He certainly did appear to be having fun with the role though.

[Chris Knipp]

I'm not surprised you say that about the acting. On IMDb I saw your same reaction to Ledger's performance, without the note I put in that he's having fun. I loved the movie and had a good time watching it. To me the characters seemed real. They brought the real life personalities to life and the movie isn't cheesy. That's all I meant. It's not Great Acting with a capital A, it's just good casting and lively direction, good pacing as you say, acting that works well in the context. Your only example, and others' too, of supposedly bad acting is Ledger's. But if it was Johnny Depp, like in Fear and Trembling in Los Vegas, which is completely tongue in cheek, everybody would probably rave about how great it is. Ledger has no cred as an actor. He's trying to do character actiing now. And here he does a good job. It's a tongue in cheek performance, and also as you note a weird person, a guy with a lot of problems and quirks. A good aspect of Ledger's performance is that it doesn't break the rhythm and mood of the movie by being self-important or solemn.

Needless to say whether or not we like skateboarding has an effect on how we view the movie. And I do like skateboarding and have always been fascinated with it though I never got too far as a skateboarder myself. If you don't much care for a sport, a movie about it won't deeply affect you. This one really is about skateboarding. Skateboarding is hardly incidental to the personal stories; it's everything, it's their lives, it's the story, it's why the movie was made. But I hope you do see Dogtown and Z Boys. If you'd seen that before this, maybe you'd have appreciated that this is history, not just a story. The two movies are so close to each other, it would be very interesting to compare them in parallel and see how the dramatization is done. I couldn't do that now because it's been a while since I saw the doc, but in watching Lords of Dogtown, I was already filled in on the whole background; I've also seen several other skateboarding docs and several quite cheesy fictional skateboarding movies.

[wpqx]

I also was put off by Rebecca DeMourney's performance, she was just a little too burnt out for me. Ironically the best seemed to come from the newcomers. But I don't think this was an acting movie, in the way that Thirteen was at least.

My favorite moment of the movie came when Tony Hawk (in an astronaut uniform) wipes out on a board, best joke in the whole thing.

[arsaib4]

Originally posted by Chris Knipp
Movies of this kind aren't usually this good. They tend to look cheesy and have corny plots that slink toward clichéd payoffs. Lords of Dogtown instead has compelling cinematography and staging, a dynamic, non-stop physicality, and consistently fine acting. In the end, don't expect profundity or perfection, but do look for the strong evocation of a lifestyle and an era. In the Seventies when skateboarding first exuded magic and became a maverick sport with stars, a whole school of wide angle photography grew up to do justice to their gravity-defying feats for skateboard magazines, and this film is shot with wide angle lenses to evoke that look and capture the feats appropriately.

Lords of Dogtown is consistently good. It’s the second best American feature I’ve seen this year (Crash being the best, of course). Dogtown is creative and inventive from the opening frame, and it stays that way till the very last.

With his [John Robinson] gorgeous long straight blond hair, peaches-and-cream cheeks, and Colgate smile, he's a perfect skateboarding valedictorian and a commanding and deft physical presence in what is totally a movie about balls, individualism, and grace.

I’ll take a pass here.

Victor Rasuk, who starred in the lovely little coming of age film Raising Victor Vargas, rises to the very different task here of being the bold, commercial, flashy Mexican American Tony Alva, skateboarding's first world champion. As Jay's sad surf sister burnout mom, Rebecca de Mornay is brave and believable. Ledger and Hirsch walk away with the acting prizes…

Ledger is good enough to garner a Best Supporting nomination. If someone missed the opening sequence, then they might think that it’s Val Kilmer from Oliver Stone’s The Doors. Rasuk is good, along with Nikki Reed… the whole cast rises up to the challenge.

In her debut Thirteen, director Catherine Hardwicke showed her ability to eavesdrop realistically on at-risk teenagers and their maturity-challenged parents. Dogtown isn't such a different milieu, but it's also a history of how skateboarding became popular and, for some, worth a lot of money.

I liked Dogtown more than Thirteen. And a lot of the credit also goes to Stacy Peralta.

Lords of Dogtown is a direct companion piece to Peralta's documentary, whose story it brings to vivid life. The decaying Venice pier looms over the early scenes. It's a kind of off limits surfing slum where the boys and their chicks dash to ride waves between pylons and rocks. They jump off a roof, stop traffic, and skateboard down to the ocean in the first high-kinetic shots with long Seventies surfboards in hand.

Well said! Finally, I’ve come across a film which looks, sounds, and most importantly, feels like the true story it’s “based” on.

I don't know if the actors do a lot of their own skateboarding but if they don't Hardwicke sure makes it look like they do. She also has a way of jumping into sequences already in progress, thus avoiding clumsy exposition, except for a few titles for landmark competitions. The movie escapes the stilted flavor of its genre and gets in a lot of real-sounding dialogue and facial expressions instead. The final sequence is a touching reunion that's both funny and sad.

Absolutely! The film could’ve simply romanticized the phenomenon but it doesn’t fail to show the consequences of their choices. As Armond White said, “The vision seems authentically, appropriately dazed. It grasps the ambivalence of pop success rather than trumpeting the promise of commercialism.”

I might make a short post on the film around its DVD release.

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for the complimentary and harmonious post. I appreciate your positive reaction and wish more had it. This will remain a favorite of mine for this year, definitely to be seen with Peralta's documentary: the two compliment each other in an unusual way given Peralta's being the guiding spirit behind each. Glad you like the acting. This is just worlds above the genre, also a substantial step above Thirteen.

[wpqx]

Can't say I agree with either of you. I didn't find the film anything special at all, and certainly not a step up from Thirteen, but well your opinions are your own, so go nuts.