Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
Directed by Stacy Peralta
Written by Stacy Peralta & Craig Stecyk

Part social history, part art film, part documentary, and part kick-ass skateboarding video, Dogtown and Z-Boys explores the skateboard revolution of the mid/late 70s through the posse that made it happen: the South Santa Montica crew known as the Zephyr team, who skated empty pools long before anyone could conceive of something like a half-pipe.

Smartly shot and fairly presented, the movie does a good job of removing the esoteric insiderness from skateboarding to make it accessible to people who otherwise could never get their fat asses on a deck.

Through ball-rockin' period footage, beautiful stills, and recent interviews, Dogtown traverses the heart and soul of skate culture like Tony Alva carving a pool. It could have been more like me, traversing the driveway and being flung from the board after hitting a tiny rock, but with its pseudo-anarchistic documentary style and tight narration courtesy Sean Penn, the film delivers the goods, view after view.

If I can say anything negative about Dogtown, it's that it knows how kick-ass it is. But can you fault Stacy Peralta (himself one of the original Z-Boys) and crew for getting into glory-day boast mode a little? I mean, come on, they invented the shit—let 'em crack open a beer and spin a little yarn.

The DVD has a cool feature wherein, during certain scenes, you can click a button to access raw skate footage from that scene. It's as visionary a use of DVD technology as the film itself is visionary filmmaking. All around, Dogtown simply rules the school.

Review by Greene Gross