I was pleasantly surprised by two recent films documenting the rise of modern skateboarding. The first, Dogtown & Z-Boys is a love letter to the sport by Stacey Peralta, and it really gives a wonderful social history of the Santa Monica area it's set in. The other, Stoked: The Rise & Fall of Gator is a decidedly darker film which highlights what ego, commercialism, and the thirsting for fame can do to a rising star in a new sport. I'm glad to see that both films were well-received by the critics. If you're in the mood for a little more drama, I'd go for Gator. It's truly unforgettable, but keep in mind that it's not a feel-good movie.

I have seen Dogtown, and besides being a very well-covered topic of the subject coming from the actual participants, it also includes other persons who lived through the era, as well as an awesome rock soundtrack. Even if you think you have no interest in the relatively-current (last 20, but actually 40 years) skateboard phenomenon, you will basically be mesmerized by the passion of the participants. As far as "Gator" goes, I will check out Blockbuster, or if you have a better source, something else, to check it out.

On Eat Carpet last night I saw a 25 minute Australian short film called "When Warrick Met Sid". As the Bio describes from the SBS site:

"A young director with a young person spend 24 hours together. One hour before the meeting the director Warwick is given a dossier on Sidney Edmundo Tapia, it includes a Polaroid photo, address and a brief bio. The camera starts rolling at 12 noon Friday and continues non stop through to 12 noon Saturday."

Edmundo Tapia is a really avid skateboarder who makes alot of his money by sending photos and videos of himself skating into magazines and sponsors. It was really interesting.

despite enthusiastically enjoying dogtown I have to hate on it for several reasons: the painfully stupid direction, with annoying jump cuts and flash pans, off-kilter handycam editing and bad design choices. It also plays like a love song from stacy peralta and craig stecyk to themselves, seeing as how the only interviews in color are the director/producers in addition to its overdramatization of the importance of said movement. one example is the cliched zoom from above the earth down into santa monica. Also bad are Sean Penn's particularly uninvolved narration (he coughs at least once and sounds hungover for most of it).
but the actual documentary footage is decent, and the people are pretty funny.