Pre-Release LORDS OF DOGTOWN

Emile Hirsch as Jay Adams
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Victor Rusak as Tony Alva
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John Robinson as Stacy Peralta
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Heath Ledger as Skip Engblom (first left)
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Cast: Emile Hirsch, Heath Ledger, Johnny Knoxville, Jeremy Renner, Eddie Cahill, John Robinson, Victor Rasuk, Nikki Reed, Shea Whigham, Elden Henson


Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Producers: David Fincher, John Linson,
Art Linson, Joseph Drake, Kareem Elseify,
Writers: Catherine Hardwicke, Stacy Peralta

Heath as Skip: http://www.heathbaby.com/images/data...dogtown003.jpg

http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/lordsofdogtown/

This is easily one of my most looked forward to films for the simpel fact I can't get enough of the Z-Boys of Dogtown (thank the doco).

Hardwicks (director of Thirteen) involvement is very promising and the fact that this has been a dream project for one of my favourite directors David Fincher for a long time now AND the fact that Peralta's helped write the script leaves me, frankly, fucking amped.

Anyone else even know this is coming, let alone looking forward to it?

They weren't JUST skaters and they weren't JUST "cool".

Through nothing more than doing what felt right, through doing the very thing most people told them would get them nowhere, they changed the face of american sport and became the punk rockers of modern physical achievement.

People seem to take for granted that skating is consiedered legit today - when these kids were doing it, it was a JOKE. Up there with the fuckin yo-yo as another forgotten kiddie fad. THEY changed that completely.

They took the soul-less poor urban sprall they grew up around and made something out of it its original architects had never intended. They took soul-less urban sprawl and created art.

I mean those guys truely were the punk rockers of sport - not pussy fuckin pretend punk rock, they were the pistols/clash/kennedys/flag of physical acheivement. They were a fist in the face and fuck you to sport in general - not just skateboarding.

And in the process of doing what came naturally - the very things that they were told would never get them anywhere, something that at the time was considered about as socially constructive as public graffiti - they not only changed the face of one sport, but basically a dozen or so frikkin dispossessed twelve year olds opened the doors to an entire sub-culture thats still going strong to this day.

There would be no X-Games, no Tony Hawk, no modern fucking extreme sport if not for those guys.

Add to that they make a fantastic study of alienated youth in the middle of an american culture coming to grips with itself after Vietnam and Watergate and just before the rise of punk rock itself (much of which took cues for its ethos from the Z-Boys) and, to be blatently honest, I don't see why a film hasn't been made of these guys BEFORE now.

Its a story of alienated youth staying true to what they believed in, saying fuck everyone else, and in the process giving birth to a sub-culture that didn't just sweep a nation but the world.

Do you still not see what Fincher saw in this?

Tis cool - obviously the story itself doesnt grab you.

It does plenty of others though.

And plenty of films have been made about more mundane and less influential stories than this one.

To be honest, (and correct me if Im wrong obviously) it sounds more like you're just annoyed at Fincher for not directing his own film.

Well, the doco never got into the personal lives of the Z-Boys (and girl) themselves, it never dealt with the personal stories set against the poverty of the area, the paternal influences of Skip Engblom and Jeff Ho, the drama of these two guys creating this team only to watch them get poached by big money companies the moment they went anywhere...

Sure, the doco is truely brilliant, but I see many personal and emotional dynamics and stories left to be explored personally.

Stories Im dying to hear myself.

Ellroys LA Quartet is one of my favourite book series ever so I hear ya mate.

Isnlt DePalma having a crack at it now?

Either way - its not like Finchers directing this one either anyway.

Im guessing he grew up in the shadow of the Z-Boys, hence the interest.

Its the same reason Penn insisted on doing the narration for Peraltas doco for free - he grew up in Dogtown during those days.