Approaching a skateboard documentary such as Dogtown & Z-Boys without a prior knowledge (or interested) of skateboarding made me curious. Being a somewhat neutral viewer, would I still find the documentary interesting? Would it be filled with references that non-skaters would not understand? Overall, is it a well made documentary?

Film

‘Dogtown and Z Boys‘ follows a group of teenage surfer/skateboarders who revolutionized skateboarding through the seventies. The film opens up with a brief history of where Dogtown is and takes through the history of the Zephyr shop started by Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom and Craig Stecyk.

Starting as a innovative surf shop it soon became the home of the Z-Boys, a group of young rebels who used their surfing techniques to completely revolutionize skateboarding, At the time skateboarding was on the same wavelength with the yo-yo and the Frisbee, a simple childish toy, but with the help of the Z-Boys skate team from Santa Monica.

The film does a great job showing how the Zephyr shop not only had an important role in what would become modern skateboarding, but also how it’s style and art became a culture (mostly due to Jeff Ho’s artwork).

The pace of the film and editing makes the watch enjoyable, there are a few slower parts but overall I was enthralled in the documentary. I was impressed at how interested I was, knowing nothing about skateboarding and it’s culture.

There are some annoying qualities of the film, mostly technical related so I’ll save those for the other categories, but there’s some screw-ups left in the narration by Sean Penn that were left in (one flubbed line in particular where he coughs). Although it’s not a big deal, but it made me feel like they were trying to create this grungy and low-budgeted and it really felt fake to me.

Overall the documentary was well made and it did its job in both being entertaining and being insightful.

Video

Ah the glorious wonder of watching a film on Blu-ray that consists mostly of super-8mm footage shot in the seventies. The grainy and scratched up film used in the transfer is painful to watch… It’s as if someone used one of those ‘Old film’ filters onto the video.

However it’s great to actually have some footage to see history in the making, rather than just hearing people talk about it or having to sit through renactments.

The interviews themselves are grainy as well and were probably shot using older mini-dv cameras, however they’re not as hard to watch.

Although it’s presented in 1080p/AVC MPEG-4, I feel that the codec is wasted on such low quality video, in 4:3 aspect ratio.

Audio

The audio is presented in English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround Sound but besides the soundtrack (which is a pretty full catalogue of great hard rock from the classic rock era) there’s nothing really utilized besides the center channel for dialogue.

Overall the dialogue is clean and the music selection is a great companion to the subject matter, so for a documentary that’s pretty much all you need

Special Features

Most of the special features consist of more old footage of skating, with a few exceptions such as The State of Pool Skating (which is new skate footage). Overall the selection of special features is nice considering some of the bare bones discs I’ve come across recently.

The commentary is great, mostly because I thought Stacy Peralta’s interviews throughout the film were the most engaging, so it was nice to hear some more about the documentary through his P.O.V..

There are a couple duds, such as the multi-angle sequences which are, as advertised, simply another camera’s P.O.V. of the skating. Also there’s the “That was a stupid question” which is the interviewees talking back to the interviewer (Peralta) saying they don’t like certain questions. Also the Jeff Ho 200 video is an audio-less clip of Peralta and Jeff Jo in Hawaii.

One of the better special features is Tony Alva Art Show, which is a glimpse into one of Alva’s art shows that showcases similar art to that which made the Zephyr shop a cultural staple. Also the “Lords of Dogtown webisodes” behind the scenes mini-featurettes about the film are a great addition.

Final Thoughts

I was surprised with how much I enjoyed Dogtown and Z-Boys and I felt that although it may not be a Blu-ray I would be attracted to, it’s a great example of not judging a book by its cover. I think that if you even have a small interest in skateboarding, than this film will mean a lot more than it did for a non-skater, but even for those who might just be looking for a compelling watch, then this might be one to look into.