Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) |
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Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Documentary |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Dolby Digital Trailer-City Additional Footage-Raw Skate Footage Audio Commentary Alternate Ending Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Grateful Dawg |
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| Year Of Production | 2001 | ||
| Running Time | 90:55 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Stacy Peralta |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Stacy Peralta Sean Penn Bob Biniak Nathan Pratt Jim Muir Alan Sarlo Tony Alva Paul Constantineau Jay Adams Peggy Oki Skip Engblom Jeff Ho Craig Stecyk |
| Case | Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $36.95 | Music |
Paul Crowder Various |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | Full Frame |
English Dolby Digital 5.0 (448Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0  (192Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | None | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement | No | ||
| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 1.33:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Titling English English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, Additional sound clips & stories | ||
Known as the Z-Boys, the Zephyr surf team were mentored and 'taken in' by the founders of the Zephyr Surf shop on the corner of Bay and Main Streets - Skip Engblom, Craig Stecyk and Jeff Ho. The bad thing about surfing at the P.O.P was that the waves died by about 10:00am. This left the Zephyr surfers looking for something to hone their surfing skills on during the day - enter the 'Sidewalk Surfer'.
Skateboarding had been a popular fad amongst young Americans in the early 60's. Quickly however, it went the way of the hula hoop and the yo-yo, and by 1965, skating was dead. In the early 70's when the Zephyr team were looking to be entertained, they had to fashion their own boards by stealing pieces of wood (maple if you were lucky) and by taking roller-skate parts from department stores.
The Z-Boys were a group of misfit kids who would probably never amount to anything, but through practising their surfing in various schools around LA, they honed their skills on skateboards and created a phenomenon. Nobody skated like these guys. Before the Z-Boys, skating consisted of handstands, nose wheelies and other neat tricks, but when the Z-Boys came along and blew the skating world away at the Del Mar Nationals in 1975, pop culture was made and skating as we know it today was forged.
The Z-Boys wanted to emulate their surfing heroes on their skateboards. By getting down low and running their hands along the pavement they were emulating Larry Burtleman, a Hawaiian surfer who they loved. This was one move that personified their style, and style was everything. When the Z-Boys started to realise what they could do with their boards, the began to look for other ways to push the boundaries. When L.A recorded its driest year on record in 1976-77, the Z-Boys had their chance and they took it. L.A has one of the largest number of pools in the world, and when the city government rolled out severe water restrictions, the Z-Boys skated pools and invented yet another defining moment in the creation of skating culture. There would be plenty more to come.
Dogtown and Z-Boys is an amazing documentary made by one of the Z-Boys, Stacy Peralta (of Powell-Peralta fame) about the life and times of the Z-Boys and how they shaped pop culture over a period of almost 30 years. It features interview with almost all of the Z-Boys including Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Wentzle Ruml, Jim Muir, Bob Biniak and Peggy Oki plus appearances by Tony Hawk, Henry Rollins, Jeff Ament and Ian MacKaye.
Peralta takes us from the early days right through until present day with the story being told by the Z-Boys and narrated by Sean Penn. It is an honest presentation of what they went through to get where they were, all set to simply the best soundtrack I have ever heard. Featuring Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy and The Stooges, the music in this film is so skilfully used by its editor Paul Crowder that it simply makes the film.
Winner of awards at the Sundance Film Festival, Dogtown and Z-Boys is simply brilliant. I urge anyone who reads this review to go out and rent/buy/steal a copy and check it out as I guarantee that you will love the story of the Z-Boys. If you are someone who is interested in pop culture and how it was formed, then this is one especially for you.
The film is presented in its original ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.
As stated above, a lot of the footage used to tell the story is from old 8mm and 16mm cameras as well as videotape. As a result of this, there are a lot of issues with sharpness, but that is the way it is meant to be. Whilst a lot of the newer footage is purposefully grainy and dirty, there are a couple of shots that are grainier than normal - these can be found at 26:12, 27:24 and 27:50.
The colours present through the film are steady throughout with no instances of colour bleed or unstable colour hues. There is, however, a lot of cross colouration on show during the scenes with heavily zoomed shots of newspaper print or other black and white objects. These can be found at 2:33, 2:50, 2:53, 4:35, 12:35, 36:35, 36:37 and 83:51.
There were no MPEG artefacts noticed, but some film to video artefacts were present in the form of aliasing. Some of the offending references were 3:22, 12:35, 83:58 and 84:16. Besides the horrible scratching and dirt present on the old stock footage, there were no specific film artefacts to speak of either.
There is an English for the Hearing Impaired subtitle track recorded on this disc. It is fairly accurate to the spoken word, with only the odd word left out.
This is an RSDL disc with the feature on one layer and the extra features on another. The entire feature is placed on layer 0.
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There are two audio tracks on this DVD. The default is an English Dolby Digital 5.0 soundtrack. There is also an English Audio Commentary track, with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded sound featuring Director Stacy Peralta and Editor Paul Crowder. I listened to both soundtracks.
The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times with no major problems to speak of. Audio sync was also not an issue.
As mentioned above, the music in this film is one of the major highlights with each classic song fitting perfectly into what Peralta and Crowder were trying to achieve. Artists like Jimi Hendrix, The Allman Brothers, Neil Young, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult and The Stooges will always enhance the way that this sort of footage looks. Full credit must go to Crowder for his magnificent work in putting all these cues together.
The surround channels are used sparingly with only music really coming through the speakers.
The subwoofer is not used.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;
To be honest, I personally still think that the Region 4 is the version of choice here due to its superior format. The commentary and the documentary itself hold so much information that I would think that it would be rehashed in the Production Notes and Deleted Scenes contained on the Region 1 version. At the end of the day, it is up to you whether you desperately need to know it all.
Dogtown and Z-Boys is one of the better films I have seen in a long time.
I loved it when I saw it, and frankly I do not have much interest in staking or surfing - I was simply interested in exploring how things began and grew. It is a great story and one that I can watch again and again - I challenge anyone to watch this and not at least get the inspiration to see that anything you work at hard enough can be achieved. Just look at what a bunch of misfit kids did for fun, and look at what it became....impressive.
The video transfer is good, but intentionally very rough.
The audio transfer is adequate.
The extras are informative, but not as informative as the film.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Sony DVP-S525, using Component output |
| Display | Loewe Xelos (81cm) 16:9. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS797- THX Select |
| Speakers | Jamo X550 Left and Right, Jamo X5CEN Centre, Jamo X510 Surround |