SIFF 2022: 'Skate Dreams' Movie Review

Skateboarding has almost always been a boy’s club. I grew up skating in the ‘80s and almost never saw a female skateboarder outside of a vanishingly rare photo in skate magazines. By the ‘90s when I was in high school a lot of teams had a token female skater and my hometown had a clique of three or four women who would show up semi-regularly at skate spots. (Parks in every town weren’t a thing yet.) Of my core crew of four, there was one woman, but for the most part, she was the only one everywhere we went. But in recent years, women’s skateboarding has exploded in popularity and become the fastest growing demographic in the sport. Jessica Edwards’ documentary, Skate Dreams, tracks that ascent in the in the days leading up to skateboarding becoming an Olympic sport.

'All The Streets Are Silent' (2020) Movie Review

Sometimes a movie starts and you know immediately it is 100% your jam. That is precisely what happened with All the Streets are Silent: The Convergence of Hip Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997), the new documentary from Jeremy Elkin and Dana Brown, which held its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival. A love letter to both forms, the film tracks their parallel evolutions, from underground phenomena to mainstream staples, and ways in which, particularly in New York City, they collided and crossed over at a key juncture.

'Minding The Gap' (2018) Movie Review

For skateboarders, their sport means so much more than rolling around on a nicely shaped plank and four urethane wheels. It’s a way of life, a metaphorical act, an artistic endeavor, radical self-expression; it’s a survival mechanism, a way to create order in a world that doesn’t always make sense. Whatever significance a particular individual attaches to the act, it goes so far beyond kickflips and board slides, past concrete banks and handrails.

SIFF 2016: 'The Land' (2016) Capsule Review

I have a soft spot for skate rats on film, and it doesn’t hurt when the surrounding movie is as good as Steven Caple Jr.’s directorial debut, The Land.

Blu-Ray/DVD Review: 'Thrashin'

Along with a handful of movies that includes Rad, Top Gun, and Red Dawn, David Winters’ 1986 skateboarding action drama Thrashin’ had a formative impact on my youth and my subsequent adult life, probably to a degree that isn’t entirely healthy. And if you’ve missed out on owning a copy of your very own over the years, and you like to watch a young Josh Brolin shredding the streets of Los Angeles, Olive Films just released a new DVD and Blu-ray version of the film for your convenience.