Lords of Dogtown: Relatively accurate portrayal of skateboarding by Hollywood standards. © Getty Images
Skate-tastrophes: 10 Ways Hollywood Has Gotten Skateboarding Wrong
Sep 21 2006 / Los Angeles, CA A few times in history, like right now, skateboarding has been marketable. And like natural disasters and car chases, that makes it a great subject for the movies. Unfortunately for people who actually skateboard, Hollywood never quite gets it right. Here is Lat34’s list of some of the most ridiculous skate moments in film.
|
||||||||||
1.)Stance Ain’t Interchangeable
Movie: Thrashin’
Ambidextrous skaters are one of the most common mistakes in Hollywood’s attempts at skateboarding. But the skate-classic Thrashin’ was one of the worst offenders, as not one, but two of the skaters push the opposite way as their stunt double. Both Chrissy and Radster are guilty, because of course, Hollywood had no clue there was any difference.
2.)Vert Don’t Sell
Movie: Grind
There's nothing like a vert skate-off to prove how cool you are. Knee pads are so awesome. Considering there’s only a handful of vert pros under 30, most kids clearly aren’t vying for stardom on the ramp. Unless they are in Hollywood, apparently.
|
||||||||||
3.)Money Ain’t Everything
Movie: Grind
This movie is all about blatant product placement, though the producers didn’t even get that right. In one of the first scenes, Bam walks into a shop to pick up a pile of his pro model decks. Aside from the fact that professional skateboarders generally get their decks from the company that sponsors them, not the struggling shops making about $3 per deck, when the shop guy puts down the decks, one of the decks clearly has a REAL logo on it.
4.)Metal Don’t Pop
Movie: Gleaming the Cube
After hunky and rebellious Brian uses his skateboard to blow up a building, he sets up a new, all metal deck. Maybe metal’s dampening qualities make it easier to cruise down the highway at 80, but logistically, everything else he manages to do, would be impossible.
|
||||||||||
5.)Trucks Ain’t Handles
Movie: Grind
The cool skateboarders in this film all hold their skateboards by the trucks. No wonder they can’t get sponsored, the last time this was okay was in another Hollywood attempt at capturing the shred vibe: Gleaming the Cube.
6.)Skateboards Don’t Work in Water
Movie: The Crow
Teenage outcast Sarah uses a skateboard as her sole form of transportation. Of course, for the mood of the film, it’s raining the entire time. Apparently when she’s not hanging out with dead people, she’s greasing her bearings, because they seem to keep working fine. Next time, get the girl a bike.
7.)Joe Dirt Don’t Skate
Movie: Police Academy 4: Citizens on Parade
Before he was Joe Dirt or Dickie Roberts, David Spade got his big break in Hollywood, playing a skateboarding Police Academy recruit in the fourth film of the PA series. It would have been a good call, since Spade actually skates, if they had gone with another stunt double. Tony Hawk was about two feet taller than him.
|
||||||||||
8.)Skateboards Don’t Spark
Movies: Gleaming the Cube, Back to the Future
Hollywood is single handedly to blame for the device which you can stick on your tail to make sparks come off it. Back in the 80s, movie producers were adding flint to skaters’ trucks to make them spark. Who can forget Marty McFly’s makeshift skateboard spark tail? It’s clearly responsible for one of the most ridiculous gimmicks in skateboarding ever.
9.)Don’t Mess With a Good Thing
Movie: Lords of Dogtown
Although a relatively accurate portrayal of skateboarding by Hollywood standards, this one’s really just a watered-down, cheesy version of Dogtown and Z-Boys. As a rule, if you’re going to re-do something, make it better. Or at least let Stacey Peralta direct it. Then it would have had credibility, since it certainly didn’t make much money.
10.)Pros Don’t Act
Movie: XXX
The first five minutes of this Vin Diesel travesty, saw cameos from Mike Vallely and Tony Hawk (not to mention a host of other extreme dudes,) but it was still a piece of crap. The moral of the story: just because you put pro skateboarders in your movie, doesn’t mean it will be good.
|
||||||||||
