My feet have never graced the surface of a skateboard and only once have I touched one, which hangs on my boyfriend’s wall. Nevertheless, I managed to feel the adrenaline from the ride, the excitement of dreams fulfilled and the heartbreak of trampled hopes while watching Lords of Dogtown. The story was written by Stacy Peralta one of the three surfers - - Jay Adams and Tony Alva being the other two - - who put urethane wheels on their skateboards and mimicked the moves that had formerly been relegated to the Pacific Ocean waves.

Jay (Emile), Tony (Victor), and Stacy (John) were young hippie/punk surfers trying to gain the respect and skill of the older surfers, especially Skip (Heath) and his buddies Craig (a photographer who chronicled a series of Dogtown articles on skateboarding) and Jeff (who most likely spearheaded the creation of the original 12-person Zephyr team, though the movie focused more on Skip). The older men ran the Zephyr surf shop in Dogtown, an area in west Los Angeles, but were better known for their anti-conformist attitudes and for riding the dangerous waves near the Pacific Ocean Park Pier. The pier burned down a few years later, ironically symbolic of the shattered goals of many involved in this era of the skateboarding phenomenon.

With the backing of Skip and the others, Jay, Tony, and Stacy took skateboarding to a crazed level first catching everyone’s attention at the Del Mar Nationals in 1975. The skaters, with their wild hair and rebellious ways, introduced moves that had never been seen in competition and were quickly propelled into an unknown world of success that had bittersweet results. Stacy became the golden boy of skateboarding with endorsements, major appearances, and even a spot on Charlie’s Angels in the 70s. He eventually started a very successful skateboard company, Powell-Peralta and became a filmmaker. Tony, the wannabe rock star and unbelievably skilled skater, became a World Champion. He started the Alva Skateboards business and continued to represent a turning point in the skateboarding world. Jay, the most tragic and passionate of the three, was too immersed in the pitfalls of his own world to ever rise above the streets of Dogtown. Most likely the true spark of the three, Jay sadly ended up with several arrests and none of the money, fame, or ability to escape that the others achieved.

The three of them were walking, talking commentary of the beauty and ugliness of society. Stacy’s father bore a striking resemblance to an alcoholic. Jay’s mother, wonderfully played by Rebecca De Mornay, was consistently high and relied on her son to give her a better life at any cost. Tony yearned for success to save himself from the life created by his verbally abusive, ditch-digging father. Others, like Skip, remained true to their passion of surfing and living hard, knowing that their chances for greatness had passed them by. The skateboard groupies, such as Sid (Michael), just hung on the edges of the emptied swimming pools watching the skaters and hoping to bask in just a moment of their glory, as they never had any of their own.

Having made her first skateboarding video in the 80s, director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) obviously has a love and respect for skateboarding and the history of the Dogtown skaters; it comes through brilliantly. Emile Hirsch as Jay and Heath Ledger as Skip offered exceptional performances in this very well done movie. For a less emotional version watch the documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, which Peralta directed. Admittedly, this movie probably took some liberties for artistic purposes, but Lords of Dogtown is still a beautiful story of the dreams that we all have and the sad truth that even when they are attained the victory is not always sweet.