Thrashin' Revisited: The Daggers Unlikely Origins

[Music] superficially David Winters 1986 film thrashing is a skateboarding themed version of Martha coolidge's Valley Girl the more conspicuously emphasizes the Rival Clan elements from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet [Applause] the dialogue is terrible even by 80s teen romance standards that wild Indian picture happens to be styling you don't know what you're talking about despite its many faults part of what venerates thrash into cold status is that its skateboarding montages are a cinematic remake of pal Peralta's first two films the Bones Brigade video show and Future Primitive with Stacy prult on board a second unit director and Tony Alpha credited as technical advisor it's only proper that the San Fernando Valley versus Venice Beach rivalry assumes a prominent role in thrashing this divide is expressed figuratively rather than geographically yeah well I knew him when he was Ralph and he lived in the valley man now he's Monk and he thinks he's cool the ramp locals whose half pipe is located within pushing distance from rival dagger's Beachside headquarters couldn't live further north than Pacific Palisades dagger's leader Tommy hook despite his seething localism is originally from Indiana you don't see those kind of freaks in Indiana protagonist Corey Webster is the odd man out he's neither the valve geek nor Venice Thug but seems well known within the skate scene but as a Tracker truck's proponent he's an honorary Val I's love interest Chrissy is equally out of place the midwestern prom queen at a nerdwell gathering only reinforces her Urban naivete though Faithfully Shakespearean any further semblance the valley girl ends here Chrissy and Corey's night on the town strolling past peep shows and bonded shops illustrates that the city is new for both of them some of the closely filmed wide angle shots almost resemble a skate video it's as if we're seeing the young couple through the guileless lens of Lance Mountain while he escapes through Hollywood in the first Bones video [Music] director Dave Winters must have been impressed enough with Stacy Peralta that he employed him to recreate the city street skating sequences from Future Primitive for thrashing instead of downtown Manhattan we see Lance Mountain Steve Caballero donning wigs as ramp locals staking through pedestrians along the Hollywood Walk of Stars [Music] I'm certain this is not as Compass no one else did one foot 180 slides this part of the film looks unlike a studio production here thrashen serves as a blueprint for future skate videographers in urban settings skate followed camera work super wide lenses low angles and bystander shots for context thank you [Music] by the 1986 release date of thrashing skateboarding had grown in popularity and labels such as street style and vert began to Define skaters meanwhile Fringe subcategories such as downhill and freestyle were Fading Into Obscurity freestyle a perhaps unintended positive consequence of drawing from earlier bones videos was showcasing backyard ramps or just the idea of cruising down the street without spot destinations in mind the LA Massacre downhill race exemplifies this facet of anachronistic skateboarding in thrashing the Del Mar Bowl contest shown earlier in the film would have provided a more app setting for the ending than a race when the film first hit theaters the last few skate parks in the United States were on the verge of closure and quality backyard ramps were few and far between Del Mar skate Ranch was demolished 11 months after thrashian's premiere captured here are pristine clips of Ellen Losi during his Heyday at the keyhole Christian hassoy spends a huge big twist and lands on tile for a perfect run while simultaneously hanging with the daggers to sabotage Corey the raw footage from the session must be languishing in a vault somewhere if not destroyed despite the Faithfully captured and performed skateboarding and thrashing this cheesy 80s low budget teen romance could have easily been forgotten if not for the accuracultural elements where the filmmakers fascinated with idiosyncrasies that we pass off as normal were to skateboarding imitate the art it claims to revile I would just like the guys in thrashing it's real great the ramp locals in thrashen are not true San Fernando Valley dwellers long before the valley became a middle class Refuge from ever increasing Urban rents Bose and his friends represented the every boy element of skateboarding's growing third wave their day glow boards die cut grip tape checkered Vans and pattern shorts brand them as posers the ramp locals are still dedicated skateboarders typical of the multitudes of suburban kids who bought pink Vision t-shirts or 99 completes from CCS catalogs to display their tribal Allegiance Tyler's Thrasher shirt could only be mail ordered at a time when the magazine was still published on newsprint Corey's jock sense abilities are tempered by his SST records t-shirt a Gateway Punk label to any young 80s skater [Music] when the daggers first Crest Atop The Hill it may be difficult for us to believe that their look wasn't entirely the creation of a Hollywood wardrobe designer hook and his gang soiled attire seemed to be carefully curated to contrast against Bozo's Sun bleached perm and Loud sweater the daggers aesthetic actually mimics obscure skate Crews of the early 1980s who weathered skateboarding's second death their crudely patched denim jackets are similar to those worn by the Jacks in Northern California and Pacific Northwest based Hells Angels style skate team whose members also play stuntman and thrashing [Music] considering that technical advisor Tony Alva once served as Jack's president the line between fiction and reality Fades until the dialogue reminds us that this is still a corny movie the backstory to the female daggers is much more complicated than expressed on screen except for velvet played by Sherilyn Finn all are nameless and uncredited you wouldn't know from watching the movie but an all-girl skate gang called The Hags actually inspired Alan sacks to write the screenplay to thrashen their visibility can be counted in fractions of seconds according to hag's member Guardia Fox from a 2017 article in bust magazine it was a feminist statement we wanted to encourage girls to skate and show we weren't just girlfriends of skaters though thrashen betrayed that ethos perhaps the time is ripe to film a reinvention from the women's point of view [Music] [Applause] to complement the genuine wardrobe a clueless Hollywood production could easily have promoted department store brands not unlike Marty McFly's cheap Volterra skateboard in Back to the Future the director who performs his due diligence diminishes his credibility by hiring a clueless production assistant to mount trucks on backwards but the brands and signature equipment and thrashing are legitimate Tyler's neon green John Lucero Madrid gesture is authentic as are the daggers namesake alvas along with their custom grip jobs even the disproportionate ratio of broken veriflexes matches my own memory of 80s backyard ramp boneyards trucks and wheels show where in all the right places which leads me to believe that the extras brought their own boards while it's unlikely that Corey could win a downhill race with his daily Rider I'll allow the artistic license since he only came to LA with the bare necessities things get murky when Sam flood of Smash skates pulls up in his white fan the child molester archetype of an 80s skate industry Robert Barron seems spot on but the brand looks suspect their awful logo is a parody of an already Dreadful Bad Boy Club character from 80s surfware giant life's a beach even non-skateboarding viewers would have been confused at smash Gates Allure when popular brands such as vision and Santa Cruz produce classic images with universal appeal under the art direction of Greg Evans and Jim Phillips respectively and in context of Mondos or luceros or vcj's well-crafted art we wonder why Corey isn't entertaining other offers while it is plausible that the fictional smash Gates may have seen limited success in the real world that plain flat deck is a reject left over from an Antiquated early 80s mold and unless Sam flood represents evil incarnate tempting Corey to eat from the forbidden fruit it's incredulous that Corey ignores so many red flags go ahead bite that stick your teeth into it this softcore scene between Corey and Chrissy doesn't seem to end it's almost as if the director was contractually obligated to play Let The Love begin in its entirety [Music] there he is then Garland Jeffries wild in the streets cranks into the circle jerks version to re-redeem the film this excellent architectonic angle evokes the San Diego Concourse parking garage's heavily skated spiral ramp but how are these artistically disparate scenes the work of the same director and screenwriter the minds who orchestrated an intense Chase sequence to a punk Anthem couldn't possibly believe that an obligatory romantic Montage was a good idea otherwise the Red Hot Chili Peppers is fitting as their Funk influence sound resonated with mid-80s skaters still I'm surprised that tracks from the Welcome to Venice compilation did not make this soundtrack at the very least the filmmakers could have tied Venice Beach skateboarding to Hometown Heroes Suicidal Tendencies who had already attained some level of national success [Music] I can't forget that thrashing was made to appeal to a broad Market thus the heroic qualities of Hollywood characters defy what we value within our subculture of our favorite Pros Corey Webster may be a shoe-in for the mainstream but as a skateboarder his ambition to turn Pros excessive and these are the nuances that an outsider may never understand before Nike or Mountain Dew began to assert control over skateboarding the path to professionalism was more akin to becoming a monk or dog walker it was just something you fell into with no guarantee of steady pay not that people did not aspire to win contests or become competitive with each other over New Tricks but recognition came from within the community many intangible variables such as style or creativity cannot be recorded through contest placings and definitely can't be conveyed through even the best actors it's unrealistic to expect Josh Brolin a Robert wrestler to possess any skateboard skills whatsoever they're actually not that bad but the actors playing the ramp locals just look too stiff and awkward to match their stunt doubles [Music] finally there are some inexcusable aspects of thrashing which push it into a so bad it's good category of cult classic instead of just being good I'm glad the director wasn't paying attention when not speaking extra Eddie radecki steals a scene here one of the biggest points of ridicule is the infamous joust at Bronson Canyon ditch I suppose this is the best idea that writers Paul Brown and Alan sacks could imagine to incorporate the violent duel between the capulets and montagues from Romeo and Juliet Corey attempts to avenge Tyler's symbolic death after their half-pipe is destroyed punishment by proxy for Corey's forbidden Romance the daggers are probably way too excited about burning a viable spot one guy literally loses his shirt over it in reality I think hook and Pals would just skate the ramp clandestinely and leave empty beer cans instead of destroy it returning to the joust it's obvious that the skate Consultants couldn't convince the filmmakers that swinging a pillow from a chain was a bad idea at some point during the filming the cast and crew must have eventually realized the lunacy of this so they directed the actors to ditch the lances and just beat the out of each other instead thrashing may have been informed by a slightly earlier period but by no means was it skateboarding obsolete as much as the movie emphasizes competition the filmmakers thankfully also chose to accentuate Lance Mountain's approach of urban skating for the sake of pure enjoyment a decade earlier crstic III theorized somewhere beyond the formalized Spectrum Street skating Reigns Supreme [Music] we see glimpses of proto-street skating and thrashing with hasoi Jesse Martinez and riadagi at the Old Venice Beach Pavilion restrooms the daggers wanton misuse of public property could only be perceived as rebellious from the minds of unobservant viewers the city of Venice abandoned the once thriving community recreation center and outdoor Amphitheater in 1984 and opened the floodgates for Street musicians graffiti artists and Street skaters adaptive reuse would be a more precise term although probably not in the manner that urban planners and Architectural Scholars had envisioned [Music] the nostalgic appeal of thrashing has less to do with the movie than the rapid progression of skateboarding during the mid 80s pal Peralta's third video the search for animal chin premiered less than a year later but there were no more downhill sessions or skatepark contests instead brief clips of San Francisco sidewalk boulevards and Embarcadero Plaza sparked the possibilities of what could be accomplished Beyond Masonite monoliths our initial reactions of thrashing as predictable and uninspired has been tempered by our realization that meager-moving images of skateboarding exist from 1986. thus thrashing is now venerated via its wig stuntmen as a pseudo documentary of an influential era

Channel: Bread and Cinemas

Views: 166,249

Keywords: Thrashin, movie, film, David Winters, Paul Brown, Alan Sacks, Josh Brolin, Robert Rusler, Pamela Gidley, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, T.A., Sherilyn Fenn, Mark Munski, Josh Richman, Brett Marx, Velvet, Hook, Daggers, Ramp Locals, Per Welinder, Jesse Martinez, Christian Hosoi, Mondo Beck, Corey Webster, Tommy Hook, The Hags, skateboarding, skate, 1980s, 80s, analysis, review, joust, Venice Beach, Valley Girl, Romeo and Juliet, San Fernando Valley, Val, Bones Brigade, Lance Mountain

Id: reFt8YB3aYc

Length: 15min 49sec (949 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022