Stunt cycling, skateboarding, biking, moto X, street luge, surfing. Apart from being extreme sports–or in the current parlance, action sports–these activities have another common thread: They are all making their way onto the big screen this summer.
It’s been 25 years since the Dogtown crew was skating illegally in abandoned swimming pools in upscale Los Angeles neighborhoods, and extreme sports have come a long way since then. Once an activity reserved for rebellious misfit kids, extreme sports have become respectable and highly touted.
Last week, a horde of cool entertainment celebrities, including David Spade, Fred Durst, Henry Rollins and Flea showed up at the Hollywood premiere of Dogtown and Z-Boys at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. The documentary, narrated by Sean Penn, chronicles the short life of Dogtown–a run-down beach community in Venice, Calif., in the early 1970s–and the Zephyr Skating Team (Z-Boys) with interviews and archival footage.
Perhaps that’s one reason why extreme sports have suddenly become a recurrent theme in film.
On May 10, ESPN’s Ultimate X hits the screen in larger than life format–it’s playing only in IMAX theaters. The movie documents and highlights the extreme action and dramatic stories from ESPN’s 2001 X Games in Philadelphia. The documentary also presents the athletes’ mindset as they compete in the year’s most important extreme sport competition.
If Ultimate X is more reality than you can handle, Sony Pictures is releasing the action thriller XXX on August 2.
Hollywood juggernaut Vin Diesel plays an extreme sports enthusiast who is recruited by the National Security Agency for a dangerous covert mission that will put his extreme skills to the test against a ruthless enemy. And Diesel does it all in this flick, including parachuting out of a car while it careens off a bridge.
[PAGEBREAK]
For those who find XXX a little too hardcore, don’t worry because action sports movies this summer have something for everyone–even romance.
Set in beautiful Maui, Hawaii, Blue Crush centers on a group of girls who work at an upscale spa and live to surf, and enter the male-dominated tow-in surf competition. But their collective dream of being the first female winner is threatened when one of them falls in love with a spa guest. Blue Crush, which is slated for release July 7, stars Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis.
Boasted as being crafted by filmmakers dedicated to the sport, Universal Picture’s Blue Crush brings together world-class surfers in front of the camera and features some of the best sequences of women surfing ever captured on film.
Whether you are into intense reality (ESPN’s Ultimate X), action adventure (XXX) or briny undertakings (Blue Crush), Hollywood has covered all the bases so we can all experience a little extreme action vicariously.
The days when the kids of Dogtown were once ostracized for surfing and skateboarding are long gone. But yet, how do we explain the human need to jump motorcycles 100 feet into the air? How do we explain a skateboarder’s need to rotate 2 ½ times around 50 feet above a wooden platform? How do we explain a surfer’s need to ride a 25-foot wave capable of smashing the surfboard into toothpicks?
Perhaps, at a moment of history when human beings govern nature, many need to experience fear, to feel the rush of air, to prove to ourselves–at the risk of serious injury–that we are alive.
For the rest of us, at least we get to watch them safely from our theater seats.
