Change Your Image
enceladus1
Reviews
Surfwise (2007)
True surfers understand the decision.
For those that see surfing as 'something you do' as opposed to 'something you are', it will be easy to discount the Pascowitz ethic as narcissistic, wrong, and out of touch with reality. However, Doc makes the choice that few do: reject conventional paths and blaze your own; find yourself. It easy to blame the fallout on him, but our culture eats it's own and nowhere is THAT called into question. He is a surfer: and anyone who has been held down on the ocean floor under large waves will tell you there is much more reality there than on Wall Street or Capital Hill. Our culture is our own doing, and it's sad that it has to be something that we have to defend ourselves against should we choose to find higher meaning in things.
Unfortunately, the times in which Doc and his wife chose to rear their children still provided a glimmer of hope that we could find higher meaning in living healthy and asking more of ourselves than 'how much money and possessions can I accumulate'. His choice to 'live off the map' ultimately caused hardship on his children not strictly due to his ignorance or selfishness - but to our overpopulated and militant culture's insistence on a 'one path fits all' mentality. 1940's San Onofre (and America in general) provided a plethora of possibility and hope - only to be destroyed eventually by a pigeonholing and demanding consumeristic populace who gladly jumped in the box they were expected to jump into without question. In retrospect, it's easy for the puritanical to pass judgement - without ever having the enlightment of a proper wave completely expose you to a much higher truth and purpose. His children weren't the only ones left maladjusted to deal with an eventual backward existence of mortgages, big screen TV's, 8 lanes of traffic, suburbs that stretch to the AZ border - there were lots of us left behind. We see no truth in today's 'goals'.
Doc wished for his kids to be free to explore their own lives and understand it in terms that were not preoccupied with shallow consumerism and empty 'values' - but he wasn't prepared for a society to go hell bent in the wrong direction of EVERYTHING. That our society has no use for explorers (and subsequently leaves them to poverty and struggle if they haven't traversed the droning paths of traditional education), is just as wrong as Doc getting some nookie in front of the kids or keeping them out of school - but the blame will be 100% on the nookie and lack of schooling, won't it? These kids weren't schooled in the ways of society, they were schooled in the ways of life. His kids might be bitter only because they've been shunned or simply overlooked by a system that does not recognize their value - not because they couldn't eat donuts.
I've surfed near Izzy and the surf camp near the pumphouse in Pacific Beach many times. He's a nice, conscientious surfer in a lineup filled with greedy, self serving, egotist surfers that our "get mine -screw you" American Dream society has produced. It appears his upbringing has taught him something.
California Dreaming (1979)
Flashback Movie that has Vibe
If you're looking for high cinematic art in the vein of 'The Godfather' - then don't bother. But if you're interested in a forgotten 'time capsule' classic that really captures the vibe of sleepy 70's west coast beach life - this is the ticket.
It's funny and dramatic and corny and sad. It's well paced and accurately portrays the insular bubble that we beach lifestylers live(d) in. It also provides an over-the-top example of 'the new kook in town' that will surely be subject to the harshness of the local gauntlet. The surfers are friggin' 70's prototypes to the max - even if you don't agree with them or like them. A guarded, immature bunch in our youth...
Bonus: this movie somehow magically captures the pot-addled haze and vibe of a mid 70's California beach town. Not sure how they accomplished it - but it's the best representation on film that I have seen. For those not there - it was a special time. Kudos for showing the women running on a FOGGY morning beach, with surfers paddling out - like it is in reality as opposed to the typical 'always sunny afternoon'. Also, the surf movie scene: total authenticity circa mid-seventies!
The surfing isn't that good - but it's an accurate portrayal of Cali's waves. At least they didn't add stock footage of Hawaiian waves - that's always lame!
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
The title about sums it up - but huff and puff anyway...
The movie is a platform for change - regardless.
If you want to see a tree-hugging, sky-is-falling, chicken little doc full of little liberal conspiracies and hogwash - then that's what you'll see, even if the world temperature happened to climb 200 degrees as you were watching it. However, for any remaining concerned humans with their heads out of the sand and their ears to the ground this serves not as a be-all-to-end-all, but as a call for an open mind to the issue and POTENTIAL that the data suggests - right or wrong. I'll never understand the mentality that suggests that because 100% of an observation is not incontrovertible that the whole thing should therefore be dismissed ("You're only 97% correct - what an idiot!"). Likewise for the assertion that because you can't offer a 100% solution then your input and observations should be wholly ignored and negated for that reason. Until someone offers a reversal study that demonstrates that increasing our population, stuffing our world full of pollution, stripping our resources, and pumping our atmosphere full of gasses actually contradicts the issues or affects suggested at in 'An Inconvenient Truth' then there really is no reason to not embrace the ideas wholeheartedly, without political affiliation, and with immediacy.
Note: 'embracing an idea' does not mean that you're weak, or that you have to scrap your beliefs, or that you have to become ignorant to the other side of an issue, or that you have to become a partisan lemming - it only means you have to stay open to the 'possibility' of things...
I agree that super-left Democrats should see it for reasons of impending action and deeper inquiry, and that super-right Republicans should see it if only for it's numerous dismissal opportunities due to it's 'liberal' association and long term message.
See it and think. No more, no less.