Always ready to jump on the latest trend and make a complete mockery of it, Krooked have taken the holiday blockbuster release into their own creative hands with KROOK3D, also known as TH3 Y3AR’S MOST 3XCITING SKAT3 VID3O COMING OUT YOUR SCR33N IN 3Y3-POPPING 3D!!! Coming from any other company, this kind of effort would result in an awkward compilation of suck; but with Krooked you are guaranteed something that for me, is essentially canonical in skateboarding: being forward thinking in the dumbest way imaginable. So what better way to interpret the growing 3D novelty in film by using the technology (in a way that really, really works) and just piss around with your friends. Enter Mark Gonzales, Dan Drehobl, Bobby Worrest, Luke Croker, Brad Cromer, Mike Anderson and David Clark, the members of one of the most fun skate companies around, to provide you with a video that would be the one of the year’s must-see flicks whatever dimension you choose to watch it in.
The video begins with a dedication to the sorely missed Van Wastell, who sadly passed away in 2008. His absence from the group’s antics that follow is missed but the crew do a brilliant job in letting Van Wastell live on in our memory and in the good times that Mark and co. continue to bring us. Rest in peace, brother. Your legacy won’t ever be forgotten.
Rather than follow a section-by-section routine, Krooked have chosen (wisely) to seperate the footage into locations, beginning with New York and moving on to San Francisco and so on. I often feel that more companies should consider this as a possible option and not to dismiss it as too outside of the norm. If you have a team that work so well together like these guys, then it unsurprisingly works to the video’s advantage by depicting Krooked as Krooked, not as a series of individuals. Not to take anything away from the individuals themselves (come on, people like the Gonz, Drehobl, Worrest and co. have a distinct and uniquely awesome taste seperate from one another) but the cocktail is something most pleasant for your eyes to sip on. More so that instead of a showcase we’re presented with something that’s closer to the late 80s/early 90s ‘session’ style of video editing than anything else outside of Etnies’ Skate and Create edit has brought viewers this year. We encourage this. Now, are those glasses sitting comfortably and looking ridiculous on your face? Good, then let’s hit up New York.
To this day, there is nothing like watching The Gonz skate New York. He’s the undisputed king of all things skateboarding in the East Coast and no one will ever interpret something as simple as getting from A-B in a way as imaginative as him. For A-B to Mark is more a case of going from A, then to Y, then to 4, then to Yellow, then to Z before finally arriving at B. In this uncouth journey we see everyone tear up whatever they see before them in a way that combines the free-flowing jazz spirit of 90s Stereo flicks and the gloriously juvenile tomfoolery of the Tilt Mode Army. Hammers aren’t planned, but come out of the natural talent that sporadically bursts from the team’s feet, like Bobby’s backside noseblunt at City Hall that’s so perfectly imperfect. Don’t think that the ‘3’ motif stops at what dimension we’re in either, as Gonz explains during a particularly rad downhill spot, “three sets of stairs, three stairs in each set, three skaters, take it down! in 3-D!”. He then sucks on a monster cigar. I challenge you not to love him even more than you already do.
San Francisco is the next stop and opens with Dan Drehobl’s trademark mayday variations set to a backdrop of the Golden Gate bridge. Visually, it carries something potentially beautiful that countless budding photographers constantly fail to achieve. Of course, Gonz has covered this landscape HDR fiend’s wet-dream with crudely drawn stars and a scrawled ‘San Francisco’ title that makes it the skateboarding equivilent of drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Words cannot begin to explain how much I’m all over this shit. This section is totally rammed with car-dodging, pram-dodging, big grinds, dorky combos, quotes from strangers, flips over questionable ‘bums’ and Drehobl hitting up the China Town Banks like only he can.
We head back east to Washington D.C. for more fruity jazz scores and lines that make you feel grrrrrrreat. Unsurprisingly Bobby Worrest totally owns this section but there’s some serious bits and pieces from Manderson and David Clark in the mix too. A brief transition segment follows that features welcome cameos from Lance Mountain, Jake Brown and more. As expected, vert looks pretty spectacular in the third dimension so suck on that James Cameron.
After some dicking around in skateparks we’re returing to the west coast to Los Ang3l3s. Here, there are more perfectly captured sessions that are making it progressively more difficult to sit through the entire thing without pausing and running out for a quick skate on whatever is directly outside the front door. But amongst this we see some Crailtap heads getting in on the action, notably Eric Koston doubling up with Gonz as seen on the cover of the latest Wallride Catalogue. The footage from these sessions is as awesome as you’d expect. Koston’s line (featuring the rarely seen regular hardflip) at the end is something magical. Although, not quite as magical as Bobby’s noseblunt on a LOG during the slow-motion section that concludes the film. Yeah, a log. What is this I don’t even…
Props must go to Erik Bragg and all those that made this production possible. Nothing else this year will inspire you to go out and have a proper session with friends, dick around, occasionally do something epic, but in a way that only enhances the session rather than overshadow it. This is how skateboarding should always be. Make sure you get this.
Stanley
The DVD also features twenty minutes of eye-popping mind blowing tantalising 2D action! It’s out now in all good skater-owned shops.
