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| May 17, 2008 |
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Light, Love and Death DVD
We received a self-produced skate video from Brazilian old schooler Ceshina “Cexa” Chaves that chronicles several backyard pool sessions in Southern California. Titled as Light, Love and Death, this video begins with an intro montage that’s visually interrupted with large scrolling titles depicting tricks over each highlighted pool feature. These distractive titles point to the obvious regions a pools such love seat, death box, coping, etc., however since this is a video to be watched by skateboarders, we’re not confident that the informative titles were really needed.
The successive chapters that follow, reveal several backyard sessions with various skate crews, but none of the on-screen minutes deliver the barrage of heavy tricks or lines that one would expect at the level of today’s skating. Honestly, the repetitive carves and frontside grinds left me unsatisfied and looking for something more. I was hoping to see plenty of pool skating action on the “gnar meter” abilities of Peter Hewitt, Al Partenan, Rune Glifberg or Royce Nelson to get me psyched. The experience of finding and cleaning a backyard pool was there, but the skating just didn’t deliver at full volume.
The bright spots of Light, Love and Death included clips at the Inland Empire’s Dodger bowl. As expected, Salba delivered solid tricks, combos, and lines with casual effort. Other highlights show Ricky Stiles busting a lien to tail, handplant and a frontside over the steps at a permission pool. At another, Zarosh heats up a session by rolling down the slide to begin his run. But it was a skater by the name of Alvaro Porque that stood out above all the others with his classic and sick frontside layback grinds.
Featured skaters within the 55 total minutes of footage include: Nilton Neves, Danny Di Cola, Bruno Passos, Alvaro Porque, JC, Salba and Rob Slob and Scotty, Fabio Boca, Toby Burger, Josh, Darrell Delgado, Mimi Knoop, Zarosh, Carter, G man and Ricky Stiles.
Without a doubt, my favorite part of Light, Love and Death was found within the bonus section at a 1994 Legends’ Session at Chicken’s pool. Tony Alva, Christian Hosoi, Jay Adams, Dave Duncan, Dave Hackett, Eddie Reategui, Duane Peters, Brian Patch and many others.
All watched and considered, I appreciate the efforts of this skate film, but it isn’t one that I would watch over and over. Have a look at the film’s trailer on Cexa’s podcast site and decide for yourself. If you’re feeling it you can order a DVD copy of Love, Light and Death right then and there. Like I said in the previous paragraph, the Legends’ Session at Chicken’s backyard basin is worth the investment.
-bk
04/07
04/14 - DVS Photographer Series - Round Two
04/07 - Light, Love and Death DVD
03/31 - Pitcrew Video - Feels Like the First Time
03/21 - Nike Zoom Tre A.D.
- Full Archive