Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, Santa Barbara CA. Premiere
We’d been hearing the buzz about the documentary of the Bones Brigade for many months before this movie release jumped out of the gate and started playing. It’s grand opening was at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, but it’s real premiere was last Thursday night in Santa Barbara where the Headquarters of Powell Peralta fueled many childhood fantasies of being the world’s top rock star skateboarder. This West Coast Premiere at the Santa Barbara Film Festival brought the ‘who’s who’ of skateboarding iconery together across every generation of skateboarding. With so much hype could it live up to expectations? We were there to find out! 
Stacy Peralta, legendary skater in his own right and director of this movie, laid out what his game plan was when he created the Bones Brigade. He joined up with a new company being run by George Powell. He grabbed up a very young posse of kids who showed promise early on. Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Tony Hawk, Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain, and Tommy Guerrero are featured with each member of the brigade having a unique story of coming up and ending up on the most famous skateboarding team ever. Through their eyes the film goes through the huge growth of their personalities, careers, the company’s unbelievable success, the progression and drive of each of the team members and the bonds that kept this motley crew of skate deviants together. Stacy elegantly balanced out the propaganda with some of the skate industry outsiders who give some of their perspectives and also gave some great anecdotes and stories they had about the Bones Brigade.
If your not into skateboarding then the other side of this film will probably be able to hold your interest as well as it delves deep into the psyche of loner kids from a variety of backgrounds who found their escape from the so called regular world, in this new and exciting world of skateboarding. I think most kids find something to relate to about the way these guys made their way to the top against the odds. There is definitely some inspirational material here worth sharing with young kids and this area transcends the skateboard world into the mainstream quite easily.
This movie is very well put together and has plenty to offer for lovers of the skateboard. The visual eye candy and historical skate footage is enough for any old school skateboarder, such as myself, to enjoy. Stacy was admittedly reluctant to make this movie as it was too personal to him. Give Lance Mountain some thanks for twisting his arm to do it for all of us to enjoy. You’ll want to see this movie for sure. And share it with up and comers!
