Skate It Review
Crystal Moselle's 'Skate Kitchen,' about a group of young female skateboarders in New York City, is a solid hangout movie as well as a band-of-buddies film—genres that tend to revolve around young men. It's also a movie that deliberately blurs the line between documentary and fiction: the main characters are all real New York skaters who are playing characters who are very close to themselves in real life.Moselle's last film was the documentary ',' about a family that home schooled its seven children on New York's Lower East Side. It was a surprising and engrossing work, in large part because it had the confidence to turn the camera on its subjects and watch them being themselves, without getting too hung up on fitting everyone with psychological labels or treating them as if they were variations of familiar, fictional types. She demonstrates the same impulse with this dramatic feature, co-written by and Aslihan Unaldi, which follows a Long Island teen, Camille , as she tries to become her own person by hanging out with an all-girl group of big city skaters who roll through the streets, bantering and getting into scrapes and filming themselves for Instagram. The movie is at its best in its early stages, when it's detailing Camille's attempts to get out from under the thumb of her well-meaning but suffocating mother.
Some of her tactics are ingenious: she keeps a store of photos of herself at the library to send to her mother to 'prove' she's not skating, and has an elaborate system to hold onto her skateboard without being seen entering the house with it. The tension between Camille and her mother feels a bit contrived in order to inject conflict into a film that doesn't have much. Ditto the relationship that develops between Camille and Devon , the ex-boyfriend of her friend Janay (Dede Lovelace), which seems intended to make the film more commercial but mainly makes it feel more conventional.Still, this is a hugely appealing movie that shows us people and places rarely captured in movies.
For many years, Tony Hawk has ruled the video skateboarding roost.
'Skate Kitchen' has been compared to Larry Clark's ',' probably because the setting and age range of the main characters are the same, but it's a much less dire and alarmist film. Moselle seems to genuinely like every person who spends more than a minute in front of her lens, and the film takes liberating joy in the sight of young women zipping through traffic on their boards, executing flips, tending to injuries, bantering, and hanging on the backs of buses.Vinberg is an appealing actress who doesn't overdo anything, and it's exciting to watch her listen and think, two things she does a lot while she's trying to fit in with her new group of friends who film their exploits around the city and hold their own against young male skaters who reflexively belittle them. The movie really cooks when it's hanging out with the girls and watching them carve out a space for themselves in a city that's indifferent or hostile towards them.
By Jason Nimer
I did not want to like SKATE and before I played it, I had a dozen prefabricated reasons for feeling how I thought I would. I've never been fan of EA or their products and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 and 2 are among my all-time favorite games. In fact, I was so into THPS 2 that it may or may not have contributed to me failing Statistics 1001. Granted, I felt the THPS series died the moment THPS 3 hit store shelves, but Venice, Warehouse, School and Bullring all hold special places in my memory. When EA announced SKATE, I brushed it off. When SKATE came out, I stuck to my guns. Then I played it. I'm sorry Mr. Hawk. We had some good times, but welcome to Dumpsville. Population: You.
The THPS series was never about realism. Even the best skaters in the world probably couldn't pull some of the combo lines my friends and I invented/discovered. Regardless, the game and its first sequel were great, but they were a gamer's skating game. SKATE is the opposite; it is very much an actual skater's skating game. Everything about SKATE, from the oft-discussed controls to the environments to the smallest 'only a skater would notice that' details, make this the new standard for not just skating games, but all extreme sports games yet to be released. …and all this praise from someone who was determined to hate the game. It really is that good.
To discuss SKATE, one must first forget everything they know about the Tony Hawk games, especially the control scheme. On more than one occasion, my parents watched my hands as I played THPS 2 and became infuriated. Not because they didn't like the games I played, but because if my hands could move that fast and that skillfully, then 'Why in the hell did you quit piano lessons?!' That is a direct quote, by the way. The THPS series did demand nerves of steel and reflexes to match, with quick button and directional presses to perfectly execute the game's craziest combos. SKATE throws all that out the window.
In what has been dubbed the Flickit! dual analog control system, players will feel less like they are playing a game and more like they're actually controlling a skater on the streets. Where THPS demanded players execute tricks in the same way they would control Blanka, E. Honda or Guile, SKATE uses only the analog sticks to execute quick flips and spins of your skateboard. This lends itself to a much more realistic experience. Something that would seem mundane in a THPS title becomes an amazing, praise-worthy accomplishment. For example, turning a kickflip in THPS only requires a simple press and release of a button. In SKATE, you need to judge your speed, your angle, your environment and if the board will actually have the time to turn before you land on it.
The controls might sound complicated and unwieldy, but that is more because of my inability to explain just how well they work. Old school THPS fans will be mystified and stymied at first, but after only a minute or two of practice, they'll be skating like old pros. Too often we see games kick standard control conventions just to be different, but SKATE gets away with it because, to put it plainly, EA has defied expectations and built a better mousetrap. In the same way that the recent Metroid Prime 3: Corruption deep-sixed every first person shooter with dual analog control by switching to the Wii-mote and nunchuk, SKATE has all but guaranteed that the 'triangle, up, down' grind combo will never again be used successfully in a skating game.