Alright, so here is a review that is going to be a litte different!
Myself and Alex from Give D are doing reviews on it from two different perspectives.
Myself, only seeing the DVD (which I watched a few times in the last few days)
and Alex, who was at the premiere, and has seen it all plenty of times. Sure this might be a long read but I think overall you will get an understanding of how good we felt it was.
So this is how it goes in order I guess is the best way to do this.
The intro which is a lot like the trailer plus a few extra clips, the song is the same too. However, maybe I am just weird but I was super into that song and want to find more like that.
Something I thought was cool is the guys in the video all talk about the different challenges with filming parts and just their perspective on things, I found that pretty interesting.
So then after the intro it rolls into Dakota’s part! I don’t even have to tell you the kid is good, you already know this.
Somebody complained on another review of mine I didn’t tell what was going on tricks wise, but I don’t want to give it away so I will describe the stuff a little better this time through.
He has a lot of wall ride lines, and a lot of bank to wall rides where he does some spins including a man sizes 540 out of one. There is a pretty big rail hop then immediately after he rides up a pretty straight up and down pallet.
He also does a 180 off this big ledge going about mach 10 into the street, brakeless like a champ. However, I was kind of bummed on his ender banger, it was just a ice over into a drop but I couldn’t tell how big the drop was, so I was bummed on that.
Next up was Chester Blacksmith’s part, this part was rough for Chester I guess, he got broken a lot filming for this including a compound fracture in his leg, they show you that crash which is badass, his wheel explodes! Some of the things I was super into was the loooong multiple kinked rail that turned a bunch, super good. He also does this double peg to over into a bank, but he beat the hell out of himself doing it! real tough dude. Remember that photo from Ride where Chester was bailing like way up in the air out of a tree?
Well, they show that, and the one where he actually lands, I am shocked he has ankles and pedals let’s just put it that way.
Darryl Toccos part up next! I am going to throw this out here, this personally was my favorite part. I don’t know what it was about it but I just liked it a lot. The weird thing that I am shocked I was happy about was the number of barspins he did.
He litterally does a barspin in almost every clip, I usually would get bored, but the way he does barspins is super fast and does them clean as hell. Also, he had some really good tobbagons too! He does a pretty long rail to real clean tobaggon out, hot!
The other was this ginormous pole jam! It had to easily be a 5 foot tall pole jam, he did multiple variations out of it and it was rad. Sorry if I seem overly excited about this part.
The friends part was cool, it was just a mix of other clips collected throughout the filming. As you can see from my notes in the picture attached, Van does a real clean rail ride to whip.
Sean Burns is an animal, massive 360 down a big set! He takes himself out the first try but gets it done. Nathan Williams has some real good clips. There is a guy with a red bandana I don’t know who he is, but being a pussy like I am, this makes me nervous.I feel like I am going to get stabbed or something watching this dude. Brad Simms does like a 30 stair double peg up the rail, man sized. That Eric Litchenberge dude is good, he has some sweet clips. So over all this part was really interesting!
I didn’t really take the time to stop the credits to get all the names but there was like 10 people in this part and it turned out to be solid.
They did a 4 way part with Mark Gralla, Jeff Kocsis, Dave Belcher, and Tom White. If you have paid attention to the web videos and stuff lately these names all sound firmilar. Some really smooth lines from Mark, the kid kills it! A lot of wall rides and nose manual tricks so I am sure if your a street dog you will be into this kid. Jeff has a few good lines, my favorite was a hop onto a block thing, to 180 gap onto another block to cab out, that is some difficult stuff! Dave has a clip where he manuals a truck beds like side, so an inch at most. He also ices up a big rail!
Tom does some real cool stuff in some good spots, however his banger is a over to double peg, where if he messes up he could have falled probably 20 feet to death, RESPECT!
Jared Washington has a smile that is contagious, now that might sound gay, but seriously the dude is smiling like his whole part it is real cool. Except when he gets 13 flats trying one trick, then he ets pissed! haha Some of his good stuff includes a superman seat grab, fast barspins and whips, and a bank into ice into bank whic seemed to be a pain in the ass for him, it was good. He finishes stuff up with a smith up a rail to barspin out, real good stuff!
Mike Brennan makes me hurt. The guy kicks his own ass all the time! He makes some awesome grunts too when he falls and he is a tall dude so he takes it like a beast. His song for the part is Eye of the Tiger so you know it is awesome.
If Mike reads this, stop killing yourself for real! I couldn’t believe how much he got worked making this part. He has a few different spots where he does sprocket stalls to over, and well, one of which is like a 7 foot drop into a bank, I thought that was really cool. His ender trick is a massive whip into a ditch, I cannot believe he lived after his first go at it, that’s all I should have to say about that. High five on riding in basketball shorts too! I want that trend to really kick up I am all for basketball shorts.
Davey Watson is good, backwards manuals down stairs, jumps big ass drops, 180’s big ass drops, gets kids in park all excited watching him do some stuff. The talent he has is wild. He apparently likes to party.
He seems to be a very positive grateful guy who enjoys what he’s doing! He even does a man sized icepick, I think to be honest this was one of the first parts I have seen of him and I think that I want to see more of this! I laugh when I think of his ride video interview from the premiere where he talks about being drunk doing his big stuff, which makes me wonder what clips he was actually bombed in.
I spy B Dubs in the background of the last clip too which is the man sized icepick I talked about.
The bonus stuff is really cool, the guys talk about all the stuff that happend throughout the making of the video and just the challenges to making a good video. I think this is cool because you see the stuff normally not seen when videos are put together. This is the part where they show Chester’s crash where he snaps his leg I believe, and blows out his backwheel! That stuff gross’s me out. Jared admits to “showering in that shit”…please tell me you have seen my new haircut?
There is a full on crash section, a lot of it is Mike just rocking himself making the video, I am shocked he is alive and gets up and rides everyday. RESPECT. They also mention getting pistol whipped.. so I am curious what that is all about!
Overall
The filming was real solid! I think that it was cool that there wasn’t a lot of fisheye shots which made life better for me. I guess I just personally dislike all the distortion from the fisheye shots but that is just me. The quality is clean too!
The graphic work is clean and not overdone. There isn’t a ton of moving things throwing your eyes everywhere, just simple stuff but still looks great.
I felt like the editing was good too! It was well put together and there wasn’t much for extras, a few slow-mo’s here and there but they just made some tricks look even better. So I am a fan of that.
The Music was interesting, it had a good mix of hip hop and classic rock stuff. I think that is good because over doing it on rap kills it for me, but over doing it on other stuff can do that too. I got a good vibe from the songs esspecially Mike’s song haha.
Here is a kicker I liked, the run time for the video is about 36 minutes not including the Animal promo and Ride Staff section. This is good because videos tend to drag on after a while, but this video is pretty quick and will get you excited to go ride.
I think with that being said, with summer coming up quick I could see this be the “Wake up and watch, then go ride” video.
Little note of the ride staff section, Fudger can ride better than you… I want to see a legit part from him sometime! The other guys on the staff also can rip it. Fat Tony impressed me. He wears a helmet for all of his clips, this is really cool because nobody else in the whole video had a helmet on and to be honest with all the brain injuries lately like Levan, it should start picking up but that is just my opinion! Don’t get pissed! haha
Anyways, the DVD is packaged in a clean looking case, Dakota on the front, killing it of course. That’s always a good sight to see and if you don’t like that, you can suck it. Flip the case over and you’ve got 6 really unique, talented riders, all of which do their own thing when it comes to riding. They shred way hard, pure and simple. Now open up the case and you’ll see this glorious DVD and some prime photos from the past filming trips for the making of this video… Pop that disc out, put that in your player and take notes on what you’re about to watch…
The movie opens up with an awesome montage, little tastes of all the riders and different scenes. I really like how they have a text screen at times to the words of the rider that’s speaking. It gives a good feel to the video, really legit in all ways… Dakota is the first featured rider and he gives you the rundown on what its like to film in Southern California… All of what Dakota says is true, so if you plan on filming in So Cal then you need to be prepared for long driving sessions and shutdowns. Dakota’s a real local dude and I’ve had the opportunity to watch him shred fairly often now. This video is no exception, you can basically watch Dakota shred a lot of Southern California’s most famous spots with some of the most original trickery. The song for Dakota’s part fits amazingly well and I think that’s what really makes the section. I don’t need to get down on droppin the tricks that are fired out, if you’ve seen anything from Dakota, you know how he gets down. You’ll just have to watch it for yourself, if you haven’t already. I’m just going to say that Dakota is one of my favorite riders and his section does not disappoint.
Chester Blacksmith’s section is next, a little shorter than the rest of the sections but for an obvious reason why… I’m sure a lot of people have witnessed that terrible crash on MTV or Youtube and can see why this dude is such an ape. This section has some gnarly moves but the best part about Chester is that a lot of his riding is basic stuff. He just goes higher and does it bigger than anyone else, its plain to see he’s not much for tech riding, just big ol’ beefy stuntin’. This video doesn’t show his gnarly wall ride crash to destroyed leg and I think that’s a good thing…
After that section its Darryl Tocco, I was never really a fan of Darryl Tocco until his sweet, sweet Insight section ended… I had never seen much from him but this video part opened my eyes to how much ass he kicks. He shoots smooth as butter bars into and out of everything, its ridiculous. Barspins shouldn’t be in the combos he does, but they’re definitely there and there’s lots of em. It’s another example of where the chosen song makes the video section so appealing, Darryl’s a tech master on everything he rides and he makes it all look so effortless…
A really good friends section follows and it’s got plenty of cameos and good riding from all over the place. Cameos include Van Homan, Kurt Rasmussen, Jack Maddox, Brad Simms, The German and more… I’m real stoked on Kurt’s and The German’s clips, both are local California dudes and both are way kick ass. It’s just good to see that they’re getting good coverage, they deserve it most definitely. For those of you who don’t know The German, his real name is Eric Litchenberger and he’s a good friend of mine. Eric rides no pegs and shreds rails as if he ran pegs, he also happens to tire ride everything in sight like its no problem. Germans are crazy accurate, so I’ve heard? I also happened to see a clip of Mike Hoder in there as well… Weird.
Jared Washington follows with some real damn good shredding, I was real into this section because I was used to watching Jared in the old Animal videos. His riding was a little shakey and his bikes were always really sketchy… I hate watching a video part with a whole lot of klink-klanking bike sounds in there, dial that piece in!! I would say this was a major upgrade of what I was used to, his riding ability went way up and he seems to be riding some real dialed bikes finally. All good things to see, his grinding skill on numerous obstacles is real fun to watch and his grind combos get me stoked. The only thing that was weird to me was the beginning of the section where he’s gone through a dozen tubes trying a bump up 6 stair to curve wall to tailwhip off the stair set… It just seemed like I was going to see something real gnarly, I feel that they just built it up to much. Really good and fun to watch though!!
Mike Brennan is an animal and definitely clocks in somewhere way past 6 foot tall, he makes any bike look like a 16 inch. His riding speaks for itself, creative, gnarly and even tech at times. He has a little of everything and showcases all of that in his section. He rides to Eye of The Tiger by Survivor and rightfully so… This part put Mike Brennan on top of his game and I’m sure we’ll see lots more of him in the near future. I have no complaints on this section, it’s to damn good and if there’s anything wrong with it, it’s that he throws whips and bars down things you shouldn’t even be sessionin’. Mike Brennan kicks ass. Watch the video and see why…
Davey Watson has a section dedicated to out of hand grinds, switch, opposite and sometimes both in the same grind. He also happens to session his front and back wheel a lot, with ridiculously fast 540 cabs, real long manual lines to 180, which are also fast, footjam whippers on everything, and fakie hangfives… Davey’s section is basically tech stuff mixed with gnarly street riding, he says “Whad Up Doe” during a hanger tooth… Hoder has another clip of himself with a rail hop/gap in there as well. How many hidden clips of Hoder are there in this video anyways?? I definitely like the song but I don’t know if I like it to this section, I think they should’ve used something else. It’s the best riding I’ve seen from Davey and I really enjoy watching that dude shred. He’s got a kick ass, don’t give a shit attitude as well. Can’t beat that…
Shortly after there’s more montage stuff of the riders shredding, taking it and speaking about the filming process for Insight… There’s definitely a “my new haircut” reference after the credits… SHOWER IN THAT SHIT!! Once that’s over you get to the good stuff with the bonus goodies on the DVD… Crash section kicks ass, Brian Kachinsky wins that crash section, hangover tooth on El Toro rail to chest bash… So brutal… All sorts of bails and biffing on everything, I love watching the crash sections. Animal has a solid promo in the extras as well, some real good clips in there and its filmed and edited pretty well… Then if you’re feelin it, you can watch the ride staff shred it up a bit…
This video definitely kicks a lot of ass, if you haven’t seen this yet you need to get off your fat ass, purchase it, then sit on your fat ass again and watch it. This video gets me stoked to go out and ride every time I watch it and that’s how a video should be…
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