Drink Fast Drink Hard

Richard already gave the heads up for Skate Fast Fall Hard, a cinematic ode to shitbaggery, but did he feel the need to go see it? I don't know. What I do know is that if he watched it at the Cobalt, then I think I saw it first, because I didn't see him at the Fifth Ave. premiere at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. Something to be proud of? Maybe not, but what's a guy to do? Besides, it was a great way to dodge two hours of midday sun during A.N.T.I.S.L.A.M.

As I understand it, after securing a sponsorship from Pacific Pilsner and some sort of grant, some film students approached local skatedrunks Hawktu, Newfie Mike, Shamus, Tyson, and associates with the idea of making a "day in the life of a drunken East Van skateboarder" flim. The end result was very lo-fi and very entertaining, I'd liken it to a lower-budget version of Fubar, minus the... uhh... rock-solid plot structure and direction. It's basically half an hour or so of following a crew of hosers around the city for the day while they skate, act like jackasses, attend one of those pot smoking convention things at the VAG, hang out in Gastown alleyways, and party down, all the while drinking enough booze to kill a healthy-livered person twice their weight. Maybe it's funnier if you actually know the guys involved. Probably. I laughed out loud a few times for sure.

Skateboarding used to be something you could do if you wanted to get away from jocks and the parents who yelled at them from the sidelines. Over the last ten years though, nudged along by shitcapades like the XGames, skateboarding has become a cool thing to do, in the process attracting the very people that we were attempting to get away from in the first place. And now there's talk of skateboarding ending up in the Olympics? Gross. Skate Fast Fall Hard is low-budget, slovenly, idiotic and largely pointless, but given the choice between watching it and some piece of crap featuring that retard Shaun White, I'll pick the former every single time.

Photo courtesy of How can I recycle this.