Customer Reviews

WASSUP ROCKERS - Format: [DVD Movie]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I loved this movie. In a lot of ways, it paralled my life as a black teen in the Cleveland ghetto in the mid sixties. We didn't skate, we rode bikes and popped wheelies all over town, and found our share of trouble. We didn't smoke or do drugs, sex was something bragged about without having actually experienced it, but like these rockers, we were kids without a vision of hope or an expection of a future, living in a gritty world where life was so cheap that nothing much really mattered. The story of these kids lives was my story too. I was lucky enough to escape the ghetto via the Air Force and subsequent higher education. I'm upper middle class now, but my daughter attends a public high school, and has a lot of Latino skater friends who are just like these kids. This movie is real, and communicates its genuineness in the scenes where the boys are in the company of themselves, as opposed to the scenes showing them interacting with people outside their neighborhood. I know kids who act and talk like this. I laughed and cried with them, and I think you will too. If you're doing well, don't be so quick to look down on someone who is different from you, perhaps from the other end of the bus line, or the penny side of the checkbook. The film reminded me to offer hope and show the way where I can.

Always abrasive, almost always shocking, Larry Clark presents a tale not too far off the path he's created in the film and photo world in "Wassup Rockers". This time around, he treats his subjects with a sensitivity that is typically hidden under the surface in his other work. A must-see for Clark fans and for fans of coming-of-age tales for a new millenium.

Larry Clark is a gifted filmmaker (and some would say "pedophile") who shows a completely different side of his skill with documenting the lives of teenagers in "Wassup Rockers." His first film "Kids" was an important film dealing with AIDS, but it wasn't a masterpiece. His 2nd film "Another Day in Paradise" was a great film that dealt with teenage drug addicts and managed to be funny, heartbreaking, and entertaining. His third film "Bully" was a masterpiece, based on a true story that was simultaneously horrifying and realistic. Then there was the "what the hell?" movie of his career "Teenage Caveman" which was basically about teenagers having sex to the backdrop of a horror movie. "Wassup Rockers" is about a group of seven Hispanic skateboarders living in South Central, who one day make the mistake of traveling to Beverly Hills to skate. The movie (with a screenplay by Clark) starts off introducing us to the characters and their lives (all the characters are named after the actors that play them). There's Jonathan Valesquez, the ladies' man of the group who opens the film with a long-winded monologue. Then there's Milton a.k.a. Spermball, the biggest yet seemingly youngest one of the group. Then there's Eddie, Porky, Carlos, Louie, and Kico. Besides being skateboarders, the group are trying to start a band (the entire a film is set to a sometimes annoying punk-rock soundtrack, that fits the movie perfectly though), which is where the titles "Wassup Rockers" comes from. The movie struck a chord with me, because it takes a lot of different turns. The film begins like a documentary, switches gears to become a comedy, and then suddenly turns tragic. When the group arrives in Beverly Hills, they find themselves on a series of misadventures with tragic results. One part in the film (a really sad scene) features a character that Clark based on Charlton Heston (making the scene simultaneously horrifying and funny), but he cast an actor that looks and sounds like Clint Eastwood. "Wassup Rockers" is one of Clark's greatest achievements; it's funny, emotionally powerful, and superbly acted. The dialogue is sometimes unintelligible (the character will say a word in Spanish in the middle of a sentence in English) and sometimes the grammar is bad, but it just adds to the realism. "Wassup Rockers" is (like all movies by Clark) not for everyone and a lot of people will dislike this one because of its shift in mood. Once the characters get to Beverly Hills, the scenes become much darker and violent. "Wassup Rockers" is not perfect, but it's one of the best and most underrated films I've seen from 2006 and I highly recommend you check it out because it deserves more views than it has received.

GRADE: A

What do Paris Hilton and the 70s cult classic 'The Warriors' have in common? Some people find them trashy, while others enjoy them as guilty pleasures. Larry Clark finds them inspirational. Both served as his biggest influences when writing the script for 'Wassup Rockers'. Fascinated by the sexual exploits of Paris and lil' sis Nicki, Clark wondered what it would be like if the sisters made their way to the ghettoes of South Central L.A., laid eyes on a group of hot Salvadorean skateboarders and brought them home to their mansion to have sex with. 'The Warriors' angle kicks in after their tryst gets interrupted by an angry brother/father who beats the hell out of the boys and chases them out of the house leaving them stranded in the rich and prejudiced part of town a long ways from their own humble homes. All of this is explained more in-depth in Clark's commentary track on the DVD.


6 Latino skateboarders/punk rockers skip school one summer afternoon and venture to suburban L.A. where they plan on practicing tricks on the steps of a private high school. Traveling in a stolen car, it doesn't take long for the boys to be pulled over by a pair of cops. These cops, punk fans themselves, let them off with a warning. After they make it to the school and suffer a few nasty wipeouts, they attract the attention of a pair of sexy white girls (their words). The girls invite them back to their mansion but the boys are reluctant to go. They quickly change their minds after fleeing from a campus cop who stopped and harassed them. In the ensuing chase one of the 6 gets left behind. The other 5 happen upon the mansion and quickly make themselves at home. While some skate out back, others head upstairs to the girls' bedrooms to get better acquainted. Their intimate moment is rudely interrupted when the girls' preppy brother and his pals show up and beat the crap out of one of the boys and throws another one out the window and into the pool. Making a quick escape, the 5 find themselves frightened and alone in the suburbs desperate to make it back home safe. They hop fences and wander through one backyard after another in a desperate attempt to make it back to the ghetto. Each backyard brings new eccentrics for the boys to encounter. This includes a gay designer who almost molests one of them, a drunk socialite (Janice Dickinson) who offers to give another one a bath and, most frightening of all, a Hollywood legend (supposedly based on Clint Eastwood according to the commentary) who's a racist gun owner who shoots at the boys as they attempt to hop his fence after escaping from the designer. Needless to say not all of these encounters end well for the boys or the homeowners. The film does have some violence and disturbing moments, but nowhere near the levels of other Clark films. It's a refreshing change of pace. Clark's usual gritty approach wouldn't have worked here anyways since these are probably the most decent kids in any of his films. Sure they drink and have sex and play rough but these kids aren't looking for trouble since they have enough of that back home. An average day for them includes getting jumped at school and being shot at by gang members on their street corners. All they want out of life is to be able to skateboard, play their music loud and be accepted for it. The film's best scene features a character named Keiko explaining this far more eloquently to one of the white girls.


The DVD artwork goes out of its way to compare this film to 'KIDS' since it's the 10 year anniversary of Clark's groundbreaking directorial debut but, as mentioned before, this film isn't in the same league as 'KIDS'. For an R rated film there's a very minor amount of sex, drugs and violence. 'Wassup Rockers' is a film about a group of fun loving kids who dream of escaping their violent environment and finding acceptance from someone outside their circle. The kids in 'KIDS' seemed far too content raping, sleeping around, getting high and starting fights with random strangers to change. These kids are actively trying to change their lives and their surroundings. All of this adds up to one of the most refreshing and enjoyable films in Larry Clark's filmography. 'Wassup Rockers' is a film about hope.

A different slice of Southern California Latino culture. West coast "Kids" but more appealing and sympathetic characters. A bit of the movie "The Swimmer" too.

So, I don't normally feel compelled to write a review about a movie, but this is hard to get out of my mind.

Wassup Rockers is by Larry Clark. Right off, I guess I expected something a bit different. I liked Kids, but somehow Bully didn't sit right. I really liked Tulsa. It is hard to find still photography that is as honest as that collection. Not even Eugene Richards, with perhaps the exception of Exploding into Life, can match it.

So, without saying too much, a short explication is that this film is about what happens when a group of youngish Latino teens take off an adventure from their South Central neighborhood and go skateboarding in Beverly Hills. The kids have a punk rock identity, but they are not insensitive individuals. They are sad when their friends get hurt, they seem to put each other first quite a bit, and they are able to change.

The other main character is this movie is Beverly Hills. No one can leave them alone, and everyone puts their own interest ahead of the kids. Perhaps the least amount of danger comes from the abusive police officer who wants to arrest them for skating while Mexican (even though they are Salvadoran!). With each new scene, the teens are confronted by a new type of monstrous behavior. They don't have the social skills to understand the battles that they are fighting.

Largely, this is a very thought-provoking film. It takes a long time to get going though, and not because the director is setting things up. The first 30 minutes could easily have been re-edited to maybe 10 minutes. It would have been better.

When the kids return to South Central, I suddenly realized that they were safer there, because at least they could understand the social codes of the place.

There is a great scene where a middle age police officer pulls the kids over in South Central. The officer has to take their car, but he feels bad so he tries to relate to them. "Hey, kids," he says, "do you like the Ramones? I saw them in '87. It was great. Now, get out of the car."

It's a great comment on Gen X. How many ragged Ramones shirts are sitting in closets, endangered by moths, while their owners tool around in sippy-cup laden minivans, listening to NPR and wondering about the stock market?

This movie was a lot of fun. It had me hooked from the beginning. Latino skater kids from "the ghetto" generally just doing what they feel like. Great characters, acting and scenes. Over the top at times, but still excellent. Will watch again.

I like Larry Clark's idea and the story line, but it was painful to watch these kids "act".

Though Larry Clark tones down his pervasive (apparent) prurient interest in his young subjects, it's still there but in a more benign, affectionate sense. It's hard not to dote on these guys as Mr. Clark does. They're just so darn cute. And I must say it's a refreshing change to watch a movie set in "the ghetto" (as one character constantly says) that is not wall-to-wall bad hip-hop!

This movie's pretty funny, I guess it appealed to me because I went through many similar situations and the kids in the film are funny to watch as they go through their adventure in order to skate in Beverly Hills. "We from the ghetto!"