As of now this is my favorite movie. Whenever I am bored I turn on my iPod and select a random part to watch. They are all pretty much awesome. A cool thing about Pretty Sweet is that it gives the guys that have been on Girl for years such as Eric Koston and Guy Mariano substantial parts while also showcasing the new and upcoming young riders such as Sean Malto and Cory Kennedy. Also, this movie showed me that in a world of rails, ledges and stairs (which I still love don't get me wrong), there is still respect for vert. Skaters such as Elijah Berle and Raven Tershy shred up the bowls and snake pipes with effortless style. Another great thing about this movie is that they do a good job of showcasing the Trunk Boyz, a skateboard crew with a mixture of Girl and Chocolate skaters. While the true members of the Trunk Boyz is a little hazy, the main five consist of Raven Tershy, Vincent Alvarez, Stevie Perez, Elijah Berle and Cory Kennedy. They skate everything. Look them up, there's a really cool Double Rock video of a few of them. They even have their own theme song! So the skating was great, but what about the film itself? It was very artfully filmed, full of great lighting and angles and it made the skating seem very graceful and elegant. There were some really cool special effects that were very realistic and some that were cool but subtle enough not to distract you. A lot of the best special effects are in the opening sequence, an epic montage of slow motion (not like fully flared though, this was a mixture between slow motion and fast motion), reversing, flames, epic music and multiplying skateboards. The music was a very scattered mix of genres from thrashing punk, to indie, to rap, to rock n roll to soul. Granted, you will dislike some of the music, but there are some very good songs. If you don't like the music the skating is still very good and it makes it not so bad. There may have been a bit of an overdose on slow motion but not intolerably. All in all, this movie is definitely what it's hyped up to be. It will grow on you more and more every single time you watch it.
... View MorePretty Sweet is the new movie from Girl and Chocolate skateboards. First up, I like it, but it's not mind blowing. A solid 8 out of ten. Pretty Sweet comes after the likes of other Girl(ish) skate films like Yeah Right and more recently Lakai's Fully Flared. My general issue with the film is lack of big bangers, the central focus of this film is on flip in flip out ledges or multi trick ledges which some people call curb dancing and while that is really cool and impressive, I think we all know people love to see BIG stairs, gaps and rails. I'm not saying there are no big tricks in it, it's just not the focus. The music has good moments and not so good moments; overall it's kinda serious which is at odds with Girls image, I'm willing to say that's entirely personal choice on my part though. But in some sections near the beginning they have thrashin fast music and they have edited the footage thrashin and fast too, which means trick trick trick, fast as anything. It was just too much for me to handle, I just couldn't keep up or appreciate the aesthetics of the skating. My next little qualm was the style of filming when the camera is moving, not really a tracking shot, it kind of swoops in, if you've seen fully flared you'll know what I'm talking about. For me it's a style that really suits the super slow mo tricks and should be used conservatively to have more emphasis when it's being used. Fully Flared used it well but Pretty Sweet had too much. I love it guys but it's too much of a good thing. Not enough huge terrain, hit and miss music, fast editing and too much movement of the camera are all a little bit annoying but at the end of the day it doesn't matter when you're watching some of the coolest skaters in the world. The old guys like Koston, Carrol, Beibel and McCrank are still keeping themselves busy with little parts while Marc Johnson is back with more awesome and Guy Mariano gets the final section cause he's been killing it. But Pretty Sweet has a bigger focus on the younger generation and they are ripping it, Corey Kennedy and Sean Malto are my personal favourites. On top of the super sweet line-up this is a Girl video after all so you can expect more special effects and silly shenanigans as well as two comical cameos which are always good to make a movie more entertaining. Lots of tech and good times permeate this video, some recurring themes are ollieing out of anything, 270's out and boardslides on rails you need to pop out of. How can you argue with that? This is a really good movie, but CAUTION you will need to watch it in HD or else you won't realize how good these guys are.
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