Stacy Peralta | Through the Shattered Lens

Brian Kelly (Christian Slater) is a California skater with a rebellious attitude and an adopted Vietnamese brother named Vinh (Art Chudabala). When the movie starts, all Brian cares about is not selling out and finding empty pools to skate. He even hires an airplane to fly him and his friends over Orange County so they can get a bird’s-eye view of the layout. Vinh is more worried about his job with the Vietnamese Anti-Community Relief Fund. The fund has been set up to send medical supplies to Vietnam but, when Vinh comes across a discrepancy in the shipping records, he realizes that something else is going on. When Vinh turns up dead in a hotel room, everyone else may believe that it is suicide but Brian knows that his brother was murdered. With the help of his fellow skaters and a sympathetic cop (Steven Bauer), Brian sets out to bring his brother’s killers to justice.

I was surprised when I watched Gleaming the Cube because it turned out to be much better than I was expecting. The movie is justifiably best known for its skating sequences, which were shot by Stacy Peralta and which featured pro-skaters Mike McGill, Rodney Mullen, and Gator Rogowski doubling for Slater in some of the film’s more spectacular stunts. (Tony Hawk plays one of Slater’s friends.) Slater, himself, learned how to skate for the movie and looks far more comfortable and natural on his board than Josh Brolin did in Thrashin’. Beyond the spectacular skating, Gleaming the Cube is energetically directed and surprisingly well-acted. A pre-stardom Christian Slater gives one of his best and most natural performances as Brian, playing the role without any of the tics or affectations that later came to define his career. Of its type, Gleaming the Cube is a classic.

In the 1980s, Mark “Gator” Rogowski was a superstar. A professional skateboarder, Gator was one of the most popular vert skaters, competing and partying alongside Tony Hawk, Christian Hosoi, Steve Caballero, and Lance Mountain. Yet today, unlike his contemporaries, Gator is almost totally forgotten. In 1991, after having changed his name to Mark Anthony and declared himself to be a born again Christian, Gator raped and killed Jessica Bergstrom, a friend of his ex-girlfriend. Convicted of first degree murder, Gator was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is currently an inmate of the California State Prison System.

Through archival footage and interviews with both his fellow skaters and his ex-girlfriend, Stoked tells the story of Rogowski’s rise and fall. Even if you know nothing about the history of skating, the interviews are interesting and frequently insightful about the fickle nature of fame. Anyone who was not already a fan of Jason Jessee’s will be after seeing him interviewed in Stoked. Because California state law prohibits inmates from giving video interviews, Rogowski is interviewed over the phone and his disembodied voice provides a ghostly accompaniment for much of the film.

Stoked not only tells the story of how Gator ended up in jail but also of how vert skating became big business in the 1980s. At the height of his popularity, Gator was making $20,000 a month, just through board sales and the sponsorship of Vision Street Wear. When street skating became popular in the 90s and a new generation of skaters rejected Vision’s commercial approach, Gator found himself washed up before he even turned 25. By using Gator’s story as a way to examine an entire era, Stoked is to skateboarding what O.J.: Made in America is to football.