Movie Review: Fruit of the Vine

Fruit of the Vine

A Super 8 Film by Coam Nichols & Rick Charmoski

Approx. 50 Min.

(out of 5)

What Am I Doing With This Movie
I did a favor for a friend who had a film released by Plexifilm, so he gave me a few Plexifilm DVD’s to repay me, and this was one of them.

What I Know About Skating
I don’t know very much about skating. Most of what I do know about it, I learned from the first few Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games— which is to say I know names of tricks and well-known skaters, as well as what they’d look like rendered in polygons. Everything else I know is pretty much common knowledge: Tony Hawk did a ‘900’, Stacy Peralta discovered some skaters in ‘Dogtown’, the black stuff is called grip tape, etc. Now you know where I’m coming from.

What I Learned From This Movie
There are a lot of abandoned or unkempt pools in southern California in poor neighborhoods that used to be white middle class neighborhoods. Skaters sneak onto these properties, clean up the pools, and skate in them. Sometimes they don’t get caught, sometimes the owners or police get angry at the skaters, and a few times the owners are cool with them skating in the pool, because they’re polite and clean up the pool.

What’s Cool About This Movie
There’s a lot of good Super 8 footage of pool skating, and it’s a decent slice of life.

What This Movie Lacks
It’d be nice to know more about the dudes you’re watching skating, but you learn basically nothing about them. Also, it drags in parts, and could have been fleshed out a bit more. I’m assuming they were just doing what they could with the footage they had, but the pace is off. Feels unfinished. I don’t really feel any pull to watch it ever again, and if I did, I’d probably just put it on for vibe.

What Else
The catalog number is 002, so I’m assuming this is the second Plexifilm release.
They use the font Impact a lot in this movie.
Watching a skater skate a fish pond is funny.