Skate Kitchen

[jenkins]

IN THEATERS AUGUST 10

In the first narrative feature from The Wolfpack director Crystal Moselle, Camille, an introverted teenage skateboarder (newcomer Rachelle Vinberg) from Long Island, meets and befriends an all-girl, New York City-based skateboarding crew called Skate Kitchen. She falls in with the in-crowd, has a falling-out with her mother, and falls for a mysterious skateboarder guy (Jaden Smith), but a relationship with him proves to be trickier to navigate than a kickflip. Writer/director Crystal Moselle immersed herself in the lives of the skater girls and worked closely with them, resulting in the film's authenticity, which combines poetic, atmospheric filmmaking and hypnotic skating sequences. SKATE KITCHEN precisely captures the experience of women in male-dominated spaces and tells a story of a girl who learns the importance of camaraderie and self-discovery.

Directed by: Crystal Moselle

it somehow doesn't have a trailer yet. i just heard about this, it's obviously going to slay. here's Jaden Smith putting his hopes and dreams into this, i like Jaden because he supported HeWillNotDivide.Us. also the director is straight up wearing a choker, and i want to take fashion tips from the female lead. this movie will work.



Girls via Kids is what i read from a positive review i forget which one, it only has positive reviews. i don't think it'll alter our concept of narratives but i think it'll feel right and true for its time (now).

[matt35mm]

I seen't it at Sundance. Pretty solid. Nothing mindblowing or new, but enjoyable.

[jenkins]

spoiler: i'll like watching this movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=39&v=iT1izrIxoos

[Something Spanish]

Off the bat, I enjoyed the film; doubly so after having the opposite reaction during Eighth Grade the previous evening. It's a free-wheeling slice of life flick with a prime portion of ladies shredding quite impressively throughout NYC to the grooves of modern hip-hop. Rachelle Vinberg has more than enough charm to retain interest, and that is much needed in a movie very thin on story and cliché flecked with whatever little story there is. The main thing that bothered me, other than some formulaic turns, is Jaden Smith. In a cast populated by novices and newcomers, his presence sticks out like a sore thumb and I could not lend any credibility to his role. He plays an ex-boyfriend to one of the skaters and it's difficult to reconcile what is being said about him to the way he behaves...which is basically like a passive squeak of a kid. On the other hand, I thought the leading lady and her posse made up for these flaws. A lot of time is devoted to ladies skating and that was surprisingly enough to keep me in it. In a way it is a spiritual distant cousin to Kids. That may not be an unfair comparison to make, but when you have handfuls of scenes with a bunch of adolescents in a rundown grimy apartment smoking weed and talking about fucking, it's impossible not to think of Kids (minus the life threatening epidemics). Would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for something different (from the barrage of sequels and IP's, that is).
Another minor problem is it floats around too aimlessly and repetitively during certain sections only to wrap up a thread or two in a forced manner, nonetheless it's slight and enjoyable and the kids are much less annoying than those in Eighth Grade. The opening scene is a lurid attention grabber that had my hopes thinking it would be followed by similarly strong stuff, but this did not come to pass. These young ladies all give naturalistic performances that maintain its realism throughout. Like I said, the only exception would be Jaden, who was the only guy in the movie who could have passed as a Skate Kitchen member.