Robert Brink - Writer

Flick: Strange World

January 7, 2010 | Skip To The Comments (0)

Flick: Strange World
Words: Rob Brink
The Skateboard Mag, February 2009

Despite the fairly common “I’m so cool and I don’t give a fuck” exterior and attitude of skateboarders these days—many of them, believe it or not, frequently get just as warm and fuzzy and sensitive and sappy as your mom, grandma, great aunt or girlfriend do.
For skateboarders, though, it takes something a little different than say, a dozen roses, pictures of you as a baby with a bowl cut and birthday cake frosting on your face, a box of chocolates, a teddy bear, a moonlit walk on the beach or a platinum-set 5.98-carat oval-cut diamond ring for the butterflies to start twitterpating in their tummies.

The new Zero video, Strange World, is most likely one of those things. But it’s more than the mere existence of the long-awaited flick that’ll have kids across the globe triumphantly jumping out of their seats as if they just witnessed Ivan Drago hitting the mat in Rocky IV or Daniel taking out Johnny with his special crane kick in the finale of The Karate Kid for the first time.

It’s more than Garret Hill’s getting-very-easy-on-the-eyes style. It’s more than promising debuts from Tom Asta, Dane Burman and Jamie Tancowny or Cole’s board-breaking ender. It’s more than Keegan Sauder’s long awaited first pro part or Ben Gilley’s nail-biting handrail attempts. It’s more than the fact that what Strange World showcases is a different and evolving aspect of Zero that many viewers might find unexpected when compared to past Zero productions.

“Well, what the hell is it?” you ask? “Get to the fucking point already!” You say?

Marisa dal Santo. Period.

Skateboarding is a man’s world. There’s just no two ways about it. Doesn’t mean it should stay that way… it just is that way. Every so often, a young lady comes around and blows the roof off things in a non-novelty kind of way.

From the day everyone first saw Welcome to Hell back in the ‘90s, the appeal of Elissa Steamer wasn’t that she was “good for a girl.” It’s that she was just plain good at skateboarding. And thirteen years later with the release of Strange World, the same goes for Marisa—she just fucking rips.

And thank God. Because the world of skateboarding gets a bit bland sometimes. The “diversity” we often wear on our sleeves like a badge of honor gets lost in the shuffle of trends and crazes and conformity and the unwritten laws and rules and protocols of coolness we create for ourselves.

The song doesn’t matter. The place in the video where her part falls doesn’t matter. The tricks don’t matter (but the smith grind tail grab down a rail is pretty damn impressive). What matters is that Marisa’s skating made a whole theater full of hundreds of the toughest critics and most cynical people in the world—i.e.: skateboarders—go sincerely and absolutely ape shit. Congrats, Marisa.