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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
75
24 City
66
Adoration
74
Afghan Star
48
Alien Trespass
56
American Violet
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57
Away We Go
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
62
Big Man Japan
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55
Brothers Bloom, The
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx
Call of the Wild
63
Cheri
62
Cherry Blossoms
63
Dead Snow
65
Departures
18
Downloading Nancy
58
Easy Virtue
70
End of the Line, The
77
Every Little Step
64
Examined Life
80
Food, Inc.
38
Gigantic
56
Girl from Monaco, The
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
87
Gomorrah
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Great Buck Howard, The
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx
Home
82
Hunger
91
Hurt Locker, The
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
81
Il Divo
54
Is Anybody There?
71
Jerichow
58
Julia
74
Lemon Tree
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
40
Limits of Control, The
42
Little Ashes
64
Lymelife
50
Management
57
Merry Gentleman, The
66
Moon
35
New York
62
Not Forgotten
xx
Offshore
78
O'Horten
64
Outrage
40
Paris 36
54
Pontypool
71
Pressure Cooker
52
Quiet Chaos
83
Revanche
67
Rudo y Cursi
86
Seraphine
65
Sex Positive
70
Shall We Kiss?
77
Sin Nombre
59
Sleep Dealer
74
Song of Sparrows, The
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
82
Sugar
84
Summer Hours
61
Sunshine Cleaning
28
Surveillance
42
Tennessee
63
Tetro
64
Throw Down Your Heart
80
Tokyo Sonata
63
Tokyo!
70
Tony Manero
74
Treeless Mountain
88
Tulpan
74
Two Lovers
83
Tyson
83
U2 3D
60
Under Our Skin
69
Unmistaken Child
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
22
What Goes Up
45
Whatever Works
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Lords of Dogtown
Sony Pictures Entertainment
FILM:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for drug and alcohol content, sexuality, violence, language and reckless behavior - all involving teens
Starring
Emile Hirsch,
Victor Rasuk,
John Robinson,
Michael Angarano,
Nikki Reed,
Heath Ledger,
Johnny Knoxville,
and
Alexis Arquette
From the dangerous waves off a long-forgotten pier to the concrete wasteland of a city slum, Lords of Dogtown brings to cinematic life the rebel beginnings of some unforgettable sports culture stars. (Sony)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Stacy Peralta
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Catherine Hardwicke
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: September 27, 2005
Theatrical: June 3, 2005
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
107 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / Germany |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Lords of Dogtown is a docudrama, rare in its grit and authenticity, that also strives for the mythical youth-rebel excitement of something like "8 Mile."
80
The New York Times
Dana Stevens
From start to finish, is pretty much a blast.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kevin Thomas
As beautifully structured as one of the Z-Boys' graceful and intricate maneuvers. It is economic yet possesses depth and is visually striking, capturing an idea of what life is like in a very fast lane.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Works best when it seems like it's not working at all.
75
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Hardwicke whips up a frenzy of crazy-cool board action, with Alva choreographing the stunts. Even when the slippery-slope-of-success cliches halt the film's momentum, the ready-to-rock actors rev it up again.
75
USA Today
Mike Clark
The skating scenes are their own reward: It's hard to think of a movie since 1950's "Sunset Boulevard" that has gotten more dramatic impact out of a pool.
75
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
The movie is like a daydream, and it's most infectious when the characters are in motion or misbehaving, which is often.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Peter Hartlaub
Peralta uses the creative liberties of fiction to focus on the one thing he couldn't convey in his historical record -- the sense of tribalism among skateboarders, who live by a code that most law-abiding citizens misunderstand for hooliganism.
75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Though the fiction doesn't quite equal the documentary in razzle-dazzle impact, it's a credible, handsome and engaging entertainment.
70
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
There are times when even a director's worst impulses aren't enough to sink a movie, and somehow Lords of Dogtown stays afloat, largely because many of its actors transcend Hardwicke's heavy-handed storytelling.
70
Newsweek
Devin Gordon
It's one of those juicy stories that have the added virtue of being true.
67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Sean Axmaker
An excellent documentary equal parts extreme sports and social anthropology.
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
The film doesn't hold together in any compelling way.
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
So the questions arises: Why bother watching the contrived fiction when the eye-popping fact is readily available? Answer: Why, indeed.
63
New York Post
Kyle Smith
The story meanders from competition to competition (up the ramps, down the ramps) and seems like it could end at any point. The characters are similarly underdeveloped.
63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Nearly everything fresh and exciting about the 2002 documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" - the story of the Santa Monica-Ocean Park-Venice area misfits who revolutionized skateboarding in the 1970s - becomes studied and secondhand in The Lords of Dogtown.
60
Dallas Observer
Robert Wilonsky
After trying to prove himself a serious actor in deadly dull movies, Ledger lightens up and brightens up a movie that attempts the trick of bringing a new spin to an old story but can't pull off the stunt.
60
The Hollywood Reporter
Frank Scheck
Takes a surprisingly gritty approach that gives the material some gravitas but also robs it of some of its fun.
60
Village Voice
Ed Halter
Hardwicke's pop-Cassavetes melodrama nevertheless rides as smoothly as a big-budget after-school special, capturing youth struggles from an appropriately blown-out teen's-eye perspective.
60
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Nathan Rabin
It's no surprise that when it ultimately tries to pluck at the heartstrings, it rings hollow. The film lives and dies by speed.
60
Empire
Alan Morrison
A hanging-out movie that’s as close as you’ll ever get to soaking up the time, the place and the attitude. Too slack for mainstream audiences, though.
50
Variety
Robert Koehler
It's a wipeout once the pic skids into melodrama and an overly schematic sense of how success tore the group apart.
50
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
Unfortunately, whenever Ledger isn't onscreen, Lords of Dogtown takes a spill.
50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Too much of Lords of Dogtown still feels conventional and sugar-coated.
50
Washington Post
Michael O'Sullivan
Lords of Dogtown isn't a cop-out, but rather an ever-so-slight concession to commercialism.
50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Inept storytelling is one of Lords of Dogtown's great frustrations.
50
Chicago Tribune
Allison Benedikt
The look and feel here is classic Hardwicke: gritty and dark, so as to fool you into thinking this film is serious business.
50
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The new film, superficial and chaotic, delivers a rough sense of place, a reasonable number of skateboard thrills and very little character development or story.
50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Although Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Lords of Dogtown, has a good sense for the period and does what she can with her actors, we've seen the originals, and these aren't the originals.
50
TV Guide
Ken Fox
The skating photography is excellent and, like the documentary's soundtrack, songs from the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Weirdos set the proper mood. But this dramatization does nothing Peralta's documentary didn't do better.
50
Premiere
Kevin Allison
Lords of Dogtown may pop for the skateboarding crowd. It fizzles for the rest.
40
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
If Lords of Dogtown accomplishes nothing else, it shows how hard writing a fiction film can be, and what a vast artistic distance can stand between a bad fiction film and the first-rate documentary that inspired it.
38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
A tormented dramatization of the exact same events, and it's as bad as the earlier film ("Dogtown and Z-Boys") was good.
30
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Excruciatingly narcissistic.
20
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Has all the energy and spontaneity of a bowl of waxed fruit. If watching "Dogtown and Z-Boys" was tantamount to witnessing history itself, watching "Lords of Dogtown," which Peralta wrote, feels more like watching a stiff, meticulously choreographed reenactment.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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