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Volcom presents Football, ShmootballDirector: Troy Eckert Rating: unrated (Parental Advisory: Explicit Language) 25 mins (feature only) Epitaph/Shock The title of this curious little "jockumentary" is rather misleading, for while the DVD revolves around a Californian football team, its focus is on surfing. Every summer, the team in question holiday at the "Volcom House" on the North Shore of Hawaii, and while there, pass much of the time surfing (one of the team members, Bruce Irons, is so good at this, in fact, that he won a prestigious surf competition in 2002, the year this documentary was made). Most of 'Football, Shmootball', therefore, comprises suitably impressive footage of various team members riding the almost-tsunami-like waves that have made Hawaii such a Mecca for surfers. It also features lots of little clips of team members (players and otherwise) talking about what they do at the North Shore when they're not surfing, and generally just goofing off for the camera. The extra features of 'Football, Shmootball' comprise two short, rather insubstantial, features entitled 'The Art of Yogurt' (basically, just an excuse to show a nubile young thing doing a stretching exercise on the beach) and 'How to Survive the North Shore' (a short series of clips, many from the main feature), as well as a considerably longer "shmocumentary". The last thing, which is actually some ten minutes longer than the main feature, is quite humorous, and well worth watching. Shot in 2003, narrated by a character called "Ralph the Fly", and utilising many delightfully amateurish film-making techniques, it depicts a short yet eventful tour various of the players (who come across as a fairly likeable bunch) did of their part of California to promote 'Football, Shmootball': a film version of which they screened, on the side of their rented motor-home, in various supermarket parking lots to crowds of curious onlookers. One major downside with this disc was the menu screen, which I found a real nightmare to use as it didn't seem terribly responsive to my controller; as a consequence, I was often forced to keep mashing the buttons until, due to sheer luck, the selection I wanted finally registered. The brevity of the main feature was also a bit of a let-down, although the aforementioned "shmocumentary" helped compensate for this - when I could finally get it to run, that is! This is really one for the surfing fans out there, but I suppose it will also be of interest to all those people in Volcom T-shirts that I've started noticing about the place ever since I took this home to review.  |
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