"Director: Stacy Peralta"

• Crips and Bloods: Made in America | DVD | (17/05/2010) from £12.65   |  Saving you £2.34 (18.50%)   |  RRP £14.99

  From the genesis of LA's gang culture to the shocking war-zone reality of daily life in the South L.A. the film chronicles the rise of the Crips and Bloods tracing the origins of their bloody four-decade-long feud. Contemporary and former gang members offer their street-level testimony that provides the film with a stark portrait of modern-day gang life: the turf wars and territorialism the inter-gang hierarchy and family structure the rules of behavior the culture of guns death and dishonor.

• Riding Giants | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £5.90   |  Saving you £14.09 (238.81%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Riding Giants is more than another blissful surfing movie. It's an outstanding documentary about one era in American alternative lifestyles, when surfing was well-suited to a radical culture of social dropouts. Using an amazing array of amateur film clips, shot for the most part in Hawaii and California from the late 1950s and early '60s, director Stacy Peralta traces the rise of surfing's appeal to young men looking to test themselves in an unorthodox (and sexy) milieu--of "living life to the fullest," as former surfer-turned-screenwriter John Milius (Big Wednesday) puts it at one point. Lengthy chapters on the glories of Oahu's Makaha and the "superstition and dread" that accompanied the big-wave challenge of Waimea Bay are riveting and sometimes heroic, particularly told through the memories of surf legend Greg Noll. Great material, too, about the deadly wonders of surfing Mavericks, California, where the rocks will get one if the violent tides don't. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Dogtown and Z-Boys | DVD | (13/01/2003) from £14.44   |  Saving you £2.55 (17.66%)   |  RRP £16.99

  The awe-inspiring moves street smarts and attitudes demonstrated in 'Dogtown And Z-Boys' are widely regarded as having a significant influence on contemporary American pop culture. Narrated by Sean Penn Dogtown and Z-Boys is a truly genre defining documentary film which has picked up an array of high profile film awards including the Best Director and Audience Award's at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

• Riding Giants / Dogtown And Z-Boys | DVD | (22/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Riding Giants: A documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Stacy Peralta that details the origins and history of surf culture. There is no way of telling the story of big wave riding without telling the story of surfing itself a sport that has become one of the world's most potent symbols of youth adventure and freedom. At the heart of 'Riding Giants' are the funny spirited often poignant and dramatic stories told by past and present surfers. Yet in telling comes a picture of not only these extraordinary characters but authentic insight into the birth development and ultimately the global appeal of the romantic culturally significant surfing lifestyle itself... Dogtown And Z-Boys: The awe-inspiring moves street smarts and attitudes demonstrated in 'Dogtown And Z-Boys' are widely regarded as having a significant influence on contemporary American pop culture. Narrated by Sean Penn Dogtown and Z-Boys is a truly genre defining documentary film which has picked up an array of high profile film awards including the Best Director and Audience Award's at the Sundance Film Festival and the Best Documentary Award at the Independent Spirit Awards.

• Dogtown & Z-Boys | Blu Ray | (05/01/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.58

  In the early 1970s, a group of young surfers from a tough neighbourhood south of Santa Monica took up skateboards and off-handedly changed the world. At least it appears so after watching Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary about how twelve "Z-Boys" (including one girl) resuscitated a dead sport and created a lifestyle that spread infectiously to become a worldwide counterculture phenomenon, namely high-flying "vert" (i.e. vertical) skateboarding and punk rock abandon. Director Stacy Peralta, one of the original Z-Boys, and Craig Steyck, the photographer whose publicity first made them famous, would have you believe that with empty pools as their springboard, the clan single-handedly carved a niche that grew into what is now referred to as "extreme sports" (snowboarding seems particularly implicated). Degrees of accuracy aside, the hoard of original footage Peralta and Steyck have access to makes for an engaging portrait of "accidental revolutionaries" whose mythology as expressed by themselves (all but one of the original crew give extensive interviews) and those they influenced (including Henry Rollins, Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, and Sean Penn, who narrates) is far more entertaining than any evenhanded version could ever hope to be. --Fionn Meade

• The Search For Animal Chin | DVD | (25/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Featuring the Bones Brigade Troupe the Skating group that dominated the skate scene in the early 80's.

• Riding Giants | DVD | (07/07/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Documentary detailing the origins and history of surf culture.