Down The Barrel (2008) DVD

Down The Barrel (2008) DVD Breathtaking photography on a large HD screen.  Cool soundtrack and amazing angles, every angle imaginable, I was impressed by the underwater video looking up at surfers and waves above.  I watched this about 15 times before it went back to Netflix.  Also cool that it is so recent for a reason I'll describe.

Opens up with the amazing video and some slow mo.  Narration is very good and it slowly introduces the characters, pro surfers.  Describes their backgrounds a bit, and then we hear from them.  Also gets into a few famous surf spots and why they are good.  Then it all takes a turn and gets deep into the pro tour scene.  Here is where it gets totally different from the first part.  We get deeper into the 2008 pro tour than anyone who isn't totally into surfing walks is done with it.  But still, it is 2 hours, and being that long, any part is good enough for an entire watchable part on it's own.


It does a good job describing the pro tour and right after I saw it for the first time, the Billabong Pro tour in Tahiti was streaming so I knew exactly what was going on and it had the same surfers.  It's a good one and not just about barrels, but plenty of those.  Fast paced, lots of action, great soundtrack.  One time I hit the water after watching it many times and the opening song played in my head!

Shelter (2001) DVD

Shelter (2001) 40 minutes 4:3 image ratio, Super laid back surfing film.  Maybe a little too laid back.  Don't watch this if you're tired at all.  Surfing is high energy, fast, active and Down The Barrel (2007) has that kind of energy, but this has laid back tunes, some quotes, not a constant narration, and a lot of slow motion.  If you put slow mo, laid back music, and no narration, then I get lulled into a little too much relaxation.  Artistic and impressionistic, but the pace never picks up. Great surfing and Rob Machado is def a laid back dude.

One interesting clip was a surfer riding a wide, flat board that looked like a wooden door.  It shows the importance of rocker.  It isn't discussed or described, it's just my own observation.  As the door catches the wave the surfer can't do anything to prevent the board tip from digging in at the bottom of the wave where you would do the first turn and it tumbles over.  Really nice scene of suys helping a surfer surf after losing a leg to cancer.  One thing missing is the content in the film to match the description I read of the film.  That description is not actually in the film anywhere.