Stylemasters

Stylemasters is the Roger Clinton to Bustin’ Down the Door‘s Bill Clinton.  Still on my 70s kick after Bustin’ Down the Door, Pipeline Masters and my recent day of awesome, memorable waves on the Spherical Revolver, I saw that Stylemasters was on Fuel TV the other day and gave it a watch.

At the beginning of the film there’s a slide with text reading that the 70s on the North Shore were an evolutionary time for surfing – which is true.  And for a few minutes the movie treats you to the sweet stylings of Gerry Lopez.  But then the movie launches into 30 or more minutes of bland, uninspired surfing – guys on 70s boards that were designed only to hold the line; guys that were letting the wave take them for a ride rather than riding the wave. (Not, saying that surfing the North Shore is easy, but all North Shore surfing is not worth documenting either.)

The film is commentated/narrated a la Endless Summer by two dudes who are sometimes talking to each other and sometime talking to the audience, but rarely adding anything of value.  The narration was almost like two stoners watching the movie and recording themselves.

The surfing does get awesome at the end with some rides from Bertlemann, MR, Shaun Tomson, Rabbit Bartholomew.  But the finale is a surfing sequence of a dude named Buttons Kaluhiokalani who is pioneering 360s.  Buttons actually was pretty impressive.  I wonder what happened to that guy.

But the absolute best part about the movie is the soundtrack. The whole thing is this extended electrojazzadelic 70s jam by a band called Bluebird. Again have to I wonder what happened to Bluebird.

Stylemasters is to Endless Summer what Buck Rogers is to Star Wars.  Both are super fun to watch, but one is fun to watch because it is awesome and brilliant whereas the other is hilarious.

[youtube width=”570″ height=”440″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EK2ciUMSeo[/youtube]