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In Search of the Ugly Side of Surfing
09.02.03by: Alyssa Roenigk EXPN.com Step Into Liquid, Artisan Entertainment, Directed by Dana Brown Before we left the office, we pulled up a few online reviews. Of course, we wanted to form our own opinion of the film, but the journalist in us was interested to see what our peers had to say. No two reviews are ever the same, and seldom do the authors of these opinions agree on anything. But as we read, we realized this movie is the exception. In 10 reviews, we counted 14 amazings, 10 stunnings, 11 breathtakings, seven beautifuls and one jawdropping. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone penned a review so filled with adjectives, it makes the Thesaurus look obsolete. "For starters," he writes, "it's drop-dead dazzlingly knockout beautiful." He left out "amazingly stunning". The common thread in every review — glowing or not — was the film's unquestionable beauty. But we thought we'd provide you, our reader, with something more substantial. They brought you the beautiful. We tracked down the ugly.
Ugly: The near-zero water temperatures, and most of the Irish people captured on film. Beautiful: Australian surfer Taj Burrow's mastery of wave riding. "The amazingly micromanaged zigzag virtuosity of young Australian hotshot Taj Burrow," writes Ed Halter of the Village Voice. Now, that's a beautiful sentence. Ugly: Because of Taj's creativity and cutting-edge style, the ASP judges have no clue how to judge him against the likes of more traditional guys like Kelly Slater and Andy Irons. Beautiful: The dream of one day surfing 100-foot-plus waves made possible by foil surfing. Ugly: The thought of going over the falls with your board and a metal foil strapped to your feet using snowboard boots and bindings. And a surfer in boots just looks kinda goofy. Beautiful: The wave created in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas shoreline, by traveling supertankers. A wave hungry group of men chase the tankers, surfing in its wake for up to two miles. Ugly: The supertankers. We bet Dana Brown thought himself silly trying to get around including a shot of the boats in his up-to-this-point aesthetically perfect film. Beautiful: Lake Michigan on a windswept day. It may not produce the biggest, glassiest or warmest waves, but it brings the biggest smiles to locals starved for anything to surf. Ugly: The middle-aged, overweight, pasty-white group of men who gather to surf the lake on windy Wisconsin days. Beautiful: The amazing consistency of the perfectly-shaped left produced at Teahupoo in Tahiti. Ugly: The sharp teeth of the coral reef awaiting you underneath the surface of the water. Wipe out here, and better make sure the first-aid kit is stocked. Beautiful: Towing your friend into a humongous wave at Jaws, on the north shore of Oahu, and watching him surf it all the way in. Ugly: Towing your friend into a wave at Jaws, watching him wipe out and gritting your teeth as you wait for him to resurface. Bonus ugliness: wipe out at Jaws, and if your buddy on the jet ski doesn't get to you in time, a nasty fate of volcano rock awaits you. Beautiful: One man, depicted in the film, has dedicated his life to surfing every day for 10,000 days. So far, he's at 9,000 plus in 27 straight years. His dedication is a beautiful thing. Ugly: The difficulties he faces because of his obsession. Sick, tired, sore or hurt, he surfs. It obviously places ugly strains on his family life and career. Beautiful: The final segment of the film, shot on the Cortez Bank, 100 miles off the coast of San Diego, where Mike Parsons drops in on a 66-foot wave. Amazing may be a better word. Ugly: The thought of Parsons not successfully riding out that wave, or the thought of having to rescue him. See Jaws, above. For movie times and locations, check out www.stepintoliquid.com. 
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