Review: Blacklist DVD
from Sidewayz Films
Date: 12/16/03
Author: Christopher Stack
Related Items:
WakeWorld Video Guide: Blacklist
Review: Delta Sessions
The Film
Fly up to Lake Powell, load up a couple of houseboats with video games, food for a multitude, camera equipment, building materials, thirteen of the top wake-tamers from the old school and new, tie up two wakeboard boats behind it all and set off into the sunset for a week...and what do you have? Blacklist, the latest serving from those masters of wakeboard montage, Ronn Seidenglanz and Justin Stephens. If you've seen any of their recent films, forget what you know. This isn't anything like that.
The first thing you notice about the Blacklist DVD when you pop it in is the absence of a chapters menu, which is a clue as to how the filmmakers constructed this film. At 25 minutes long, of which roughly 12 minutes are lifestyle, Powell scenery, interviews and apparatus-building footage, the idea of this film seems to be more of a Real World meets Road Trip video journal. The chapters are there (you can jump forward or backwards during the film to predetermined sections - 11 in all), but the film seems designed to be ingested as a whole. Joey Meddock's editing smoothly flows from interview to construction footage to riding. Except for one five-minute long section (chapter 10), there are no extended riding scenes. Everything is a mixed bag of lifestyle, riding and interviews. Chapter 10 is the only thing that resembles the traditional uncut music-and-riding montage that you normally see in a wakeboard film.
The filming is, of course, excellent, as one would expect from a film by Seidenglanz and Stephens. Most tricks are captured from at least two angles and there's plenty of variety, with rider follow shots, long distance shooting from the shoreline, cameras mounted on rails and the like. There is one angle seen in previous Seidenglanz and Stephens' films that you won't find in Blacklist. They brought a lot of toys on the trip, but a helicopter wasn't one of them. Truth be told, it isn't really missed, especially with so much sliding.
The Riding
Yes, at least half the film is non-riding frames, but the riding that is in the film is excellent with a healthy dose of wakeskating as well as boarding. It's done by some of the best in the business.
The most explosive riding (and clocking in with the most time), belongs to Randy Harris. Randy has his own short section (about 1:30), and is also in heavy rotation in the main riding section. If you've never seen Randy ride, it's a treat. He goes huge with double-grabbed spins landing out into the flats.
 After that though, there isn't much new in the freeriding. All the riders perform their usual tricks (Watson's ole 5/backroll-to-revert, Necrason's double-grabbed 180's, etc.), but despite all the claims made in the interviews of everyone pushing themselves harder because of their peers, the results don't really show on screen.
So apart from its make-up, what is different about this film? Two things: Lake Powell and the sliding.
Lake Powell
Lake Powell is a natural wonder and you see plenty of it. Many of the session shots were purposefully framed to show the magnificent backdrop everyone was riding against. Powell is almost another character in this film, sometimes towering over the riders or darkening the sky, at other times content to languish in the background, creating a perfect canvas for the riders to paint their magic on.
The Sliders
A good 25-ft expanse separated a small side fill from the main lake. The land gap is bridged twice, once by a smaller simpler rail - mostly for the wakeskaters to hit, and then later with the larger step-down seen here. Both provide for lots of entertaining mud baths as bodies fly off in every conceivable direction. As usual, Parks absolutely kills it. As Byerly so eloquently comments in an interview section, "Parks f**ked that thing up, so I don't think anything else needed to be done after he went."
The gap isn't the only railing going on though. There's plenty of slide action on various objects, including, but not limited to, the side of the houseboat (both day and night), houseboat water-slide starts and a smaller rainbow rail set up in shallow water and sessioned with PWC drive-bys.
The Extras
The extras section is both huge and slight. Huge because there are a full fifteen sections here, but slight because only three are related to the film and their total time adds up to a whopping 11.5 minutes. All the others sections are trailers for films from Sidewayz Productions.
The three sections break down as follows:
Random (0:55) - with music, lifestyle and riding mix
Dive Team (1:20) - no music, extended footage of the diving off the houseboat
Ride Along (9:27) - no music, mostly riding; some repeats with extended footage
Although the Ride Along section has some repeated footage, it's usually shots you didn't see fully in the main film which are included here in all their glory. The camera work is a bit rougher, with shots included that are darker or more shaky the usual. But watching the pros ride without a soundtrack, paired only with the ambient noise of the wind and the cheers of the onlookers, is a refreshing change.
I'm not sure why they bothered separating out the Random section. The footage here could have easily either been thrown into either the main film or the Ride Along section.
The Music
The music is mostly instrumental and mellow with two more-agro tunes providing the accompaniment during most of the actual riding. Given all the lifestyle footage, much of the music seems laid in just as background sounds. I did like the chapter 10 instrumental which covers the main riding section. It's a rhythmic rock piece that does the images justice.
The Conclusion
Beautiful scenery, excellent footage, fun antics and a ton of top-tier wake riders. We've come to expect quality films from these guys (both those behind and in front of the cameras) and they deliver. The filmmakers capture the laid-back energy and vibe of what for any of us would be an epic week on a lake wakeboarding.
Blacklist does have one drawback. It's just too damn short. It seems to be the pattern with many wakeboarding films these days that they run less than even 30 minutes. As a consumer myself without a lot of extra bling to spend on pretty silver discs, shelling out almost thirty dead presidents for entertainment that runs an hour and a half less than a Hollywood film I could buy for half the price at Best Buy is a hard pill to swallow. Kick in the fact that out of the 25 minutes of the main film, only 13 of those are dedicated to riding, 2:30 of which is the open credit sequence (one trick per rider), and another 1:30 is one featured rider (Harris). That leaves only 9 minutes of actual riding time split between all the other marquee names on this trip. It hardly seems fair.
And it may bother some, but I'm going to say it anyway. I feel it's irresponsible to show riders doing their thing without a vest. Judging from the footage, Horrell didn't wear a vest the entire trip and numerous others soared over the land gap sans protection. You can argue that it was shallow water and not really required, but the only shots of Byerly hitting it were with a vest on. Regardless, it just seems to be an unnecessary flaunting of the rules. These guys are badass. We don't need to see them riding vest-less to prove it.
Overall, if you watch it in one sitting, the film leaves you with the impression that you just saw a 25-minute behind-the-scenes trailer for a really kick-ass film. It's just hard to believe you could go to Powell for that long with that many great riders and that much equipment and not have more to show for it. Perhaps there's a part II in the making.
But if you want to know what it's like to live the pro-life, kickin' it on a houseboat on Lake Powell for a week with a grip of your best buddies doing nothing but jibbing anything and everything you can find and burning gas like no tomorrow, then this is definitely one for your shelf.
The Chapters
Chapter 1 (0:00 - 2:28): Opening montage, lifestyle and setup
Chapter 2 (2:28 - 4:20): Rider credits, one trick from each
Chapter 3 (4:20 - 6:48): Lifestyle/interviews
Chapter 4 (6:48 - 9:40): Land-gap step-down rail, freeriding, about 30 secs of
lifestyle
Chapter 5 (9:40 - 12:50): Lifestyle/interviews
Chapter 6 (12:50 - 13:19): Randy Harris
Chapter 7 (13:19 - 14:02): Lifestyle
Chapter 8 (14:02 - 15:14): Randy
Chapter 9 (15:14 - 17:50): Interviews, lifestyle, Chad Sharpe's double-up 7 attempts, a few
seconds of land gapping
Chapter 10 (17:50 - 24:35): Main riding section
Chapter 11 (24:35 - 25:40): Interviews, lifestyle, close out
To review this video yourself, see other reviews or get more information like music listings, rider listings, video clip and retailers where you can buy, check out Blacklist in our Video Buyers Guide.
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