Documentary

Many seem to rule surfing out of hand as some sort of pastime for burnouts, potheads, or life’s free spirits. But Bruce Brown helped shine a light onto the sport with his release of 1966’s The Endless Summer, a landmark release that still is highly revered by people to this day for the revolutionary photography and its ability to capture the awesome feats of nature. And where some studios put out near-annual sequels, Brown waited 28 years to get his done, appropriately titled The Endless Summer II, repr...sing many more of the stunning visuals and amazing camera shots from the first. Bruce’s son Dana picks up from that film, and produces another film similar in style and substance to the first, although with a more hippie-ish title in Step Into Liquid.

The movie is about, well, surfing. There’s not too much more than that. Both in the Endless Summer II and Step Into Liquid films, Bruce and Dana combine the trademark Brown visuals with the usual “betcha didn’t know they surfed here” locations ranging from Galveston, Texas to Vietnam, shooting holes of truth through Robert Duvall’s immortal quote in Apocalypse Now, that Charlie does surf after all. The movie also shows you some of the current names of surfing, from ex-Baywatch actor (and multiple World surfing champ) Kelly Slater, to longtime big wave seeker Laird Hamilton. And the other main parts of substance have to do with the simple passion that some surfers have (like Dale Webster, who have caught waves once a day for over 10,000 days) or the joy that new people have when introduced to surfing for the first time (such as a group of Catholic and Protestant children who were united for a lesson). The movie culminates with a desire to catch waves in the Pacific, some of them reaching over 60 feet in height. At the end of the day though, the movie is about surfing, plain and simple, and the fascinating pictures nature can give us.