Video Review - It's About Time (by Gabe Holm) (2010)

It’s About Time (buy it here) is a Northeast Media Group Production brought to the skate community by New England’s own Gabe Holm, an icon in the NE rolling scene and owner of Thuro Skate & Snow in Rhode Island.

The video opens with a stylishly cinematic montage of time-lapse scenic footage of Boston and beyond, before it jumps into the skating. This opening sequence alone sets It’s About Time in a class above most rolling films, which are usually (but not always) rough-cut quick-shot collections of trick clips pasted over music.

Featured skaters are Jeff Dalnas, Andy Leitermann, John Williams, Quinn Feldman, Andrew Smolak, and Winston Wardwell. Also making an appearance in the film are Ryan Strout, Kyle Couture, Ben Price, Craig Nogler, Zach Bozzer, and Scott Campbell. 

Smolak begins the shredding, dropping hammers to G.B.H.’s ‘Boston Babies’ on (and over) everything that you could think of tricking. His gap into the Common from State Street (though not as big as Petty’s gaps in WDYBI) is not one to be taken lightly.

Following that is the first montage of Boston skating, dubbed smartly over the “Where Everybody Knows…” Cheers theme remix, featuring big hits from Tom Ferrante, Mark Wodja, Mo Marzuq, Julio Amiyama, Patrick Collins, John O’Donnell, Brian Long, Dustin Sapenga, Taylor Green, Anthony Chen, Keegan Smith, Benny Strout, and Holm himself..

Leitermann owns the second section, bringing it in with a creative skateboard flip-trick while still wearing his boots, showing boarders out there that not only can booters do what they do, they can do it better. Andy also makes a statement for the bigger skaters out there, spinning and switching his tricks as much as anyone I’ve ever seen, and doing it with ease. Oh, and you can’t miss his little Misty-flip over a parked car or the Front-flip out of a Sweatstance; I’d like to see the Prince throw something like that in his next section…

The second montage flows to the beat of The Perceptionists (Akrobatik and Mr. Lif) “5 O’Clock”, another great song choice in my opinion, and highlights sick tricks from local rollers like Casey Gerraghty, Rob Zajac, Brendon Brown, Hakeem Jimoh, Ferrante, Chen, Eric Torres, Kevin Phan, Ryan Googins, Campbell, Andrew Chiu, Jaime Murrett, Jim Lamarche, Couture, Jimmy Gill, Smith, and Holm. The infamous Colin Kelso even makes a special appearance in this section. Ferrante’s Negative-Kind Grind down a handrail and Holm’s Rough-Makio around a C-ledge are among my favorite tricks of the whole video.

The third profile features Dalnas doing what he does. Jeff throws some of the smoothest grinds in the video, so smooth that he makes them almost look effortless. He doesn’t really drop anything mind-blowing in this section, but everything that he does do he does clean.

The third montage, titled Built to Spill, has a more laid back feel that the first two, bringing you skating from Taylor Green, Chen, Marzuq, Holm, and others. The AO-Negative Mistrial at the 28 minute mark is just another of this films sick tricks. 

John Williams is the fourth featured skater, shredding to Johnny B. Goode. In my opinion, his section is the weakest of the profiles, but that being said he still shows that he has some skills. His sit-down Fish at Weaver High School is about as low as it gets. 

The next montage, I Need More Time, starts with an amusing handrail done right in front of a security guard, which always brings a smile to my face. This one features more skating from B. Strout, Leitermann, Keane, Brandon Ford, Smith, Dalnas, Smolak, O’Donnell, Wardwell, and others. Ford’s Negative-Mizou to Negative-Acid is a sick switch-up down a decent handrail.

The last profile belongs to Wardwell and it really delivers. In one trick he goes from handicap rail to ledge to ledge to ledge with a 180 out; granted they were all frontsides, but it still looked tight. I think this section needs to be longer, to show more of what Winston can do, but I guess you have to work with the footage you end up with.

The final montage, Tomorrow Knows, keeps the good times rolling with skating from Smolak, Gerraghty, Couture, B. Strout, Jon Fromm, Leitermann, Wardwell, Amiyama, Green, Dalnas, Chen, and Smith. Benny Strout’s BS-Royale on a raised fire-escape is a super creative trick with a solid degree of difficulty, and his huge gap from a parking lot over grass into a basketball court (delivered in slow-mo) is also a trick to be respected.

The closing montage gets some more creative angles and fisheye shots of some of the skaters, including Long, Amiyama, Wodja, Fromm, Phan, Marzuq, and Smith. Fromm’s 540 Kind grind down a handrail is nasty and Marzuq’s air over a fence to BS-Royale a bench to air back over the fence caught me by surprise.

Overall this video was everything I was hoping it would be and more. It’s awesome to finally see some of the ledges and rails (and landmarks) that I recognize in a video. I hope more East Coast films follow this one, and with Beast Coast just dropping, I shouldn’t have to wait much longer for that dream to be reality.