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Surfwise Reviews
| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 17, 2011
| Original Score: A- | Sep 7, 2011
The fallout decades later provides the drama in this documentary by Doug Pray, who lets his eccentric octogenarian subject off a little too easy.
| Dec 17, 2008
A provocative documentary about a man who dropped out to follow a dream that gradually evolved into something not unlike a nightmare.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2008
Not just the story of one man's obsessive quest to find harmony on a plank of wood, Surfwise offers a cautionary tale about parenting, homeschooling (camper-schooling, actually), sibling rivalries and family sacrifice.
| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 26, 2008
The film's director, Doug Pray, has been able to track down each and every Paskowitz child, and he weaves their memories together with old home movies, still photos and news clippings to create an evocative portrait of their lives.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 20, 2008
Some documentarians think like essayists, propagandists, abstract painters, or magazine reporters. Doug Pray approaches his documentaries as though he's writing books.
Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jun 19, 2008
The unorthodox upbringing of the Paskowitz clan is the subject of Surfwise, the story of a family who lived on the road, camped at the beachfront and fashioned its own vanguard version of 1960s-'70s alternative lifestyles.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 19, 2008
There are too many unanswered questions and a suspicious forced happy ending, but Surfwise is still a fascinatingly voyeuristic and emotionally powerful movie.
| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 13, 2008
Having previously dug into Seattle grunge (1996's Hype!) and hip-hop scratch (2001's Scratch), filmmaker Pray continues his subculture-immersion studies in this revealing portrait of Dorian 'Doc' Paskowitz.
| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 6, 2008
It's a complex and conflicted look at a family, torn apart by rifts and yet still bonded by love.
Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 30, 2008
An honest look at a complicated human situation,... it turns out to be a darker film than might be expected.
| Original Score: 3.5/5 | May 23, 2008
The movie feels exhaustive in its loaded 90-something minutes, showing and telling us much while leaving the meaning of the tangles and twists in this family open to interpretation. For once, the tip of the iceberg is enough.
| Original Score: 3/4 | May 23, 2008
A mesmerizingly ambivalent documentary about an itinerant family of Jewish surfer-dude health nuts.
Full Review | May 22, 2008
Surfwise has a bohemian vibe and a cool sheen, but it's an eager-to-please, pleasing commercial enterprise with a reassuring narrative arc.
Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 9, 2008
What kid wouldn't want to spend every day at the beach instead of in school? Well, Doug Pray's absorbing new documentary suggests that no dream is as ideal as it may seem.
| Original Score: 3/5 | May 9, 2008
Surfwise tries to separate itself from the fray of political documentaries by not taking itself too seriously.
| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 9, 2008