buzzardhut
May 9th, 2005, 10:41 PM
Anyone seen this documentary?
It is about a skater who becomes "born again" yet rapes and kills his ex- fiance's friend. Did he really get saved ot not?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002K10NE/qid=1115691841/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-3496914-9503062?v=glance&s=dvd
Comments about the movie, (not mine):
"Stoked is a fascinating history of Southern California's skateboarding scene in the late 1980s, a profitable and exciting time for then-rising superstars such as Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, and Steve Caballero, but a far darker experience for the much-worshipped Mark "Gator" Rogowski.For a time, the charismatic, handsome Gator became a wealthy sports celebrity in search of greater pop-star status.
When the skating scene shifted from the half-pipe to the street, however,Rogowski's fortunes, sanity, and freedom tragically erode. Stickler's thorough research, smart pacing, and extensive
interviews make this a compelling, cautionary tale; a jailhouse phone interview with the now-mid-30s Gator proves both enlightening and spooky. Broke and depressed, he went into a tailspin and "Stoked" follows his sad decline all the way to prison. Despite his cocky demeanor, Rogowski initially comes off as a likeable guy, which makes the mind-boggling crime he eventually committed all the more horrifying. While we've heard similar stories, the intensity of Rogowski's personal demons combined with the sudden skateboarding industry boom makes this story stand out. His battles with his professional image, alcoholism, and childhood traumas short-circuit him, and he desperately grasps onto an extreme school of Christianity to grab a balance. The end result of his born-again stance seems to have done more harm than good, as people in his church told him his problems were purely Satan's doing, and discouraged him from seeking counseling. Sadly, his depression and rage toward his ex-fiance results in him taking the life of an innocent woman who had just befriended him. On another note, I also feel that Jessica would not have died if it had not been for Brandi. She seemed so pathetic,self-involved, self-centered, unsupportive and unempathetic. He was so needy and vulnerable, I think that was the final crush for him, when she blatantly left him and flaunted her new "hot surfer guy" to him. That is just cruel to do to someone who is hurting. I think that rejection along with everything else was what made him break. These ragefull and painfull issues mixed with his bi-polar and manic depression led him down a path to the darkest places a soul can know. He turned himself in and has expressed nothing but deep remorse ever since. My point is not that it justifies what he did, but that it was not his true self. It was the extremeness of his situation. I think it is sad, because I honestly feel that if he got the help he needed and had people who genuinly cared for him and looked out for his best interest, this would have never happened. He could live a free life and Jessica wouldn't have had to be the victim of his outlet of hurt and rage"
"Though there is no doubt that Rogowski often made foolish personal and business decisions during the peak years of his fame, there were also repeated signs that he was greatly in need of several kinds of professional help, as well as the firm guidance of a dedicated, selfless, and financially disinterested mentor. Nothing underscores this more than an incident which took place in Germany in 1990, when Rogowski, apparently in a drunken stupor, leapt from the top of a "construction crane" and landed on a fence, severely lacerating himself; the next morning, awakening in a hospital bandaged, drugged, and sutured, he had no memory of his desperate action, which was suicidal, whether consciously so or otherwise. If this event precipitated an intervention by employers, friends, or family, Stickler does not include the related material in the film; sadly, the incident in Germany is absent from the timeline of pivotal events in Rogowski's life, suggesting that the episode is as little comprehended today as it was in 1990."
"There were other warning signs: famous within the worldwide skateboarding arena as Mark 'Gator' Rogowski, he changed his name to 'Mark Anthony' while at the height of his popularity, and his fervent, potentially desperate, but enduring conversion to fundamentalist Christianity also suggests a crisis of identity--and conscience.The fact that Rogowski turned himself in to authorities of his own volition after the murder, which was simultaneously an act of displacement, a crime of passion, and a eruptive manifestation of a psychotic breakdown, also supports the theory of his fundamental decency. Though California law prevented Stickler from filming Rogowski, he appears in Stoked as a disembodied voice, hauntingly, hypnotically, and grimly discussing the events of his past in an eerily monochromatic tone. At no point does he lay the blame for the events of his life on anyone's shoulders but his own."
It is about a skater who becomes "born again" yet rapes and kills his ex- fiance's friend. Did he really get saved ot not?
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0002K10NE/qid=1115691841/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-3496914-9503062?v=glance&s=dvd
Comments about the movie, (not mine):
"Stoked is a fascinating history of Southern California's skateboarding scene in the late 1980s, a profitable and exciting time for then-rising superstars such as Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, and Steve Caballero, but a far darker experience for the much-worshipped Mark "Gator" Rogowski.For a time, the charismatic, handsome Gator became a wealthy sports celebrity in search of greater pop-star status.
When the skating scene shifted from the half-pipe to the street, however,Rogowski's fortunes, sanity, and freedom tragically erode. Stickler's thorough research, smart pacing, and extensive
interviews make this a compelling, cautionary tale; a jailhouse phone interview with the now-mid-30s Gator proves both enlightening and spooky. Broke and depressed, he went into a tailspin and "Stoked" follows his sad decline all the way to prison. Despite his cocky demeanor, Rogowski initially comes off as a likeable guy, which makes the mind-boggling crime he eventually committed all the more horrifying. While we've heard similar stories, the intensity of Rogowski's personal demons combined with the sudden skateboarding industry boom makes this story stand out. His battles with his professional image, alcoholism, and childhood traumas short-circuit him, and he desperately grasps onto an extreme school of Christianity to grab a balance. The end result of his born-again stance seems to have done more harm than good, as people in his church told him his problems were purely Satan's doing, and discouraged him from seeking counseling. Sadly, his depression and rage toward his ex-fiance results in him taking the life of an innocent woman who had just befriended him. On another note, I also feel that Jessica would not have died if it had not been for Brandi. She seemed so pathetic,self-involved, self-centered, unsupportive and unempathetic. He was so needy and vulnerable, I think that was the final crush for him, when she blatantly left him and flaunted her new "hot surfer guy" to him. That is just cruel to do to someone who is hurting. I think that rejection along with everything else was what made him break. These ragefull and painfull issues mixed with his bi-polar and manic depression led him down a path to the darkest places a soul can know. He turned himself in and has expressed nothing but deep remorse ever since. My point is not that it justifies what he did, but that it was not his true self. It was the extremeness of his situation. I think it is sad, because I honestly feel that if he got the help he needed and had people who genuinly cared for him and looked out for his best interest, this would have never happened. He could live a free life and Jessica wouldn't have had to be the victim of his outlet of hurt and rage"
"Though there is no doubt that Rogowski often made foolish personal and business decisions during the peak years of his fame, there were also repeated signs that he was greatly in need of several kinds of professional help, as well as the firm guidance of a dedicated, selfless, and financially disinterested mentor. Nothing underscores this more than an incident which took place in Germany in 1990, when Rogowski, apparently in a drunken stupor, leapt from the top of a "construction crane" and landed on a fence, severely lacerating himself; the next morning, awakening in a hospital bandaged, drugged, and sutured, he had no memory of his desperate action, which was suicidal, whether consciously so or otherwise. If this event precipitated an intervention by employers, friends, or family, Stickler does not include the related material in the film; sadly, the incident in Germany is absent from the timeline of pivotal events in Rogowski's life, suggesting that the episode is as little comprehended today as it was in 1990."
"There were other warning signs: famous within the worldwide skateboarding arena as Mark 'Gator' Rogowski, he changed his name to 'Mark Anthony' while at the height of his popularity, and his fervent, potentially desperate, but enduring conversion to fundamentalist Christianity also suggests a crisis of identity--and conscience.The fact that Rogowski turned himself in to authorities of his own volition after the murder, which was simultaneously an act of displacement, a crime of passion, and a eruptive manifestation of a psychotic breakdown, also supports the theory of his fundamental decency. Though California law prevented Stickler from filming Rogowski, he appears in Stoked as a disembodied voice, hauntingly, hypnotically, and grimly discussing the events of his past in an eerily monochromatic tone. At no point does he lay the blame for the events of his life on anyone's shoulders but his own."