Doug Pray Movies

Doug Pray's entertaining and opinionated documentary on the Seattle music scene takes the (admittedly unusual) position that the Grunge Explosion of the mid-1990s was the worst thing to happen to rock music in the Pacific Northwest. Hype! depicts Seattle as a town where a fertile musical community with a distinctive sound and style grew largely because it was ignored by the rest of the world. Once the unexpected success of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden made Seattle the rock capital of the world, drugs took hold, opportunists scrambled for the spotlight, and cheap flannel shirts became "grunge fashion." The movie features revealing (and often hilarious) interviews with members of such groups as Mudhoney, the Mono Men, the Fastbacks, Seven Year Bitch, Tad, Girl Trouble, Gas Huffer, Dead Moon, and the Supersuckers, as well as performance footage of all these bands and informed perspectives from a number of behind-the-scenes figures. It also features a technically shaky but historically priceless clip of Nirvana's first public performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit". ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The time of the DJ is upon us, and in an era where one man and a turntable can get an arena full of people on their feet as easily as a four-man band, director Doug Pray captures a historical concert featuring live performances by some of the hottest DJs on the scene. Filmed during the historic Scratch Tour, Scratch: All the Way Live features killer performances by Mix Master Mike, X-ecutioners, Z-Trip, The Original DJ Jazzy Jay, and Shepard Fairey that just go to show there's much more to being a DJ than putting a record on a turntable. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

As far as raw eccentricity is concerned, few American families could top the Paskowitzes. The patriarch, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, began life on a commendable, even enviable course, with an M.D. under his arm, rippling sandy-haired good looks, and experience almost single-handedly teaching the country of Israel how to surf. But in the years to follow, bitterness and inveterate disappointment ensued as Dr. Paskowitz tried to settle into a conventional existence. Two broken marriages and a medical career that Dorian would later describe as "miserable" left him clawing his way out, desperate for an "alternative" lifestyle. He soon met, courted, and married his third wife, a ravishing, sexy young woman named Juliette; these two free spirits jointly decided that they would live life, budding family in-tow, on the open road, in a series of low-budget trailers. As one child after another cropped up over the course of a decade, the family toured the country winning one surfing competition after another, and Dr. Paskowitz accepted low-rent medical jobs for the poor that reeled in little to no income.

In theory, this all seemed idealistic, even utopian; in reality, Dorian Paskowitz was reportedly a severe disciplinarian who denied his children the benefits of school and financial security, forced everyone to stick to an almost unbearable diet of a gruel-like substance, and -- even more alarmingly -- felt comfortable having open and noisy sex with his wife, with the children only a few feet away. In time, as one child after another grew up, left the clan, and attempted to survive, they found it difficult, if not impossible to function in the day-to-day world without the education, social skills, and monetary know-how that so many young adults take for granted. With his documentary Surfwise, filmmaker Doug Pray tells the Paskowitzes' strange, bewildering, and ultimately heartbreaking story via incisive interviews with family members, still photographs, and telling archival footage. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide