Why I hated the movie RAD when it came out

 

Blog post:  Why I hated the movie RAD when it came out

This is Bill Allen, who played Cru Jones in RAD, hanging out at the One Love Jam in early 2020.  I didn't like RAD, when it first came out, but it had nothing to do with Bill or his portrayal of the main character, Cru Jones.  I met Bill last year, and have talked to him a bit this year, and read his book, My RAD Career a couple months ago.  Bill's a cool guy, a talented musician, and his book is well worth the read.  

 On an evening in 1986, I got off from my job at Pizza Hut in San Jose, California, and drove to a nearby movie theater.  The much hyped movie RAD, the first theatrical movie featuring BMX in the U.S., was opening that night.  I paid the fare, and headed into the theater, where about 5 other people were seated.  BMX freestyle was still under the radar of most people then, and there was no big name actor in the leading role.  I didn't care, it was the first time I would see BMX freestyle on a big screen, with Dolby sound, in an actual theater.  Freestyle had been my life for two years at the time, and I was stoked beyond belief to see that movie.  Robert Peterson, a Skyway pro I rode with often at the time, went on the promotional tour for RAD, though he wasn't in it.  

The movie began, and I spent most of it completely bummed out.  The story was just so fucking corny and ridiculous to me.  It was the most basic movie plot in the world, and just seemed nothing like what "real" BMX freestyle was.  As I've mentioned several times, I was a really anal, uptight, dork back then, and took a lot of things way to seriously.  But BMX freestyle was my life.  I wanted this movie to represent this awesome new sport I'd been into for a couple of years, and to show the world how cool it was.  

I had no problem with the actors in the movie, and there was some crazy riding.  That monstrous, near vertical starting hill/wall on Helltrack was insane.  But I felt the movie just made BMX freestyle look like a joke, and I was completely depressed as I walked out of the theater.  The only part I really liked was the credits of the movie.  The opening had R.L. Osborn, Martin Aparijo, Eddie Fiola, Ron Wilkerson, and Brian Blyther, riding quarterpipes, flatland, and even Pipeline Skatepark.  Then the end credits had R.L. and Martin doing flatland at the beach.  But the goofy storyline just made me want to throw up.  Like I said, I took things real seriously back then. 

About the same time, the movie Quicksilver came out, and I also saw that in a theater.  Quicksilver was a bicycle messenger movie, staring Kevin Bacon. There's a scene where a group of bike messengers do tricks on their bikes in an alley.  To every old school freestyler, it's a recognizable jam circle.  The difference is that the guys are all riding road bikes.  Two of the stunt riders, maybe three, are familiar names to most of you.  Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson are in the scene, as is then veteran bike stuntman Pat Romano.  There's also an artistic cyclist in there.  It's over the top, and the other riders watching are cheering a lot, but that scene seemed more like "real freestyle" to me at the time, then anything in RAD, except for the credits.  Both movies came out in 1986, and you can find this Quicksilver scene easily on YouTube.

Years later, working in the TV industry, the notion of "six degrees of separation" morphed into "six degrees of Kevin Bacon."  The idea was that Kevin Bacon had been in so many movies, that you could get to any other actor within six movies, starting with a Kevin Bacon movie and connecting actors.  Like this, Kevin Bacon was in this movie with that guy, who was in this other movie with that actress, who was in another movie with this actor, and so on...  So people, up-and-coming actors, and even some crew people, would figure out how many actors it took to get from themselves to Kevin Bacon.  That was known as your "Bacon Number," and the lower your number, the cooler you were in the entertainment industry.   I'm serious, people would sit around on set, or at bars drinking after work, trying to impress each other with their Bacon Number.

Now since Martin Aparijo and Woody Itson were in Quicksilver, AND they were both in my 1990 bike video, The Ultimate Weekend,  (Woody- 23:51, Martin- 29:38, and Me at 27:33) and I was riding in my video,  I had a Bacon Number of 2.  Kevin Bacon to Woody or Martin, and then those two to me.  Two degrees of separation.  More than once I saw actors and actresses on a set, in the early 90's, or in a bar after work, with Bacon Numbers of 3 to 5, joking and talking smack with each other.  Then I'd chime in, a lowly crew guy, and say, "My Bacon Number is 2," and watch jaws drop.  Then I'd explain it.  Ridiculous, but funny after a few beers. 

As the years passed, and I watched other action sports movies, I realized that Hollywood fucks up any new thing it makes a movie about.  There's the "hardcore skate" movie Thrashin', Wizard Pubs editorial guys Gork, Lew, and I saw this at the drive-in.  Remember drive-ins?  Thrashin's saving graces were that the Daggers gang included Christian Hosoi and a handful of top skaters, and some funk/punk band called the Red Hot Chili Peppers played in it.

But the granddaddy of all stupidity in the 1980's action sports movie world was Gleaming the Cube.  Because, you know, "gleaming the cube" was a hardcore skate term then.  At least that's what the producers and directors thought.  This stupid movie did throw out the idea of using an airplane to find empty pools to skate.  Of course, no skater, even Tony Hawk, who's in the movie, could afford to rent a plane and pilot back then.  But it was a good idea to find empty pools back then, before drones were a thing.

In the mix, and actually my favorite of the BMX & skate movies, was this weird Australian BMX movie that used to play on HBO all the time around 1987.  That was, of course, BMX Bandits.  That movie was a little less hokie, and had some cute redhead chick we'd never heard of, named Nicole Kidman, in her first starring role.  That movie, though shot three or four years earlier, seemed like sort of, kind of, almost, the kind of trouble a BMXer could, possibly, actually get into.  But not quite.  It was rare to see any movie made in Australia then, so we never expected to see those actors again.  

Much to my surprise, I went to see some random movie a couple of years after watching BMX Bandits on HBO a bunch of times, and I saw a sexy scene with a hot redhead.  The teen girl in BMX Bandits had not only grown into a complete knockout, but she was an incredible actress as well.  That movie, Dead Calm is a great little movie, by the way.  Then Nicole came to the States, and became the mega star we all know her as now.

As the years passed, and a new crop of young BMX guys came up, in this case, the Sheep Hills Locals of the early 90's, I realized that they actually liked RAD.  In the ramen eating years of the early 90's, when BMX was all but dead, the VHS videos of RAD got a lot of young kids interested in BMX.  As lame as all those 80's action sports movies were, they took our weird little worlds of BMX, freestyle, and skateboarding to a much, much wider audience.  We went from being the lunatic fringe, to just being lunatics.  Most of those kids probably got a BMX bike or skateboard and hit some little neighborhood jumps for a while, and then moved on to other things, as kids do.  But a few of those kids went on to really get into bikes or skates, and became serious riders or skaters, inspired by Rad, Thrashin', BMX Bandits, and maybe even Gleaming the Cube.

It's basically the same argument that all the hardcore action sports people had with the X-Games in the early years.  Sure, the made-for-TV contests gave a ton of exposure to those sports, but they also had no fucking clue what they were doing, and made everyone look like idiots for the first few years.  But the riders and skaters kept on them, got involved, and eventually turned the TV coverage into something much better for both the athletes, the producers, and outside companies that were sponsoring the events, and advertising on the the TV shows.

So now, as an old, fat, crusty, HAS BEEN freestyler who doesn't even ride at the moment (I'm starting to lose weight and saving for a new bike), I see a bigger picture.  Lame ass, big money endeavors, like Hollywood movies about a new activity, can have a positive effect.  Not always, some are just really bad ideas.  But it's a struggle when doing anything new to get people to first take it kind of seriously, and then to realize the culture of these sports (and other creative things) is really important.

In addition to that, the D.I.Y. (Do It Yourself) aspect of these sports led to a bunch of us dorky punk kids learning how to take good photos, shoot and produce good videos, and create magazines, and even direct movies later on in some cases.  Stacy Peralta's Dogtown and Z-Boys documentary comes to mind, followed by dozens of other great projects.  And don't forget BMXer/skater Spike Jonze not only produced the super profitable Jackass movies, but also directed Where the Wild Things Are, and won an Oscar for Her. 

On one hand, the goofy, hokie, ridiculous movies of the 80's (or any era) showed very warped versions of our sports to a lot more young people out there.  On the other hand, many guys like me, and many others, who hated those movies, decided to make our own videos (and zines, magazines, websites, blogs, bike companies, etc.).  In doing that, these sports have produced some of the best photographers, video producers, and even filmmakers around today.  

So now I'm less critical of people doing lame versions of action sports videos, or any other creative stuff now.  I'm sure drag racers and hardcore street racers hated the original Fast and Furious when it first came out, too.  But now they get paid to build $150,000 cars for dorks because of it.  These more mainstream projects can help talented people in new genre's get in front of a larger audience.  They often bring mainstream money into the sports, which is both good and bad.  And if the mainstream projects totally suck, the creative people will make their own, much better, versions, sooner or later.  

To be honest, I was just way to uptight back in 1986.  I wanted to be a clean cut, rider/entrepreneur guy like R.L. Osborn or Bob Haro, and wanted people to take the weird little sport of BMX freestyle seriously.  I was sick of people making fun of me for " riding a little kid's bike," and telling me I was a loser for spending so much time learning tricks on my bike.  I wanted to believe that doing tricks on my bike could actually lead to something in the future.  No one outside the sport took BMX freestyle seriously back then.  

In a great bit of real life irony, literally weeks  after I saw Rad, I got tapped to write a freelance article for FREESTYLIN' magazine, and was working there five months later.  Doing tricks on my bike actually did lead to something cool, it changed the course of my life for the better.  In time, a decade later, I began to see the positive side of what Hollywood movies can do for a sport like freestyle, or anything the movie industry decides to make a mainstream movie about. 

When writing about RAD, I can't forget the two main stunt riders, Martin Aparijo, above, seen here at a recent HB Tuesdays jam in Huntington Beach, doing a barspin backwards wheelie.  The other main stunt rider in RAD was Eddie Fiola, seen below, also at HB Tuesdays jam,with one of his patented, one footed,  rollback nosewheelies, which always amazed me.