The new Joe G/Globe movie brandishes its cockaded hat in Sydney…
Last night, the Long Beach filmmaker Joe Guglielmino and the Australian surf/skate brand Globe premiered their movie Strange Rumblings in Shangri-La at the State Theatre in Sydney.
Not a world premiere, howevs, that was thrown into the world at Long Beach airport two weeks ago, but the first time SR was shown in the southern hemi. But the movie here differed more than slightly from the LB show.
Joe G, y’see, has been cuttin’ and fixin’ like hell to shape it just so, slicing away the fatter moments, keeping only the meat close to the bone. Little Dion Agius, one of the brave warriors in the film (oh you’ll laugh when he upturns an uppity bodyboarder in France! The crowd roared! It was like the nineties again!), worked alongside Joe as they slaughtered baby after baby after baby. It shows!
And like all Globe events, the southern-hemi premiere was overstuffed with enough free booze and fried food to give an adult an attack of dizziness. But here’s where the Globe ethos comes in, and it’s what makes the brand so pointed. Sure, there’s VIP, but out there on the outer rim you’re still being fed, you’re still encouraged to drink a gallon or so and then some. Enough to make you prematurely crack!
So what are you going to get when you watch Strange Rumblings? Let me give you five highlights.
1. The Team: Ever since Globe backed off a little on the clothes side of things it’s meant they’ve been able to assemble a rad team of co-sponsored riders. Brendon Gibbens, Creed McTaggart, Noa Deane surf alongside Taj Burrow, Dion Agius, the Hobgoods and Nate Tyler. Best surfer in the movie? Would you believe me if I told you it was Taj’s cameo at Yo-Yo’s in Sumbawa? That’s the thing with WT surfers. There’s no futility of effort only someone burying their surfboard to the hilt.
2. Damien Hobgood at Greenbushes. You’ll watch Damo sleepwalk his way through eight-foot tubes and you’ll think, ‘oh ya, I like’ but it’s instructive to know that the previous day, when it was 12-foot and there wasn’t a camera within a hundred nautical clicks, Damo surfed by himself. And on the day filmed, Dion recounted to me the absurd site of Damo being dragged across the reef on his back by the set of the day only to surface hooting. “He’s an animal!” says Dion. And it’s true.
3. Mozambique. That righhtander you might’ve seen Jordy Smith rifling through in various clips is seized by the Globe team. Many tubes and much colour as children bronze on the beach (so brown!) while the Globes find crabs and starfish out at sea.
4. The music. It’s a Joe G trait to turn us onto music that just ain’t on the radar. Y’heard of Afro-punk band Death, from Detroit in the 70s? And the Stranglers? Listen carefully. it’s a soundtrack worth preserving.
5. Ass. Always the ass. Joe G hunts down the spectre of womanhood and so makes everything else seem unimportant.
Negs? Yeah, there’s a few, but then again too few to mention.
Dine on the trailer below until you can catch it y’self on September 25.
STRANGE RUMBLINGS IN SHANGRI LA from GLOBE on Vimeo.