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HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com / Section: Outdoors

Aug. 30, 2003, 1:00AM


Step Into Liquid sure to make some waves
By JOE DOGGETT
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Step Into Liquid, a feature-length documentary on surfing, is playing at the Landmark River Oaks Theater. It is a must-see for wave-starved local surfers and an entertaining, even inspiring, ride for non-surfers perhaps wondering what "stoke" is all about.

This effort does a fine job of conveying the essence of riding waves -- at all levels of ability and in all magnitudes of size. The common theme, from Hawaii's Pipeline to Sheboygan's Lake Michigan, from world-class professionals to bumbling beginners, is the genuine joy of being there.

Director Dana Brown, of Seal Beach, Calif., took his cameras around the world in search of surfing experiences. This is a patented theme, one that his father, Bruce Brown, used with great success in The Endless Summer and The Endless Summer II. But rather than traveling with a core group of surfers, the younger Brown focused on the local participants in each area.

"I have the greatest respect for what dad did with his films," Brown said at a preview showing Thursday night, "but I didn't want to make The Endless Summer III. I wanted to show how surfing, wherever and however you find it, can become such a rewarding and compelling experience."

A highlight of the tour, at least for local surfers, is a segment on riding tanker wakes in Galveston Bay. A dedicated crew led by James Fulbright of Galveston's Surf Specialties rides swells from passing tankers in the Houston Ship Channel. The swells radiating across spoil banks and reefs provide patient longboarders with rides of more than a mile.

"This is the point," Brown said. "This is an example of surfers so fired up that they are making something happen."

Of course, the movie does not have to rely on the odd passing freighter to generate momentum. At the opposite extreme of the Texas City Pipeline is the tow-in assault on the Cortes Bank approximately 100 miles out in the open Pacific off San Diego. A group of big-wave tow-in specialists motored to the phantom break and rode "dead glass" waves in excess of 60 feet -- one of the most phenomenal events in the history of the sport.

Step Into Liquid also scores big by emphasizing the growing ranks of women and children in surfing. And, invariably, the photography is stunning.

Costa Rica is a good example. Just watching Robert August (star of the original 1965 Endless Summer) riding wave after wave in the jungles near Tamarindo makes you want to fly straight to San Jose.

If you surf, you need to see this movie. If you surf, you need to take a non-surfing friend to see this movie. It helps explain why surfing, whether you want it to or not, can influence your life.



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