Reviews
Scratch (2001)
Not too Fresh
As someone who's been interested in scratching for a longtime it's possible that I was expecting a little too much from this film.
Scratch is actually quite boring in places, and as far as cinematic documentaries go it falls way short of the standard set by films like Dogtown and Z-Boys. Scratch didn't seem to capture a lot of what gets me excited about scratching and turntablism. It concentrates too much on dull cliched dialogue about the 'Four Elements of Hip Hop', and 'Keeping it Real'.
To me it seemed quite poorly researched. A number of key figures in the development of this music were not interviewed or even mentioned. The most notable of these was DJ Ca$h Money, one of the all time great battle DJs and the inventor of many influential scratch techniques. Also absent were Jazzy Jeff and Jam Master Jay (who was still alive at the time of filming).
Another gripe is that the only non US DJ featured was DJ Krush. The absence of artists like DJ Noise, Scratch Perverts, DJ Dexta, Kid Koala and many others showed some ignorance towards the huge global following that this movement has.
That said there is some excellent footage notably of the Mix Master Mike, DJ Shadow record shopping and the superb performance of Rockit at the 1984 Grammies.
As an introduction to the history of scratching this film might be useful, but it seems incomplete and somewhat lifeless. Instead you should check out the videos of DMC or ITF battles, or better still get to a battle yourself.