Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator

Mark `Gator' Ragowski (later `Mark Anthony' briefly) rode his skateboarding skills to the heights of fame and success in the mid-to-late eighties. He was one of the giants of the sport's development from vertical skating in trespassed abandoned swimming pools to pop phenomenon ramp touring. Unfortunately, he just as quickly hit the skids as the sport changed styles to street skating, leaving him and his over-commercialized and suddenly unpopular `vert' world behind. While skaters like Tony Hawk made the adjustment and thrived even to the present day, Ragowski took a hard dive instead into substance abuse, briefly emerging from an alcoholic haze as a `born-again' skater, only to take a harder descent into violent sexual crime, landing him in prison for a 31-year term. A fascinating doc, exploring a lurid tale from a rarely seen culture (last explored in 2003's "Dogtown and Z-Boys"), with clips of Ragowski in his "glory" MTV/ Swatch tour days, as well as intimate peeks into backstage shenanigans on tour, and his frustrations in trying to move to a street style.

"Stoked" is a documentary about the rise and fall of Vision skate company's glory boy, Mark "Gator/Gravity" Rogowski/Anthony. When you could still keep track of the number of pro skaters in the mid and late 80s, Gator was counted as one of the best, matching ranks with Christian Hosoi and the Bones Brigade Team. For four years (it seems a lot longer), Mark Rogowski was on top of the world as the pinnacle of vert skating. He sure made Vision Street Wear plenty of money, and with his fall, so came the demise of his primary sponsor.

This documentary is less about skateboarding, although skate enthusiasts familiar with the cast of pro skaters, will probably enjoy it for several reasons. They know who Mark Rogowski is, and are probably familiar with the story. However, this story doesn't introduce much of anything new that had not been written about him in the past. The recounts are pretty much all the same in piecing together the story of the extreme rise and fall of a once-great skater.

The movie pans out more like an illustration, and perhaps a valid caution, of stories so common to celebrities of any field. When Rogowski and skaters like himself (most of whom--but not all of whom--didn't have such a destructive finale to their careers) couldn't make the transition into street skaters, the next wave of skateboarding that took over in the early 90s, they suddenly found themselves out of the spotlight. Whereas guys like Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero, and hell, even Tony Alva, were able to keep up with the transitions, and hang on tight to their super-stardom. Not Rogowski.

Like young superstars given all the attention and the money and fame, and then to have it all taken away for the next best thing (and the cycle repeats itself), Rogowski started out at a crucial developing point in his life--going pro when he was in high school and enduring much of the fame in his late teens and early twenties--and couldn't seem to adapt when the skateboarding audiences were taking interest in a new generation of skating. He got depressed, turned on to religion (too much), and then killed a girl.

I think to enjoy this movie, you would have to have some interest in Rogowski, as he was a pretty egotistical guy (and why not, his sponsors made him into god's gift to skateboarding). He seemed arrogant much of the time, and his days seemed like nothing but one big unimportant party. The image became so big, I'm not even sure if it was about skateboarding for him at one point. He was the badass of the sport, but it just seemed to be entirely show. Everything Rogowski did seemed to be one big show, and for that, a movie about him seems hollow and hardly interesting. Of all the stories of skateboaders, why is his the most interesting? I think much of Lance Mountain's interviews sums it up best. Speaking from experience as one who faded from the scene, Lance says that the whole thing is so phony. That they're given a false superstar/invincibility status as such a young age, and they're not taught how to cope with it when it's all over. At their age, they just assume it will last forever. And the way skateboarding always fluctuated in popularity, someone should've sense that it wasn't.

The movie sweeps across from being all the bruhaha about the wild Mark Rogowski, then eerily resembling an episode of 'Unsolved Mysteries' as California law enforcement involved in the case piece together the murder of a twenty-year old girl. Any appreciation for Mark as a skater seems lost in the tragedy . It's sad, but it's not sympathetic. I suppose the movie makes a useful caution to people desirous of the fame and fortune, especially at such a young age and with such an unpredictable medium (skateboarding). The movie leaves you with a cold feeling about it all, especially when following up with information about the fate of other fellow skaters from that time.

"Stoked" is probably a movie most appreciated by skaters familiar with the scene, but otherwise, Gator doesn't make a very sympathetic creature (not even to those who knew him). He was just another naive kid who thought the kick would last forever and wasn't sure what to do when it finally did. I wonder if they have made support groups for former young superstars.

This film doubles as a peerless document of skateboarding as a legitimate American phenomenon *and* an unflinching look into the dark and doomed life of Mark Rogowski.

Ms. Stickler deftly handles the thrill of Rogowski's career triumphs and the chilling fall from grace that no one could have anticipated or, sadly, prevented.

'Stoked' stands bravely as neither celebratory nor exploitive; nor does it presume to answer 'Why?'. Instead, like the Maysles brothers' finest work, this film presents a 'fly on the wall' look at the Who, What, Where, and How with the precision and objectivity of a postmortem exam.

It's tough to successfully reconcile the duality this film presents to its audience - the great retrospective fun of high octane 80s culture sits uncomfortably next to what is essentially a grim and unsettling story. Viewers have to sort out for themselves if Rogowski's doom was a product of his huge fame and subsequent & abrupt fall from the top, or if it was, sadly, bound to happen anyway.

Rogowski could have been one of those elementary school teachers or office workers or Home Depot employees gone bad in what would have been an otherwise anonymous American murder story - but he wasn't: he was Gator. And as the authorities & families involved (and perhaps most tellingly, the friends & skaters in the periphery) in this dark tale will tell you, that may have made all the difference in the world.

This film NAILS it by juxtaposing the fast rise and rocky descent of 80's counter-culture commercialism with the tragic story of Gator and his victim. We get to know Gator as a wild punk, arrogant jock, immature romantic, and finally, a violent and dangerous man. He was made for stardom, but the path to skater stardom was even younger than its pioneers... he was the era's most notable fallen angel.

I haven't yet seen a more vivid reflection on the style and attitude of California in the 1980s. It's very easy to get lost in this one; it's a sad, enlightening, and socially significant piece of journalistic film-making. Kudos to the filmmakers.

This movie was ok, but if you weren't part of what was going on back in the mid 80's, then you probably won't have any interest in it? I lived in Del Mar and worked at DelMar Skatepark, where a lot of it was filmed. I knew some of the people that are in this movie, so for me it was a trip down Memory lane.

I do not think this was a great documentry, I just think it was interesting for anyone who grew up and skated in the 1980's.

It was sad to see the decline of Gator, and for some reason I understood the isolation and desire to re-attain the spotlight, mostly because some of these guys were friends, and I saw what happened to them when the light faded.

See this movie if you want to know part of the History of what Skateboarding really is and was, and if you want to know what can happen to you if you start to believe other peoples versions of who and what you are ~!

Don't see this is your looking for some ollie kick flip "XGAME" pretense marketing idea movie!