Scratch

This movie was well put together. It showed many facets of DJing and the DJs themselves. It is not everyday that you see "Out Of Character" interviews with most of these legendary DJs. Instead of seeing "DJs" in interviews you see "people who like being DJs" in interviews (hopefully you followed that). IE. Instead of seeing an interview with Mix Master Mike you saw an interview with Maxwell Schwartz and he explained why he likes being a DJ and being Mix Master Mike and what and who inspired and inspires him. You also get to see what the families of these DJs had to deal with as they were starting out which is quite interesting. As far as interviews go the common issue most people could have is that DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Cash Money from Philadelphia were not in it. Regardless, seeing Afrika Bambaataa and Jazzy Jay (The Original Jazzy Jay) and other Hip Hop originators was worth the price of the movie. You don't see or hear from these people everyday. The only other issue is more of an industry issue where there was only one female DJ interviewed but that is just a sad reflection of the Hip Hop DJ industry. There should and could have been more interviews with more female DJs...they are out there. This is a movie where a parent who remembers the good ol' days of Hip Hop would appreciate it and they would bring their children to see it. It shows that Hip Hop and the art of DJing has evolved and is not just "As it is!" I'm a house DJ and scratching is not something that is done in House music but I love this movie. Don't get it twisted I've always been a fan of Hip Hop. Great Movie. Cheers.

As one who is generally unfamiliar with the hip-hop scene but has tried spinning, the movie does a great job of presenting turntablism as an art form. It also did a good job emphasizing that hip-hop is meant to be fun, and it is by no means about the rough-and-tumble gangsta rappers of years past.

Despite the long list of DJ's listed on the marquis, this movie was pretty much about scratch deejay extrodinaires Q-bert and DJ Shadow, with cameos from many others including Afrika Bambaataa, Mix Master Mike, DJ Craze, and Grand Mixer DXT of "Rockit" fame. I got the feeling that the whole movie was just a compilation of interviews, and Q-bert happened to be the chattiest among them.

Director by Doug Pray - who previously did Hype! (about Seattle grunge of the early 90's) and American Pimp - put together a film that I thought was of much higher quality than the other dj movies "Groove" or "Better Living through Circuitry". However I found the stream of interviews, and lack of drama got a tad tedious, making the 87 minute-long movie seem more like two hours. (Of course it is a documentary).

The mediocrity of the interviews was nicely interrupted by quirky references to intergalactic beings; repeated cut-ins of the first MTV-ised scratch in "Rockit"; and some funky cinemetography that made the film visually interesting, and even funny. For scratch dj' in the know however, the presentation is begging for some of the nitty gritty how-to's that would make this documentary a bit more meaty.

My favorite scene? Record digging with DJ Shadow as he explored the dusty, low ceilinged basement archives of a record store. This scene added an element of reverence to the act searching out vintage beats, and helped me understand why Moby *hires* people to dig for him.

Although I was so fortunate to see the film at the Red Vic - right next door to Amoeba Records (featured in the film) - with a house that was probably full of SF's finest djs, This film is probably best watched at home - with decks at the ready. Even novices just might have the urge to walk away from the movie now and then to give scratching a try after watching how its supposed to be done.

I'm sort of target audience for this documentary film and I was looking forward to it as I knew a good handful of the names listed as involved but at the same time my knowledge of the subject only goes as far as "I know what I like and I like this", rather than some encyclopedia of names and dates. As such I was looking forward to the film filling me in with this a bit – which is good because this is what it does, a bit.

I say a bit because the 90 minute film is not really a documentary in the sense that it is totally fact based and all about informing – it is not. It does still have talking heads, a timeline and a structured way of looking at the subject in chapters of a sort, but it didn't actually inform too much beyond the basics. This will limit the appeal of the film a little bit as those that know their stuff in this regard may take exception at some of the people not included in the film and also some of the things stated as facts to do with origins etc. What the film does do well though is to try and translate why the viewer should care about this subject and to a point the film seems designed to make some inroads into the view that scratching is just noise, that it isn't music and doesn't "count" (whatever that means) and that it isn't worth their time. It does this by having a lot of footage from live events and contests which really capture the talent of those involved and show how it works in reality.

This footage is mostly very good with plenty to be impressed by and the film constructs around them using talking heads in the normal fashion. These interviews are not the most informative but people speak with passion and are natural in a way that helps. I also liked that the film was able to show the multi-cultural and multi-racial nature of the scene, rather than just saying it. The direction is good and the film is edited together well with good pace and scene selection – the visual scratching thing didn't do much for me personally, but it wasn't overly used.

Scratch isn't a great documentary in the traditional sense, but it works very well with the subject using the interviews to explain and structure while using live footage to show (not just say) why this is something that deserves your attention.

I'm not a fan of scratching, but I really dug this movie. It gave me a real insight into a world I never had a clue existed; and what else is a documentary for? Funny, clever, hip - just like Pray's previous film, Hype! about the grunge music scene.

OK. I just saw this film this past weekend, and as a DJ I thought it was one of the best documentaries on any aspect of Hip-Hop to date. I think everything was insightful and informative. I also felt that it got many different points of view and did not just stick to one particular region of scratching, but jumped around to other regions. This movie was good because it let the DJ's tell their story as opposed to being an opinionated editorial by the director. They had DJ's from way way back. They went to the essence of scratching and talked to the originator. I have a small knock on this film though. Although I can count many important DJ's who were not a part of this film, I felt that not having DJ Jazzy Jeff or DJ Cash Money in the film was a fairly large omission. Doing a movie on scratching and not interviewing the creators of the chirp and transformer scratch was a disappointment to me. Yet and still, I would consider this movie a huge success, and I'll admit that after I saw it, it made me go home and practice!!