Gleaming the Cube (1989)

Gleaming the cube: pushing your limits to the edge. This week we're grabbing our boards, ditching class, and rolling hard into Gleaming the Cube (1989) — the utterly singular, completely unhinged, gloriously committed late-80s teen thriller in which a teenage skateboarder investigates his adopted Vietnamese brother's murder using exclusively the power of skateboarding. This movie exists. It is real. And we need to talk about it at length.Directed by Graeme Clifford and starring Christian Slater as Brian Kelly, a 17-year-old Orange County skateboarder who refuses to accept the official ruling that his adopted Vietnamese brother Vinh died by suicide — and who goes full amateur detective, eventually uncovering a Vietnamese weapons smuggling ring operating out of a video store, with only his skateboard skills, his crew, and one sympathetic detective (Steven Bauer) standing between him and the truth. The villain is a former South Vietnamese army colonel. Tony Hawk is in this movie. Rodney Mullen is a stunt double. Stacy Peralta directed all the skateboarding sequences. This is a real film that was released in theaters.We're going all in on everything: former pro-skater Tommy Guerrero was paid $500 a day to teach Christian Slater how to skateboard, while pro-skaters Mike McGill and Rodney Mullen served as his stunt doubles — and Stacy Peralta, legendary Bones Brigade promoter, served as second-unit director and shot every single skate sequence in the film — giving it a genuine authenticity to the late-80s skateboarding world that no studio movie had ever captured before or since. We're talking about the film's surprisingly earnest treatment of Vietnamese-American immigrant experience, its utterly delightful commitment to the premise that skateboarding can solve literally any problem, the magnificent 80s Orange County aesthetic, and why Jake Gyllenhaal has publicly stated he wants to remake this film.Also: the title. The phrase "gleaming the cube" originated from a cryptic question asked in a 1983 Thrasher magazine interview — "Have you ever gleemed inside a cube?" — and the film adopted it as a metaphor for pushing your limits to the absolute edge. Which is exactly what this film does with its premise.Whether you're an 80s nostalgia devotee, a skateboarding culture enthusiast, a Christian Slater completist, a Tony Hawk fan, a lover of late-80s teen thrillers, someone who grew up catching this on cable at 3pm on a Tuesday, or just a person who believes that the correct response to your brother's suspicious death is to solve the crime via skateboard — this episode is essential.Topics covered: Gleaming the Cube 1989 | Christian Slater | Tony Hawk | Rodney Mullen | Stacy Peralta | Tommy Guerrero | Bones Brigade | 80s skateboarding movies | Orange County California | late 80s teen films | skateboarding culture history | cult classic 80s films | 80s nostalgia | teen detective films | Vietnamese-American representation | Jake Gyllenhaal remake | best 80s action films | skate culture films | most underrated 80s movies | best cult films | movie review podcast | film analysis | 80s cheese | high concept 80s films | Thrasher magazine | gleaming the cube meaning | best skateboarding films ever | Steven Bauer | Bones Brigade documentary connection | Pizza Hut Tony Hawk | most committed bad premises in film historySubscribe, rate, and leave us a review — and tell us: have you ever gleamed inside a cube? And is this the greatest or the most insane film ever made about skateboarding as a vehicle for solving violent crime?YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@RegularorMentholContact us: [email protected]