I wrote a review of
Mutiny Bikes newest dvd,
Let's Get Mystical.
You can read it
here, or just continue reading as it is copied and pasted below. It is pretty long for a bmx dvd review, but sometimes you need more than 144 characters to voice your opinion.
Mutiny - Let's Get Mystical.
(If you are between 13-17 and your attention span doesn't last long enough to read a few paragraphs go straight to the bottom for the shortened review)
I like Mutiny. I have never actually purchased any of their products, but everything they do I have nothing but praise for. I like their previous DVD and web video releases, well designed t-shirts (which they also print on American Apparel), shredding team and even little details like 20.666inch sized frames.
Cooper gave me Let's Get Mystical to review and I figured I wouldn't be doing it any justice watching it on a laptop, so off to JB I went to get a TV. An hour or so later and I'm all set up to watch Let's Get Mystical. My first observation of this video is the lack of parts; the sections are split into geographical location. This is great because you can put it on and get a Whitman’s Sampler of riding, but if you want to watch a Randy Taylor part before you go to the park and do some nose manuals, this might not be the video for you.
Mutiny's previous release, Stoked On Being Pumped, was applauded for its use of HD filming of awesome riding instead of great HD filming of mediocre riding (Odyssey's Electronical). This is continued with Let's Get Mystical which is great to see, it’s also good to see the use of a steady cam for a lot of the footage which has not been utilised too much in bmx videos previous. Some of the double angles look like they have been filmed on a vx2100 or similar, as the footage isn't as crisp as the HD stuff, but you can't expect a company to carry around two HD cameras, so I'll let the quality difference slide. There is also the usual arty footage of bridges and cities, which is fine. It’s not overloaded like some videos, so it gets my approval.
It is hard to highlight a specific banger for each person due to the lack of individual parts. I have watched this DVD 5 times already and each view reveals something awesome I completely missed the previous times around. Josh Bedford shows his usual awesomeness in the England section, whilst Matt Roe does a sweet over pedal slide on the edge of a drain spine (very similar to the drain spine in Canberra). I have a small place in my heart for Hanson Little because he rides a chrome bike and has a beard, the fact that he pedals flat out at everything could also play a part in my attraction to his riding. He does a manual up and over a north shore see-saw (google it if you don't know what north shore is) then 360 out pretty early on in the video that I liked, also a gap off a ledge, over a gap then down some stairs which I'm sure would look ten times bigger in real life. For the trail dogs out there, the Mutiny team ride a whole heap of trails through out, which is always good to see. I'm no expert on trails, and I'm fairly sure my last two bikes have never seen dirt except for cutting through a park when I ride home from the city, but I can appreciate the time and effort it takes to groom trails and also to be able to shred the hell out of them. Kick outs galore and hitting berms at super sonic speed with minimal X games tricks, the good type of trails footage.
The soundtrack only has one rap song, so Marnold automatically doesn't like it, but personally I'm down for the indie pop music that is played throughout the video. My girlfriend told me to write that the soundtrack is mellow, which it is, but I'd much rather something soothing than a wild break down song where all I can think about is how many ninjas I need to kill before I can reach awesome scene status. I'm sure if you were trying to impress a cute art girl from your university, you could put this DVD on purely for the soundtrack (the arty scenery footage would be beneficial to your cause also), chances are she will love one of the bands and she'll be yours forever…or at least the next half an hour.
I don't know if I'm the only one that likes this, but a good credits section can make or break a video. After all the serious riding clips, it is always nice to have a bit of footage of people goofing around, homeless dudes talking shit and all the other stuff that makes riding street so awesome. Add this footage to a nice upbeat song that makes you smile and you’ve got a few minutes of fun that can sometimes be better than the actual riding. The credits on Let's Get Mystical are not better than the main riding sections, because that is great, but it’s definitely up there on the leader board in terms of great credits footage.
Included in the extras are a few Mutiny web edits, which are always great to see in their original quality. As great as it is to see edits on Vimeo the day after they are filmed, nothing compares to seeing them on a TV connected to your surround sound for the full viewing experience. You can’t emulate that when you're hunched over a laptop. The Randy Taylor edit is great; I find it ridiculous that someone can use footage of that calibre in a throwaway web edit.
The only section of this video I don't like in Let’s Get Mystical is the epic slow mo dark skate park section. Personally this bores me to tears as you can just go to Camberwell and Box Hill to see the same riding, and the filming itself is not completely amazing either. It is fairly short, but it is the only section where I have thought about pushing skip on my new remote control.
So in summary, if you love mutiny you should buy this DVD as it features the team riding great places and showing why they are well respected within bmx. Even though there is a lack of individual parts, I do believe there is enough to keep anyone interested for the full DVD, or even just a section before you head out riding for the day. As easy as it is to wait for someone to upload it to a torrent, I think its worth spending the $30 on a DVD so you can watch it on your TV with your friends, and also to support a company willing to put the time, effort and money into releasing a quality film on DVD. I’m sure they make no money from DVD sales.
+
Mutiny in general
Filming
Riding is all killer, no filler.
Soundtrack
Credits
-
No individual parts
-
7/10
Cooper's Dad builds custom Harley Davidson parts and this is his 1942 Harley Davidson 750cc WLA. His Dad's love for motorcycles isn't a mid-life crisis deal like most Harley Davidson owners, its a life long dedication to the freedom motorcycles can bring.
Lauren took a heap of photos when we went snorkelling at heron island. I have scanned a couple, but havent resized too many yet. Here is a photo of me chillin by Turtle Bay.
