Raw Asphalt

"Aggressive skating New York style!" blares the video box to Raw Asphalt, a cinema verité look at NY kids riding the rails (skating down step handrails) in moves with names like "fishbrain," "royale" and "markio." (While each of these moves are quite different, they all share one simple similarity: if you or I attempted any one of them, we would--as our mothers used to say--crack our heads open like coconuts and watch our brains run down the gutters.) Of course, watching kids inline skating, kissing the pavement, and talking in a language which, for most of us, is foreign, wouldn't be complete without tunes, and naturally the songs here feature the obligatory "Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics" (which means: any parent over 30 will not understand even 10% of the lyrics. For example--Me: "Did he say 'fork you up'?" My wife: "Maybe it's a reference to culinary violence." Me: "Damn skippy." My wife: "That's ghetto, homes." Me: "Well, kick me in the jimmies." And so on.) The music by such classically named ensembles as Mess, Sewage and Stinkbug, sounds like a cross between Korn and the Sex Pistols, and while most of the lyrics are incomprehensible (I think one of the songs is about killing yuppies), the opening number does include what sounds like simulated sex (though, for all I know, it may be no more bawdy than the latest Janet Jackson CD). Bottom line: Kids will like this, parents will hate it and libraries will have to decide whether it's worth the bother. Given the repetitiveness of the footage (not to mention the music) and the lack of any real character development (we don't get to know these kids at all), I'd say not. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)