Summer is officially over, which makes Labor Day your last hurrah for a sunny three-day weekend in which you’ll most likely try to squeeze out every last wave you can. And who can blame you? You’re (hopefully) not on the clock today, so why not spend this Monday splashing around in the ocean? Of course, the fundamental flaw in your logic is that every person within a 4 hour drive of the coast has the exact same thought running through their minds. Even if they don’t surf, they’ve loaded every foldable beach chair and $10 boogie board into the family rig to ensure that even when you step back onto shore you’ll curse summer and gladly welcome the change of seasons. Yes, Labor Day signifies the end of summer in the traditional sense, but for surfers, it means fall’s combo swells and hurricane season is knocking at the door, so there’s really no hurry to get a few today. You could gladly rest up, save yourself from the crowds and walk back into work Tuesday morning after a solid refresher course of Hollywood surfing. Here are 5 titles currently streaming on Netflix that could get you through the last day of summer crowds unscathed:
The Endless Summer
No irony here. Summer is over but for us it never really ends. That’s why Labor Day is really nothing more than just a three-day weekend when you build life around chasing waves. No matter how old this movie gets, it is and always will be the gold standard for surf films – longboards, corny jokes and all. And nothing else will rekindle your travel bug quite like The Endless Summer. Start planning next year’s trip now.
30 for 30: Hawaiian The Legend of Eddie Aikau
ESPN has made some of the best stories in sports into 30 for 30 documentaries. They transcend the field, the court, the pitch, whatever a given story is shining the spotlight on. In this case it just so happens to be done in a way that celebrates one of our very own. The first time I watched this film it was done typical Netflix fashion – a sleepless night with the iPad propped up in the dark. Next thing I knew an hour and 15 minutes had passed by. Eddie’s story is high on the list of the best 30 for 30’s ever produced, and that’s saying a lot. Sam George directs this piece, spending most of the 75 minutes discussing the significance of Eddie’s growing legend as Waimea’s first lifeguard.
Out in the Lineup:
Here’s another powerful piece that you have to watch before Netflix stops streaming it. Surfing is still a fairly old school and conservative culture, with lineups resembling varsity locker rooms more than anything else. And this is one of the rare occasions somebody dug deep into that reality – not just to remind us that the LGBQT community is in our lineups, but that the surf community still creates a place where there’s a consequence for being so.
The Big Lebowski
Oh you thought this list was reserved for surf films? Look, we’ve already established you’re not devoting this entire holiday to actually surfing so who says you need to torture yourself with watching 24 hours of it? The Dude doesn’t surf, but there is nobody more dude than The Dude himself. Here’s the deal, Jeffrey Lebowski teaches us about war, politics, materialism, morality and tons more. And he does it with dudeisms upon more profound, awesome dudeisms. You know, if you’re into that whole brevity thing, man.
McConkey
Yep, I’m hitting you again with a non surf flick. Shane McConkey was the man and fewer athletes have ever been expected to go big day after day after day. He died doing the exact thing he loved most, which is as poetic as it is tragic. So while no story about Shane McConkey can be told without its sad ending, the truth is this was a man who lived every single day pushing life just as close to the limit as that final run. And now that summer’s over it’s time for some of us to start getting jazzed for charging groomers and pretending we’re just as gnarly as Shane McConkey.
