‘Wheels Over Paradise’

The notion that skateboarding runs on a 40-year cycle helps explain the burgeoning popularity of downhilling, that simplest and most dangerous genre that peaked in the mid-1970s. Back then, four-wheeled adrenaline jockeys — tucked like Olympic ski jumpers on approach — reached freeway speeds with little more than a foot drag or hay bale to help them slow down. These days, practiced downhillers maintain control with speed-scrubbing slides, a widely refined technique beautifully captured in this one-hour documentary set in the mountains above Santa Barbara.

Teaming up with downhiller and cameraman Tom Flinchbaugh, director Paul Mathieu deploys aerial and follow-cam footage to capture small crews of free-riding friends chasing bliss down the region’s steepest ribbons of asphalt. Though spaced with sit-down interviews covering history, run-ins with law enforcement, and one rider’s near-fatal crash, the film finds itself at its best when it simply presses the record button, cranks up the tunes, and jumps on for the ride.

WORLD PREMIERE