Video of the Week: Habitat's Search the Horizon

Habitat - Search the Horizon

Christmas was definitely a good day for gifts in skateboarding this past week. Habitat's latest video offering dropped along with Santa Claus down our chimneys and most certainly kept the fire blazing. Anything Habitat puts out is good quality skateboarding and this semi-full-length / promo / welcome-to-the-pro-ranks-Suciu-and-Delatorre video is no different. The artistic direction, song selection, spot selection via travel destinations, and skating in general is all meticulously thought out and the end result is a wonderful 20+ minute experience.
In the opening montage of Silas, Danny Garcia, Guru, and Marius, I was pretty happily stunned with Guru's switch flip up a long 5 stair and Marius's switch crooked grind hill bomb was nothing short of epic. Managing to maintain composure with speed wobbles as bad as that, all the while going switch, deserves a trophy. (Or possibly even a pro model soon...?)
Brian Delatorre comes through next with an all around ripping part. Spanning spots throughout Europe and some sweet NYC footage as well, it's really easy to get engulfed by the feel of the part and want to go skating. Dela shows that he is one of the best dudes at going over rails into banks, and with that, that he has one heck of a nollie (nollie into bank over rail frontside, same thing on the other side for his exhilarating ender, and a tight nollie back 180 over the black hubba in NYC)
In the next team montage featuring Al Davis, Stefan, Fred Gall, and Daryl Angel, we're reminded that Al Davis shreds with a sweet, unique style and has a mean switch ollie. His mini part was extremely refreshing, I must say. Too bad there was no new Kerry Getz footage though...
And then, as I'm sure everyone guessed already, Mark Suciu closes out the video. But what was potentially unexpected was the amount of footage that Mark has stacked this past year. 3 songs and about 8 minutes long, Mark somehow managed to pull of a marathon of a part, even after basically putting out 4 parts earlier this year! (And as far as I remember Thrasher, 2013 continues all the way through December. Nothing against Ishod whatsoever cause he totally rips, but after this last part from Mark...come on!) Anyway, I think Walker Ryan said it best on his facebook page when he called out the two best lines: a 4-trick no-push line at the Warschauer Strasse benches in Germany including an unbelievable last second swerve while setting up his feet for a frontside pop shove it back nosegrind backside 180 out, and also a back nosegrind backside 180 pop out followed by a fakie 5-0 half cab flip pop out on the fountain ledge at LOVE park. Extremely well-conceived and executed, not to mention very tasteful and aesthetically pleasing to watch. I'd also like to add one of Mark's first clips, which was a very quick-footed line across about 4 slightly banked manny pads with gaps in between, as well as his very lengthy line in a Philly plaza between songs that Mark cruises through perfectly. With these impressive and clever lines, Mark skates tons of rad spots with a very classy and varied trick selection, coming together in an all-around very enjoyable part.

In other news:
-This is a ridiculous acrobatic stunt involving a couple of skateboards.
-Kingpin comes through with a worthy-of-watching Top 10 list of best European video parts of 2013
-The technical insanity that is Shane O'Neill had his part from Chronicles 2 released
-Dave Abair's part in Rock N Roll was released and is super rad. Some sweet downhill, driveway skating.
-John Rattray still has it and it shows in his Cold War part (soon to be taken down)
-Chris Colbourn's part in Cut & Dry was released via TWS and it is quite good, worth of a few viewings.
-Adidas always comes correct with their traveling full-team edits, this time in the Pacific Northwest.
-Justin Hughs hits some big handrails and shreds all around in his latest part.
-Not a huge fan of demo edits but the BLVD team reminds everyone that they are extremely sick and underrated with this team edit through Brazil including some pretty incredible tricks.
-Georgie Tsushima is a filmer/editer but also skates really well, showcasing his talents in a fun, creative, and even pretty gnarly way in this part.

Video of the Week: Dee Ostrander Baker Part

First off, Aidan Campbell's new part that came out today was pretty awesome. Ever since his sml wheels intro, I was hyped on him and wanted to see more. His new part for Etnies (between AB&A and David Reyes' new part and all the other commercial features Etnies, Etnies could've easily worked towards a full length team video!) was exactly what was needed to bring Aidan to the spotlight. His style and smile make everything he does look super fun and easy, not to mention the really great editing we've come to expect from these Etnies videos. His trick selection is great and mixes in some pretty gnarly spots with some classy tricks. And the knee bend as he holds onto the boardslide at the end is priceless.

But even with that, I simply cannot look past Dee Ostrander's new part that he dropped for Baker. The Baker vibes always make you feel like you're with the homies, so when Dee starts casually ripping everything up for 6 full minutes, the destruction is too good for words. Dee skates some huge, gnarly spots, from rails to gaps to street wide grass gaps from huge ditches (aka the insane ender). So the skating itself is enough to amaze anyone and get skaters psyched to go shred the streets. The taildrop boardslide at 3:16 hyped me up so much! But the fact that everything is done with an apathetic ease left me in awe, which makes sense since Dee just so happened to drop a 6 minute part full of bangers completely out of the blue. Anyway, this part is nuts and deserves plenty of re-watches.

Yoshi Tanenbaum has been killing it lately and doesn't seem to be slowing down after his sick Mag Minute came out.
Though it will be taken down soon, Ben Hatchell's part from Cold War was released on Thrasher showing that anything he puts out is all-terrain gold. Seriously though, the quality of the gnarly footage in Cold War is ridiculous. It might be on the shorter side but I'll take nonstop thrashing footage over an over-edited piece any day.
After Dan Murphy's shared part with Dave Bachinsky in Natural Selection came out not too long ago, he's now releasing more solid footage as a commercial for his truck sponsor, Theeve.
Almost Skateboards is one of my favorite companies because their team is nothing short of legendary and every single one of those dudes skates super creatively (to say the least) and has a blast while doing it. So this new feature from a good group of guys on the team was awesome, not to mention basically a full new part from Youness, yet another footage machine.
The LRG Europe squad is darn talented, like extremely talented, at skateboarding and it shows in their sweet tour video through Cyprus.
Nice NYC vibes throughout this video, Off The Braxx, with a crazy ender part from Dylan Witkin, who somehow managed to find loads of big handrails in the city.
There have to be hundreds if not thousands of dudes that are under the skateboarding industry's radar, but Chris Luhring and Julian Klein both came out with tight parts this week for Creation/Satori and Atlas Skateboarding respectively that should definitely help with that. Haven't heard of either of them before but their names will stick out after seeing their skating here. 

Video of the Week: Zero's Cold War

Even though I know Zero has one of the gnarliest crews in skateboarding and has built upon their legacy over the years, I wasn't ready for Cold War. Based on the 5 parts shown on Thrasher, the video takes gnarly skating to whole new levels. I said earlier in the SOTY posts that Dane Burman and Tommy Sandoval had some crazy clips in Road Less Traveled but would need outstanding parts in Cold War to be considered for SOTY. That is exactly what happened here. I won't even begin to explain their parts because I would diminish their gnarliness, but they are most definitely at the top of the contenders for SOTY 2013 after this. And it's crazy because Brockman, Cole, and Jamie all had super sick parts too, but they were just overshadowed by Dane and Tommy's inhuman destruction. These 5 parts alone are enough for an epic video but what's even better is that there's still Tom Karangelov, Ben Hatchell, Nick Boserio, and Tony Cervantes in the full video!(and possibly parts from John Rattray and Josiah Gatlyn?) So as soon as Cold War comes out on DVD I will be getting it for quite possibly one of the gnarliest and rawest videos of the year.

Besides that, Chad Tim Tim's Transmission part at Transworld was also super steezy and fun to watch; the switch back smith 360 ender was pretty ridiculous. Eniz Fazliov came out with a sick part in a video called Rabies with his Finnish homies with some really cool, crusty spots. John Dilorenzo is on an absolute tear for what I'd call the hungriest flow dude of the year. After dropping two heavy parts in Florida Daze 2 and Against the Clock, he is now being introduced to Split Clothing with this third great part of the year. I've been feeling Rowan Zorilla ever since his part in Footage Party, and this 14-minute clip of raw footage is just so entertaining to watch. Seeing some pretty sick tricks go down after some work while having a blast with the homies is what every skater should live for. And lastly, Anton Myhrvold comes through with a sweet minute and a half of stylish, well-flicked tricks for his intro to Small Wheels.

UPDATE: This was also some major news. It just fits perfectly too.