Summary
Game Rant can share an exclusive clip fromWater Brother: The Sid Abbruzzi Story, a recently premiered documentary honoring the legacy of the eponymous surf pioneer. The video featuresTony Hawk, Donny Barley, and several other cultural icons reminiscing about the past of the Rhode Island skating and surfing community that’s deeply intertwined with Abbruzzi’s own life story.
Sid Abbruzzi’s Water Brothers Surf & Skate shop first opened its doors in 1971. He initially ran the brick-and-mortar store from his own basement, later relocating to a space on Newport’s Memorial Blvd. in 1997. In February 2022, Abbruzzi announced that the shop will have to close come March because the building’s owner decided to demolish it in favor of a new rental property.Water Brother: The Sid Abbruzzi Storydocuments the final days of the store and recaps itscultural impacton the local community.
Tony Hawk Recalls the Development of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in Water Brother Clip
But the documentary also casts a wider net, using Abbruzzi’s shop as the prism through which to retell 50 years' worth of history of the Rhode Island surfing and skating scene. Game Rant can now share an exclusiveWater Brotherclip that illustrates that content variety, not least because it opens with an interview in which Tony Hawk is talking about the development of theTony Hawk’s Pro Skaterfranchise. Among other things, the skating icon recounts how some of the locations from the first series entry, including Burnside, were a no-brainer to include because “they were there when there was nothing else there.”
The skateboarding icon gives a similar shout-out to Skater Island, a real-world Rhode Island skatepark that inspired the eponymous level from thethirdTony Hawk’s Pro Skatergame. The documentary excerpt also features the East Coast skateboarding legend Donny Barley, who recounts how many kids who were frequenting Abbruzzi’s Water Brothers Surf & Skate shop ended up making names for themselves over the years. That point is later illustrated with archival footage of a young Aquil Brathwaite, a Rhode Island-born pro skater who proclaims that he’s skating to represent Abbruzzi’s shop. Tony Hawk himself also cited Abbruzzi as a big influence on his career in the past.
TV host and sports commentator Selema “Sal” Masekela makes an appearance in the documentary as well, together with Shepard Fairey, a famous contemporary artist best known for designing the “Hope” poster that became synonymous with Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. All of these and other individuals give their own accounts of the local skating and surfing community, contributing to the documentary’s larger message of celebrating personalhistory and cultural heritage.
After first premiering at NewportFILM 2023,Water Brother: The Sid Abbruzzi Storywas treated to a wider stateside theatrical release in July 2024. The Kinnane Brothers documentary will soon be available digitally, though the details of its VOD release are yet to be announced.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is a series of skateboarding games from Activision. The original trilogy of games, which were developed by Neversoft and released between 1999 and 2001, were huge hits with critics.2002’s Pro Skater 4 was also well received, although 2015’s Pro Skater 5 received a brutal 32 Metascore on PS4. The first two Pro Skater games were remastered in 2020.
