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List Price: $26.98Amazon.com's Price: $19.99 You Save: $6.99 (26%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: SURFWISE: THE AMAZING PASKOWITZ FAMILY (DVD M
EAN: 0876964000932
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Magnolia
Manufacturer: Magnolia
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Magnolia
Release Date: July 29, 2008
Running Time: 93 minutes
Sales Rank: 1935
Studio: Magnolia
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Like many American outsider-adventurers Dorian Doc Paskowitz set out to realize a utopian dream. Abandoning a successful medical practice he sought self-fulfillment by taking up the nomadic life of a surfer. But unlike other American searchers like Thoreau or Kerouac Paskowitz took his wife and nine children along for the ride all eleven of them living in a 24 foot camper. Together they lived a life that would be unfathomable to most but enviable to anyone who ever relinquished their dreams to a straight job. The Paskowitz Family proved that America may be running out of frontiers but it hasn t run out of frontiersman.System Requirements:Running Time: 93 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DOCUMENTARIES/BIOGRAPHY Rating: R UPC: 876964000932 Manufacturer No: 10093
Amazon.com:
American history is filled with legendary characters who turned their backs on society, snubbing its conventions and opting for a simple, contemplative life. Like Thoreau. Kerouac. And.. Paskowitz? Well, actually, yeah. Surfwise, director Doug Pray’s 2007 documentary, tells the decidedly offbeat tale of Dorian 'Doc' Paskowitz. Now in his mid-80s, the guy who calls himself 'one of the few dumb Jewish doctors' was once on a big-time career track; a Stanford-educated physician, he was the head of the American Medical Association in Hawaii, an expert surfer, and a strong, handsome man who often donated his services and was asked to consider a run for governor of that state. But more than 50 years ago, Paskowitz and his third wife, Juliette (his previous marriages had failed due to his own 'sexual ignorance'), essentially chucked it all for the sake of family, surfing, and precious little else. They had nine children, all but one of them boys, and the entire brood lived in a 24-foot camper, traveling constantly. Money? There was precious little of that (although years later the family generated some income by establishing a popular surf camp near San Diego). Food? They managed, with Paskowitz enforcing a strict organic regimen. School? 'Education be damned,' Doc said, and not one of the children ever attended classes regularly. To outsiders, it was an idyllic life; 'we were not attached to the physical world at all,' says one of the (now middle-aged) kids today. But the downside was deep. Crammed into their tiny space, the children watched and listened as their parents noisily made love every single night (not a great thing for the kids’ own later sex lives). Driven--and sometimes abused--by their ultra-controlling, narcissistic dad, they became excellent surfers but were ill-prepared for adult life when finally, in their 20s, some of them began to leave 'home.' Remarkably, they all seem relatively (so to speak) fine now, with real jobs in surfing, music, and the film business and a fairly clear perspective on their strange upbringing ('Don’t do anything a gorilla wouldn’t do' was one of Doc’s mantras). Extras include outtakes, commentary, surfing footage, and more. --Sam Graham
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Making Waves with an Unconventional Lifestyle
SURFWISE is a fascinating documentary chronicling the unconventional lifestyle of "Doc" Poskowitz and his family. The latter includes spouse and some nine kids, who live a bohemian, itinerant, surf-centric lifestyle in a 24-foot camper van. No school for these kids! Nevertheless, they lived a somewhat regimented existence, one envied by kids who were more wealthy in material things.
All of the kids grew up with various "baggage" due to the unorthodox upbringing, and the father is ... Read More
Rating: - An Unconventional Surf-Centric Upbringing and Its Results.
"Surfwise" chronicles the story of the "first family of surfing": Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, his wife Juliette, and the 9 children whom they raised in a 24-foot camper, traveling up and down the west coast of the United States and Mexico, following the waves and Dorian's whims for more than 2 decades. Dorian Paskowitz was a respected public health doctor and president of the American Medical Association in Hawaii, before he left it all behind in 1956 to live a peripatetic life of poverty that revolved ... Read More
Rating: - Not what I was expecting.
I picked up this DVD thinking that it was going to be a lighthearted look at a family that I knew 'of' from the time I was a youngster. I grew up surfing in San Diego, and used to see the ads for the Paskowitz Surf Camp in the back of just about every surf magazine I ever purchased. I always wanted to attend, but ended up buying a board and teaching myself instead.
What I found was the story of a very strange family. Sometimes their life looks so wonderful it makes me want to get a camper ... Read More
Rating: - Fascinating portrait of an unusual family on the fringe of society
"Surfwise" is another fascinating feature-length documentary by filmmaker Doug Pray, who has made several amusing, enlightening films on pop-culture sub-groups such as the Seattle grunge scene ("Hype") and hip-hop DJ turntabulists ("Scratch").
In this new film he paints a one-third celebratory, two-thirds tragic portrait of the Paskowitz family, a once-legendary surfing clan whose patriarch, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz dropped out of mainstream society in the late 1950s, to follow a near-absolute ... Read More
Rating: - Terrific documentary about an unconventional family
Anyone looking for a glorious ode to the surfing life should pause a moment before viewing this terrific documentary film about life in the Paskowitz family. Although surfing was the stated main focus of this highly unconventional family's life, it's not the center of the story that's revealed in the film. Kudos to the filmmakers, who peel back the layers of the story gradually until you gather the sense of the awfulness at the center. We see a life that on the face of it might appear appealing -- who hasn't ... Read More
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