Blind Video Days (1991)

Spike Jonze's first foray into video was Video Days (after World Industries Rubbish Heap in 1989)—(sic), a twenty-minute-long tape of a skateboarding team named Blind doing tricks in various suburban settings. It's standard stuff shot on a single handheld camera, but Jonze brought something new to the form. The opening sequence shows prepubescent Guy Mariano riding to the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back" -- a bold and ironic departure from the usual hardcore-punk and speed-metal soundtracks found on skate tapes. To get permission to use the song, Jonze convinced his lawyers to tell the Jacksons' copyright administrator he was using it in an anti-drunk-driving film. To justify his claim, he then shot a sequence in which the team's mostly underage members swill booze as they hurtle down a dirt road in a giant blue Lincoln that eventually careens into canyon. NYMag

Blind in Paris