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Grind (2003)

IMDB rating: 5.00

Plot: While the rest of his high school graduating class is heading to the same old grind of college, skateboarder Eric Rivers and his best friends, Dustin, a goal-oriented workaholic, and misfit slacker Matt have one last summer roadtrip together to follow their dream of getting noticed by the professional skateboarding world—and getting paid to skate. When skating legend Jimmy Wilson’s skate demo tour hits town, the boys figure that as soon as he sees their fierce tricks, he’ll sign them up for his renowned skate team immediately, right? Unfortunately, the guys are intercepted by Jimmy’s road manager and they can’t get their foot in the door, much less their boards. But they do get some free advice: keep skating, stay true to yourself, and stay in the game—if you’re good, you’ll get noticed. Following their dream— and Jimmy’s national tour—Eric, Dustin and Matt start their own skate team, reluctantly sponsored by Dustin and his college fund. After recruiting laid-back ladies man Sweet Lou to join their crew and provide the wheels for their tour, team Super Duper launches the ride of their lives in an outrageous road trip from Chi-town to Santa Monica. The professional scene doesn’t exactly welcome nobody skaters, but these outsiders stick together through extreme misadventures. In their quest to go pro, they meet professional vert skating champions Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist and Pierre Luc Gagnon, skate pro Bam Margera and his crew Preston Lacy, Ehren Danger McGhehey and Jason Wee Man Acuna, as well as sexy skate chick Jamie as they grind handrails across America and force the skateboarding world to give ‘em a piece of the action.

American Splendor (2003)

IMDB rating: 7.70

Plot: Harvey Pekar is file clerk at the local VA hospital. His interactions with his co-workers offer some relief from the monotony, and their discussions encompass everything from music to the decline of American culture to new flavors of jellybeans and life itself. At home, Harvey fills his days with reading, writing and listening to jazz. His apartment is filled with thousands of books and LPs, and he regularly scours Cleveland’s thrift stores and garage sales for more, savoring the rare joy of a 25-cent find. It is at one of these junk sales that Harvey meets Robert Crumb, a greeting card artist and music enthusiast. When, years later, Crumb finds international success for his underground comics, the idea that comic books can be a valid art form for adults inspires Harvey to write his own brand of comic book. An admirer of naturalist writers like Theodore Dreiser, Harvey makes his American Splendor a truthful, unsentimental record of his working-class life, a warts-and-all self portrait. First published in 1976, the comic earns Harvey cult fame throughout the 1980s and eventually leads him to the sardonic Joyce Barber, a partner in a Delaware comic book store who end ups being Harvey’s true soul mate as they experience the bizarre byproducts of Harvey’s cult celebrity stature.

Rugrats Go Wild (2003)

IMDB rating: 5.10

Plot: The Rugrats and family become stranded on an island, and Stu is blamed. The kids wander off into the jungle, and Spike loses his sense of smell due to sneezing. This becomes a problem when a clouded leopard named Siri finds out about the babies and goes after them, and the situation only gets worse when the kids become trapped underwater with an amnesic Nigel, losing oxygen fast…