All right, pops, time to get with the program. Hip-hop is here to stay, which makes a DJ doc like Scratch essential viewing for anybody old enough to remember the intended use of vinyl. Sure, squares still swear by the format, but these days, vinyl's good for one thing and one thing only: scratching. Face it, records make lousy coasters, and that hole in the center makes eating off 'em a near impossibility. Meanwhile, guys like Cut Chemist and Q-Bert, guys with a well-honed ear and fingers like lightning, are constantly inventing new music from old material. And amazingly enough, their turntable concoctions sound even better than the sources they sample.

Doug Pray's Scratch catches these East- and West-coast hip-hop evangelists in action, in the flash-strike of inspiration, and though it's largely a talking-heads doc, Pray whips out a few DJ tricks of his own to stoke the momentum and keep it rolling. In this context, a standard technique like back-and-forth cross-cutting between interviews assumes another level of significance. It's a process not unlike the music Scratch celebrates, and it's one of the reasons Pray manages to mirror his subject so well.

Check out the opening, the way it skips and jumps with the music, and think about how Pray actually transfers key quotations to vinyl, turns 'em over to Q-Bert to scratch, then reinserts them back into his movie. This guy understands the art form, and he translates it to film brilliantly. Pray came to this project after editing the Hughes brothers' American Pimp (Allen and Albert Hughes were instrumental in getting this movie made).

Pray's passion project makes for an exhilarating introduction to the form for hip-hop beginners (like myself) and just as worthy an homage for seasoned experts. Scratch doesn't so much cover the DJ scene as sample its history, mixing it up between rap's forefathers and the rising stars who worship them. One moment, you're watching Afrika Bambaataa wax poetic on the roots of hip-hop and the next you're digging for the perfect break amidst a cavernous underground record collection with DJ Shadow. It's an honor to encounter so many legends in the span of 92 minutes and an obligation to finally pay these visionaries the attention they deserve.

[as featured on Moviefone.com]