Category: Movie reviews

Movie Of The Month: Out Of The Shadows

Posted by Frank – December 6, 2010

Movie of the Month: Out Of The Shadows

Produced by: Dendrite Studios

Year: 2010

Where can I find it? Dendritestudios.com

A few nights ago, we watched Out Of The Shadows and were nothing but impressed. While I haven’t seen every ski movie this year, Out Of The Shadows is my favorite so far.

Out Of The Shadows features the skiing of lesser-known skiers Brett Crabtree, Chris Turpin, Max Arsenault, Ian Watson, Dave Gheriani, Adam Topshee, Alex Blais, Athan Merrick, Jake Cohn, Matt Elliott, Little C, Dave Treadway, Jon Larsson, Eliel Hinder, Matty GT, and PY Leblanc.

Perhaps it’s the cast of skiers that made me like this movie so much. After all, I know several of them and have competed against several more. Perhaps any film where most of the footage is from the Coast Range outside Whistler, B.C. will instantly vault near the top of my list, as it is one of my favorite places in the world to ski. Or maybe I simply like the low-budget, do-it-yourself attitude that these filmmakers showed. In any case, this movie rocked.

Out Of The Shadows features line after line of big-mountain skiing, basically without any break in the action. The only token jib segment is near the start of the film, and after that it’s a constant visual barrage of sweet lines being thrown down. Ultimately, that’s my main complaint about the movie- a little comedy/lifestyle hokeyness somewhere in the film would have broken it up a little better.

The filming is excellent, and you can tell the videographers spent a lot of time thinking about getting shots that weren’t just the same old stuff. This is all the more impressive considering the lack of a heli budget to get footage like TGR or MSP would have. There is perhaps a little too much use of helmet cams, and some of the shots look very “digital” in nature, but that might just be our version of the film.

Which brings me to the next point- you can watch this movie for cheap. It’s less than $2.00 to download this film at the website above, although it should be noted that it’s “pay what you can”, so throwing in a few extra bucks will probably help these guys make an even better movie next year. We hooked our computer up to our flatscreen TV via an HDMI cable, so we weren’t forced into watching the movie on our computer screens.

Finally, I’d like to thank PY Leblanc for his tribute run for Jack Hannan. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry, but thanks PY!

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Generations and Climate Change

Posted by Frank – December 7, 2009

Generations is a short film produced by TGR about something that should concern all skiers: climate change. It’s a really good movie, with a lot of historical footage, climate change information, and even a fair bit of top-notch skiing and snowboarding. The download is free, and can be found here. I tend to prefer ski movies with a little bit of plot or storyline in them, and this film was no exception. The kids near the end are hilarious, too.

Meanwhile, my friend Alison Gannett recently walked from London to Copenhagen to attend the Copenhagen Climate Conference and raise awareness for her Save Our Snow Foundation Climate change awareness is something that Alison has been working hard on for several years, and her efforts are noteworthy. Thanks for being such a leader on this issue, Alison!

Finally, I thought I’d mention how sad it is that so many people continue to dismiss climate change and the role humans play. The evidence is overwhelming, and the only studies discounting it seem to come from scientists funded by the oil industry. Even for people who think the entire global warming scenario is something cooked up by environmental extremists, reducing the use of fossil fuels should be a top priority for us all. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is just one benefit of moving away from fossil fuels. The last time I was in Salt Lake City, the air was so thick with smog I couldn’t see even one block, and I don’t need any studies to know that my burning eyes and the metallic taste in my mouth was not good for me. Take some action, even if it’s just the small things mentioned at the end of Generations, like unplugging as much as you can every time you leave the house, or changing your light bulbs to the new compact florescents. At least check the movie out, it’s worthwhile as a ski flick alone.

In other news, it’s finally snowing. Time to make some turns…

Check this Film out

Posted by Frank – November 23, 2009

Check out this 23 minute film from The North Project. Filmed in and around the backcountry of Haines, AK, this is one of the best ski movies I’ve ever seen. Beautiful and artistic editing, filming, and skiing made me want to ski more than any film I’ve seen for ages. Seriously, this is a good one, and it’s free. Check it out, and do the HD version if your connection is good enough.

http://thenorthproject.com/film.html

Soul Sessions and Epic Impressions

Posted by Frank – November 4, 2009

That’s the name of Matchstick Production’s first movie back in 1993. OK, technically they were known as RAF, not MSP back then, and a few people still have a copy of 1991′s “Nachos and Fear”, which wasn’t released, but Soul Sessions is what put MSP on the map. I watched it again for the first time in a long time and remembered just how much I love that movie. It has never been re-released on DVD, and searches on ebay were fruitless. Heck, I couldn’t even find a clip on youtube. Still, if you can find this movie, or know someone who has it, you might want to give it a look and here’s why.

The movie starts with this: “Ski bums are ski bums and always will be. All abandoned establishment lifestyles to recreate all day, every day in the mountains. This movie is dedicated to them.” And the movie starred ski bums. Dave Bluestein, one of the skiers, was washing dishes at The Slogar back in those days. The movie then says this: “1,000 years in the future, archaeologists will excavate ski towns, and their findings, along with the history books, will lead them to the conclusion that skiing was just a sport. They’ll never know that life is skiing and skiing is life.” The voice-overs are rounded out with some Clint Eastwood movie quotes (“Alive or dead, it’s your choice”) and some Kerouac.

I was 19 years old when this movie came out, and I ate that stuff up. Someone else who was 19 at the time of this movie was a Western State College student by the name of Seth Morrison, who made his film debut in this movie. The footage of Seth airing most of “The Edge”, one of Crested Butte’s steepest runs, is timeless. I have yet to see someone try the same thing on modern fat skis. Seth made this movie, and MSP made Seth. To see inbounds runs at places like Crested Butte and Taos actually make a movie, sometimes even in springtime conditions (rather than powder) is virtually non-existent these days. I think that the occasional segment outside of the park at a ski area wouldn’t be a bad thing at all, in fact it would let people understand just what these top-notch athletes are actually doing.

Lots of skiers say that the “Blizzard of Ah’s” had a huge effect on them, but for me “Soul Sessions” probably had an even bigger effect. A lot of things led me to this place called Crested Butte, and this movie is a big part of that. It just seemed like the place to be at the time. I wish I had a clip to show, but I don’t. So seek this movie out, then learn it, love it, and live it :)

EDIT 4-7-2011 MSP finally put a clip on their website! Check it out HERE.

Mount Saint Elias- The Mountain And The Movie

Posted by Frank – October 25, 2009

Mount St Elias is the second highest peak in the United States, at 18,008′. The first ascent was made by an expedition led by the Italian Duke of Abruzzi in 1897 and featured porters carrying brass beds to base camp. Rising directly from the ocean on the border of Alaska and the Yukon, the potential of a summit-to-sea ski descent of the entire mountain will always spark the imagination of ski mountaineers. The proximity to the ocean is also the downfall of this goal, however, as the mountain makes its’ own weather like few others in the world. The first ski descent was made in 2000 by Andy Ward, James Bracken, and Lorne Glick down what they dubbed the “Mira Face” (see the American Alpine Journal 2001). This 11,000′ descent did not go to the sea, leaving the summit-to-sea route unclaimed.

In 2002, another group attempted the complete route, but unfortunately 2 members fell after reaching the summit. An excellent article can be found here: Sports Illustrated Article

In 2007 my good friend Jon Johnston joined Axel Naglich and Peter Ressman in a well-funded attempt to make the summit to sea descent. The group encountered difficult climbing conditions, slopes that were blown free of snow down to the ice below, and storm conditions that forced them to hunker down in a snow cave for days. Portions of the route were skied on the initial trip, and Axel returned months later to ski from the summit and claim the first descent to the sea. Needless to say, the route remains for someone to do in a better style than currently accomplished.

Now, 2 years later, the movie will be premiering in November and the trailer is already out. It looks like plenty of money went into the movie, and it also appears that the movie will cover more than just the ’07 expedition, since the trailer shows what looks like scenes from the ill-fated ’02 expedition. I’m not so sure what to think about the obviously staged crevasse fall in the movie trailer, either. Perhaps that’s the kind of thing that will make it more interesting to the average viewer, though, who doesn’t know much about ski mountaineering. Personally I’m looking forward to seeing this movie and giving it a complete review, especially after hearing so much about the trip from Jon. Official site: mountstelias.com

The trailer:

Crested Butte Post-Season 4.19.09

Posted by Frank – May 19, 2009

Sorry for yet another late post– In this case, I was hoping for more photos from the other participants, but that’s OK. I’ll just dedicate this TR to the Denver Nuggets and their first Western Conference Finals playoff game in 24 years :)

A last minute change of plans had Ben, Tom, Rob and me unloading our sleds at the base of the ski area a little over a week after they closed. Why on earth would we go ski our home ski area when we could ski elsewhere, you ask? Well, for one thing, we knew we would be able to ride tandem up all the access roads at the ski area, so we could be lazy and ski laps without any hiking. For another, Ben and I have had our eyes on some permanently closed areas since we each arrived in Crested Butte in 1996. Skiing them after the area is closed is the only way we could ski them.

We weren’t the only ones out that day, but there was still plenty to go around. We started off with a warmup lap on the headwall, which had received a fair bit of snow since the area had closed, which had the effect of eliminating all the bumps which usually clog up the runouts. Ben was the first to go, hitting the “diving board” variation of Angle gully:
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Tom went next, on the McConkey Memorial Spatulas. He chose to boost it off of box rock:

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Rob and I skied the next lap together, so I don’t have any photos of either of us. Next we went to the area we really wanted to get to, the forbidden zone known as “Lookout”. This area was open one season long ago, but patrol had to rope out so many people, they had to shut it down. The dominant route in this area is an exposed diagonal chute that empties back into Spellbound bowl. Ben got first dibs on routefinding. Here he is, safely coming out the bottom:
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To enter the diagonal, we each had to find a line and straighline a short rocky section, and the first turn was crucial, or else we would send it off the large cliff below. Coming through the crux, my tracks are looker’s right and Ben’s are looker’s left:
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Rob was next:
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We had all been standing on an alternate line, and Tom somehow mustered up the courage to give it a go. He nailed it. Here are the photos:
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We made another lap in another closed area, Teo2 bowl to end the day. Hopefully this area will be open as early as next season. It is a fun but short/sweet area that should offer up a lot better skiing than the (what I consider to be) boring Teocalli bowl. I didn’t get any great shots in this area.

Meanwhile, Matchstick Productions were up to their own thing after the area closed. Snowcats had taken all the snow from the park and sculpted a huge booter for their jibber athletes to hit. Coming soon to a Matchstick movie near you (notice how small the snowcat seems in comparison):
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Sean Crossen’s 14er skiing video

Posted by Frank – July 21, 2008

Crossen 14er video

Sean put this video together a while back documenting his efforts to ski all the fourteeners. While he ultimately came up a little bit shy, he put in a great effort and skied an awful lot of peaks in winter-like conditions, quite unlike my effort which tended to mostly occur in the spring. Lots of guest appearances from “The Crew”, too- guys like Pete and Jasper and Webster and even the O.G. Lou Dawson on El Diente. It’s well worth checking out, although perhaps with the music muted ;)

Some highlights: Pete and his huge pack unable to mount his bike to get up the Maroon Creek road around 10:30. Faceplant!!! Wendy Fischer shredding Wetterhorn in early season conditions around 17:25

Movie Review: Fire On The Mountain

Posted by Frank – June 24, 2008

I recently watched Fire On The Mountain, The Story of The 10th Mountain Division. It’s a great documentary of the 10th mountain division, which was formed as WW2 approached. While their accomplishments in WW2 in Northern Italy and the battle of Riva Ridge (a run at Vail is named Riva Ridge for this), what these soldiers did after the war and their effect on skiing and other outdoor sports is astounding.

Here’s a partial list:
founded Vail ski area
founded Aspen ski area
Sierra club director
founded NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership school
co-founder of Nike

There are too many ski school directors and others to even begin to name them all. Skiing in the USA wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t for these soldiers. Some of the trips around Camp Hale, CO (near Leadville and Vail) were pretty incredible- spending weeks ski traversing above treeline in the dead of winter. All the more amazing considering their 80lb packs and gear of the day.

If you get a chance, see this movie.