Final Grade: C-
Conclusion: Skip the movie, watch the trailer instead. Unless you jib.
So last week Patsy and I joined Zoe, Andrea and James to grab dinner at the Fifty Fifty Brewery in Truckee and to see the ski film Wild Stallions, by Meathead Productions. I promoted going to see this movie over the Winter Film Festival at the Truckee High School and the opening night of the Alpenglow Winter Film Series, showing a multi-media presentation of big wall climbing by Dave Nettle. The movie - exclusively an east coast film - was brought to the left coast by a group of local University of Vermont alumni, and the cover charge went to the local disabled winter sports programs. The dinner and the cover charge were the only things I don't regret.
The movie featured jibbing. A lot of jibbing. Then we'd finally get some powder shots, cut with jibbing, and then they'd stop by some school park in town to - you guessed it - jib some more. Admittingly, the jibbing was fantastic. But I don't jib. And the powder shots were all to short and similar - I can't distinguish in memory one tree-filled powder sequence from the next. And I couldn't tell if the music was coming from the soundtrack or the voice-over of the DJ, confusing me further.
I finally watch the trailer while getting ready to write this and caught a surprise: the trailer is actually more entertaining than the movie! It was cool - humorous, adventurous, and I would have watched the movie anyways if I had seen the trailer beforehand. And I still would have sat there, wondering, "I could be at Bar One right now watching some really fun climbing show."
In the end - pick something else. Go pay $10 for a movie-theater movie, or keep that money and head over to your version of Syd's for $2 PBR's instead.
