I can be hard on the annual Warren Miller snowrider films. I’ve rolled my eyes at junior-high-mentality scenes, fretted about the lack of female athletes and cringed at or been bored by some years’ soundtracks.
But this year, hear me applaud “Off the Grid,” the 57th annual affirmation of risk-taking from Warren Miller Entertainment.
“Off the Grid” can be seen Nov. 10 in Everett.
The film’s script and the narration by Olympic-skier-turned-NFL-football-player Jeremy Bloom are better. Slapstick is limited, and the filmmakers stuck with the basics: terrific photography of awe-inspiring scenery and adrenalin-pumping rides mixed with some sensitively done scenes in Kashmir, India.
The slopes are steeper, the daredevil-triggered avalanches are more numerous, the powder is deeper, and the snowriders are more verbal. The riders, however, are less involved in death-defying crashes, perhaps an indication that the edge wasn’t pushed quite as much as in some years.
Viewers are whisked to British Columbia’s Kicking Horse ski area, the province’s newest, riding snowmobiles or snowcats to the takeoff point. That’s after a two-hour snowmobile ride to the lodge.
Watch T.J. Schiller land the first switch-1440 – enter, jump backwards, rotate four times – in competition for the Big Air title at the U.S. Freestyling Open in Vail. Wince at the rag-doll crashes in Europe. Be envious of skiing in 500 inches of dry snow in Utah’s Wasatch Range.
Ponder the sanity of Jaime Pierre setting a world record with a 245-foot cliff jump. He created a 6-foot-deep hole in the snow – landing face-down – and then said “never doing that again.”
Enjoy riding Colorado moguls or go high to the 11,000-foot Lone Peak in Montana, with a great sequence of avalanche-causing explosions, ski shots and a bit of humor with risk-taking skier Mike Mannelin. He once supported his ski habit by being a janitor at a nuclear power plant, a job he called “more hazardous than I would have liked.”
Every line is nailed tight in the Chugach Mountains in Alaska by brothers Reggie and Zach Crist, the first brothers to share a podium at the Winter X-Games. In another segment, hold your breath while Anthony Boronowski is caught in a dangerous avalanche.
Enjoy great powder shots and blue skies at Steamboat, Colo. Try to determine the rules of the World Snowball Fighting Championships in Hokkaido, Japan. Do some sightseeing in Krippenstein, Austria.
The show ends with a segment dedicated to a former Warren Miller athlete, Doug Coombs, an Alaskan helicopter-skiing guide who died trying to save a friend.
It’s also a time to admire the courage of two of the world’s best adaptive skiers: sit-skier Kevin Bramble, who built a better ride, and one-legged skier Monte Meier.
The soundtrack is decent, but it doesn’t compare with 2004’s “Impact.” In a couple of places it isn’t a good fit at all, but it does shine with Thievery Corporation’s well-placed other-worldly “Door of Perception” during the Kashmir segment.
As usual, attending the annual snow-lovers bash includes goodies such as a free subscription to Skiing magazine, free lift tickets and a money-off coupon at REI, which should take some of the sting out of the ticket price.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
“Off the Grid”
Where: Historic Everett Theater, 2911 Colby Ave. 206-628-0888
When: 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Friday
Admission: $18.50
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