Shredding the Gnar
Off the Grid. Many snow pros star in this ski
documentary narrated by Jeremy Bloom and directed by Max
Bervy.
Reviewed by Matt Kettmann
Santa Barbara wouldn’t know it from the sunshine and 80 degree
weather we’ve been enjoying lately, but the season known elsewhere
as “winter” is already descending upon the rest of the northern
hemisphere. Good thing we’ve got Warren Miller to remind us,
because for the 57th year in a row, the ski movie demigod has put
his name on yet another exciting downhill flick, once again
trotting the snowy globe in search of the steep and deep.
Now in his early eighties, Miller is
unfortunately no longer the voice of these films; his narration
occurs in often oddly placed snippets which were culled from
previous films and generally talk about wanting to be young again.
In his wake, the filmmakers here employ the voice of Jeremy Bloom,
the Olympic skier who now plays pro football as a wide receiver for
the Philadelphia Eagles.
What hasn’t changed, however, is the practice of using a
loose-fitting cliché as the title, and then trying to wrap that
into the storyline. This time, the theme “off the grid” is evoked
to show how pro snow riders get away from it all. It kinda works,
as all Miller titles kinda do, but what really makes us drool is
the footage.
Specifically, we’re talking backcountry snowcat skiing near an
array of deserving locales, including the Lincoln-log-constructed
Chatter Creek Lodge, open lines at B.C.’s new Kicking Horse Resort,
Utah’s Wasatch Mountains (their “Ski! Utah” license plates now make
perfect sense), and even a “Monopalooza,” where “tens” of
monoboarders gather to show off their style. There’s a 255-foot
cliff jump, vegetable transactions in the capital of Kashmir,
winter-locked villages in the Indian mountains where only skiers
can visit, the 17th Miller film appearance of funnyman Chris
Anthony, inspiring stories of one-legged and paraplegic backcountry
wizards, and professional snowfights in Japan where snowballs are
manufactured with exquisite precision. (There aren’t that many
women featured, however.)
And then there’s powder, powder, powder — oh-so-much powder. And
that’s really what the Warren Miller experience is designed to do:
boost our stoke and our hunger for this year’s soft bowls, cornice
drops, and tree weaving. And in that task, Off the Grid succeeds
remarkably.
