Alicia I love this movie so much

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Clayton Moore I never thought much about the attraction of snowboarding over skiing until I seen this documentary. Now I understand. The film is an exploration of the creation and history of snowboarding and it's explosion into popular culture. The basic setup is a trip to Alaska by three young snowboarders to "conquer" the mountains. The footage of these snowboarders down these mountains is absolutely incredible.While I naturally enjoyed meeting the snowboarders and getting to know them a little I loved the older footage. You probably thought snowboarding grew out of the Southern California Surfer screen but you would be wrong. It actually grew out of the skateboard craze of the late 70's. If you every watch a skateboard competition some of the same moves are used in snowboarding.Since there is no plot this documentary is all about attitude so casting (or selection) was critical for the young snowboarders and the film certainly picked right. Two of the young snowboarders, Shaun White and Hannah Teter won Olympic Gold Medals at Torino in 2006 (in addition to being enormously appealing). None of them seem to have a bit of fear; no matter how hairy the run down the mountain.I love films that present something I have never seen before and seeing these guys get dropped off at the top of the mountain and go down for miles is unbelievable. Quite a film - See it. and my highest recommendation.

Charles Delacroix First, I am *not* in the least bit knowledgeable about snowboarding or any of the related sports (surfing, skateboarding, skiing). And I was myself fearful that this movie would include so much "technical" or "advanced" material that a mere mortal wouldn't be able to follow it. "Documentaries" can be very specialized, after all.I need not have feared finding myself out of my depth and neither should *you* if you're not yourself in the center of the "scene" and yet are thinking about seeing this film.Because this is really in the spirit of The Lords of Dogtown and ... and ... well, there was a Surfing quasi-documentary from last summer, I can't think of the name ... but it had the same flavor. The flavor was a special sort of humanistic excitement that for me arises from combining both (a) great footage of the Action; and (b) great narrative and interviews with the People involved.I liked the sort of back and forth from Present (a sort of Reality Movie type expedition to Alaska with 5 top boarders) and Past (History of Snowboarding).The scenery from Alaska was simply breathtaking, the descents gripping and exciting and full of vicarious adrenalin rushes.The interviews with Terje and Shaun and Hannah and Farm and Shawn were wonderfully engaging: fresh and convincing and sincere enough that I as viewer felt like I got a real sense of who these fascinating and delightful persons were.The history painted the whole Snowboarding Phenomenon with a vivid and appealing personality as well.The way that the entire film built toward what truly was a blazing, satisfying completion, was just delightful. In fact the sort of sustained baseline of excitement was modulated by a kind of rhythm back and forth from whiteknuckling action back to a little narrative or interviewing to let me catch my breath.Great job everyone ... and *thanks* for giving a viewer like me a little glimpse into a gripping and exciting and wonderfully human world.

sanity83 this movie had massive potential and they did some good things with it but just couldn't pull it all together.basically these five riders go up to ski back country peaks in Alaska. the riders are of 3 veteran riders around 40 years old each and two youngsters, a male and a female who have both been highly successful. the premise is good to document their trip along with accounting for the history of snowboarding and of each rider.what goes wrong is this: they spend way too much time discussing the history of snowboarding. basically if they would compile the history better and shorten it up they would have an excellent movie. i understand their want to illustrate the many aspects of the history of the sport and it is hard to sum things up on an entire subculture but it just needed to be done.the movie was 2 solid hours and probably an hour of it was talking about the history and really just repeating where it came from (skating and surfing) and the fact that skiers and the rest of the world didn't want to acknowledge snowboarders. which, most people know these two facts anyways, so i just didn't feel it needed to be talked about at such length. just shorten up that and make it into a 1:15 to 1:30 minute movie and we would be sweet.it was really a good concept and i like how they paid many respect to roots instead of just trying to market to the cool, young, more daring snowboarders and fans.its just too long. really is still an important flick, though. i would say wait until video but unless you've got a great, big TV, you might want to shell out the 8 bucks to see it in theaters. or if you've got a dollar theater around that the movies go to after they are done at the reg. theater then go see it there.

tony_tbone I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. It puts you in a great mood. There is one amazing scene after another of snowboarders doing insane freestyle and big mountain riding. The mix of the new generation riders (Shaun White, Hannah Teeter, and Travis Rice) with Terje from the 90's and Shawn Farmer from the early days of snowboarding (late 70's through 80's) gives you the full spectrum of different riding styles. The movie jumps back and forth from these 5 big names doing a trip together in Alaska searching for some back country riding to the documenting of snowboarding's history. I feel the two different focuses kept it more interesting and made the movie more enjoyable. I don't think the movie was too over the top in its effort to promote snowboarding nor do I think it exaggerated its impact on the ski resorts or the world. It seemed balanced, realistic and factual from my own knowledge of snowboarding which dates back to the early 90s. If you're a soccer mom that watches Oprah and soaps most of the time this may not be very exciting to you but if you have a love for sports, the outdoors and some excitement you should be able to enjoy this very easily like I did.