Trans-World Video Tour Puts Middlebury on the Map

Author: Peter Yordan

Middlebury ski bums got a rare chance to see brand new ski video material this weekend with the arrival on campus of the Trans- World Undeclared Film Tour. The sponsor-laden tour, in the midst of a 50-college national circuit, allowed students to catch a free showing of high end stunt snowboarding and free skiing stars on a host of different mountains across North America in a joint production between Mack Dog and Poor Boyz Productions. A good turnout of students were on hand to watch the movie, which promised to feature many of the nation's best trick artists pushing the limits of bodily harm with each new hair-raising trick. Unfortunately, Undeclared quickly bogs down into an endless series of jumps and grinds, which when taken singly are impressive, but en masse prove to be overkill.
The film begins with a credibility-killing intro by ESPN's perennially lame Sal Masakela. Luckily, he goes away quickly, replaced by the first half of the film by snowboarding director Mike McEntire's Mack Dog Productions. Lining up such reputable riders as Jeremy Jones, Shaun White, Keir Dillon, Devun Walsh and J.F. Pelchat, McEntire strings along an endless series of big air jumps and grinds, showing off his brand of "New School" snowboarding, which is a lot like old school snowboarding, except more "extreme." Note to Mack Dog, "new" is out these days--get with the retro craze, slap some old Dr. J jerseys on those riders and get them out on some old school powder lines instead of grinding on stair rails with summery grass landings.
Many of the moves are indeed spectacular, with the riders regularly catching over fifty feet of air, both on-mountain and in terrain parks. The riders show endless creativity and bravado in finding obstacles to trick off of, jumping up on chimneys, water towers, roofs and grinding on whatever pieces of exposed metal they can get their hands on.
Masakela comes back to switch things over to freestyle skiing, once again doing his best to suck the oxygen from the room, just like he does every year at the X-games. This time relief comes from Director Jim DeCesare and his Poor Boyz Productions. The stunts from such twin-tippers as Tanner Hall, Jon Olsson, C.R. Johnson, Evan Raps, Shane Szocs, J.F. Cusson and Mike Douglas look eerily similar to those we've just seen from the riders. We quickly realize that much of the action takes place in the same spots as the first half of the film. Sadly, once again there are almost no T.J. Burke-worthy backcountry powder runs from the skiers, who confine themselves to near hip-breaking leaps and slides punctuated by occasionally spectacular crashes.
Perhaps the most memorable stunt of the movie comes from a series of on-mountain jumps over a huge, gaping chasm up on to the top of a cornice ledge on the other side. One of the skiers doesn't reach the landing, splattering himself with a full-frontal impact into the cornice face as the audience groans in unison. Despite the ever-increasing parity between skiers and snowboarders in every field of the sport, it is doubtful that snowboaders will ever be able to match the sheer bone-crunching, equipment-strewing mayhem of a skier crashing.
The movie lacks the restrained elegance of the best Warren Miller films, instead choosing to pummel its audience with rapid fire editing and an endless barrage of different riders. The music is the standard weak ski film fare, with a selection of songs so obnoxious and eclectic that it is bound to disappoint anyone's tastes. Eventually, what hurts the film is its uniformity. "The film was good, it just got too repetitive by the end," said snowboard aficionado Cory Lowe '04, echoing the general sentiment of the audience. "They just kept doing the same things over and over." The best ski films change pace to keep their audience engaged by switching between Big Mountain and freestyle. Trans-World's piece goes on about 20 minutes too long, lagging especially during the stair rail sliding segment, where rider after rider takes his turn on near identical stairs. As anyone who has tried it can attest, these are hard and risky stunts, but they tend to lose their visual appeal rather quickly.
Freestyle skiing and boarding seem to fast be hitting the limit of physically possible tricks. Like diving or figure skating, there are only so many spins a person can do while in the air. If films like the Trans World Undeclared Tour are going to stay in business, they are going to have to start changing their approach.