Supernaut
Infinite Momentum.
O.k. I’ve been sitting here for about an hour now trying
to figure out what to say about this video. Its a great video,
its just that some parts are a little on the short side. The
skating in it isn’t all choreographed and awkward looking,
like the lines are some sort of dance routine that they’ve
been practicing for weeks to film. The footage looks more like
everybody was just skating the way that they usually skate,
and the camera was just there to document it. Hey, what a novel
idea: just showing great skateboarders skating the way that
comes naturally to them instead of becoming an alter ego for
the camera. I heard somewhere that Tony Cox filmed most of his
part in about three days. I was really glad to see the return
of Paul Sharpe to the face of the Earth, after fully recovering
from knee surgery, Paul has more pop then ever, which makes
it easy to switch backside lipslide picnic tables. The two Matts
have sick parts with footage from their trip to Japan. Half
the fun of watching their parts is seeing all of the crazy parks
and street spots that haven’t ever been seen by the round
eyes before. My favorite part of the video had to be Aaron Vanderbulk’s
though. There has definitely been some work put in over in San
Jose. In all,this video has the unique quality of being a raw
collection of people’s natural approaches to skating. -Matt
Cantor
High Voltage Productions
1999
Coming off the tail of this decades most notable skateboard
film, The End, Jaime “Mouse” Mosberg heads for the
snow for another epic piece. 1999 is the only snowboard vid
that has a running theme, well two actually. The opener is a
jab at contests, pretty funny. Then it segues into; an asteroid
killed the earth, Mad Max on snowmobiles type deal. Wasteland
sleds with warriors on them come riding out. A guy pulls over
to drop a load and a girl (Tara?) laso’s him eats his flesh.
1999 was filmed in the most exotic locales possible including
Africa, Alaska, France, and Madagascar. Speaking the latter,
one of the highlights is Jay Nelson’s First Descent of
a “thing” called the Fallopian Tube. This whole vid
is worth getting for that part. “Babs” Charlet does
some lines in Chamonix that will make you call your travel agent.
King of the Hill Axel Pauporte does the crazy shit, I’ll
just leave it at that. There is contest footage of Terje, Daniel
and Michalchuk. Of the big guns, Mouse is doing the most progressive
and experimental film/movie production and could be called the
Spike Jonze, of snowboarding. 1999 comes with a free CD. -Sonny
Mayugba
Mack Dawg Productions
Technical Difficulties
If there was a sick shot to get last winter, Dawger was there.
With its fitting name, Technical has all the progressive spins
with names I haven’t even learned yet and handrail mania.
This could also be called the Forum team vid. JP Walker wishes
there were no bindings on a snowboard so he could do flip tricks.
JPW is a handrail killer and spin master! Peter Line. Whoa.
The illest of the ill, the sickest of the sick, makes my big
toe come up in my boot. You need to see Peter. Chris Dufficy
does a sick roof drop and gives homage to the Muska, (Getto-blaster
style). Burton’s Jason Brown shows tech skills with creativity.
M3’s Chad Otterstom looks hungry and aggro-next big pro?
Throw in Devun Walsh, Brian Thien, Mikey Leblanc, Jeremy Jones,
KJ (backflip off a handrail), and many others and you’ve
got the most fun and most progressive snowboard video on the
market. It even comes with a free CD! Dawgers new one may even
gain snowboarding respect from skateboard purists. In skateboarding,
if you bail, you may get wrecked. However, if you want, you
can kick the board away and try again. Check Bjorn Leines’
elbow! In Technical Difficulties, the crew is full on committed,
strapped into bindings. No kicking the board away. Some might
say this is the best film of the year. -Sonny Mayugba
K2
Goin’ For Broke
It’s official: K2 has a cloning laboratory on Vashon Island
where they build snowboarders with perfect uniform knee stance
for their team. Goin’ For Broke is your basic team video
with some great moments. Kicker lover Travis Parker does a rock
‘n roll on a roof. Marius Sommer shows some sick pipe skills.
Lance Pitman can be called K2’s best freerider probably
due to his Wyoming locale. Lance does a sick rock drop line
to open pow field that makes me wanna ride. I can tell he’s
been scoping out spots because his shit is original. Chris Englesman
has a rad style, reminiscent of Wes Makepeace. Chris has no
problem with b/s lip’s and kinked rails. Also seen are
John Laing, Brodi Dowell, Tina Dixon, Pekka Valli, Jonas Guinn
(double backflip from hell), Louie Fountain (mark my words:
LF is ill), and Marco Lutz (all around skills). But well established
pro Brian Savard shows he is still on top of his game. A judo
in the pipe and a sick ass b/w lip to fakie on a box on the
lip of the pipe was ice cream on a hot day: tasty, -Sonny Mayugba
Standard Films
TB8: Infinity
There is something about a Standard Films’ vid that exudes
a hardcore, aggro pure vibe. You know Mike Hatchett doesn’t
fuck around. Watching this film, I get the sense that there
are no boundaries or formulas to Mike’s film-making. Like
a classic record, TB8 can not be watched only once. The powerful
command of Andy Hetzel is timeless. Andrew Crawford rides everything.
Jim Rippey displays why he is a pro. Travis Parker, Jussi Oksanen,
Marcus Egge, Jimmy Halopoff, Dave Downing, KJ, Tom Burt, and
Victoria Jealouse make TB8 snowboarders dream. But young gun
Shaun White steals the show. This kid is a ripper! And again,
Brian Savard deserves mad credit. Filmed in 16mm, TB8 wins the
award of best freeriding in the world. The soundtrack wasn’t
the same punk bands that have become cliche to snow videos,
it had new bands including Modest Mouse. Another classic is
born from Standard Films. -Sonny Mayugba
Osiris
The Storm
With all the hype, the Osiris team had a lot to live up to.
For the most part the huge team lived up to it. The Storm has
ridiculous tech-ness, it’s definitely one you’ll have
to rewind and watch again to figure out all the tricks like
tail slide big spin noseslide and noseslide nollie three sixty
flip out! Chris Doubstaff is sick, opens the video, outta nowhere,
super tech, super clean. All the one namers you’d expect
to see fuck shit up too: Smolik, and Turner (stylie-tech), Kanten
(ridiculous gappage) Casper (also ridiculous ollies), Hsu (I
too can do darkslides), Fernandez (big techness), and Mayhew.
Mathias Ringstrom has the only vert section and it’s sick.
Another unexpected surprise was Dexter Lusier, insane tech shit,
tailside bigspin lipper on a kinked rail and that’s just
the tip of the ice burg. I do have a couple of complaints though.
The footy is all 8mm, high 8, and digital, I guess it’s
more hardcore, but it’s really not up to speed with the
cutting edge technical stuff in the video. Also the video has
some old footage from ad’s you’ve seen from before
last summer. But all in all the video is a virtual dictionary
of the super technical tricks that are out there. -Josh Simpson
Sessions
Viva Sessions!
As soon as Sessions started running ads for this video I knew
I had to get it. Boasting a phenomenal team and with promises
of sick footage I knew this video was not to be missed, and
Viva Sessions lived up to my expectations and ollie over them.
The main reason I was so stoked to see this video was Jamie
Lynn. Jamie has been one of my favorite snowboarders for many
years, but he hasn’t really had too many video parts in
the last few years. His part is insane. Just the smoothest mofo
on a board Jamie conquers any terrain with swan like grace.
Okay enough of kissing Jamie’s ass, the rest of the video
is good too. I was really impressed with Alex Chalmers’
skating at Burnside and in the concrete bowls of Canada. Alex
has snake runs wired. Overall this video is solid, good music
original footage and great riders. My only complaint is that
it isn’t very long, but what do you expect from a first
video. Hopefully they’ll put out another one next year.
Long Live Sessions!! -Brad Gobdel
