Snowboarding Videos
Videos and movies related to snowboarding, snowboarding tricks and stunts. Including the X games.
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Extreme Winter
In the beginning of this filmed extravaganza featuring snowboarding, ice climbing, and "extreme skiing," the director appears in front of the camera to explain why he traveled to Alaska with an IMAX camera crew. This unusual behind- the-scenes approach continues through Extreme Winter, and the viewer not only is treated to spectacular footage of people risking life and limb on impossibly steep terrain but is also shown exactly how the footage was captured on film. For instance, in one segment a champion snowboarder hurtles downhill, and she is closely followed by a cameraman who's performing the tricky stunt of snowboarding while also holding and aiming a 50-pound IMAX camera. The intrusion of the camera people thus begins to make sense, as one can honestly wonder who should be the star of the proceedings. The film is a tribute to Alaska itself, and some of the footage of snow-covered mountains would be spectacular treats for the eyes even if maniacs weren't snowboarding perilously close to enormous cliffs or clinging to and climbing up forbidding walls of ice. The various athletes filmed doing their risky feats on the mountains speak in interview segments, giving some insight into what possesses them to, as one aptly puts it, "face my fears." This is an exciting and highly entertaining blend of gorgeous photography and extreme sports. --Robert J. McNamara |
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Snowboarding: The Very First Contest
This 1980 record of the first snowboarding contest is best when viewed as archival comedy. Today's big names in the boarding business, Tom Sims and Jake Burton, are shown handling with pride the latest technology in the then-new sport. Modified skates and truncated surfboards resemble cut-up toboggans with haphazardly attached Velcro straps, cut inner tubing and bungee cords serve as bindings while kevlar is touted as the way of the future. As the grand slalom competition is set to begin, there is a brief shot of two people inching along an imperceptible incline on reversed snow shovels, then with a kickoff provided by instantly dropped ski poles, the race begins. Flags are missed, and the participants spend more time in splayed horizontal stasis than in vertical motion. Shots of a hand-packed jump barely three feet high from which various skating tricks are attempted without a single landing are juxtaposed against contest footage from today. What is most apparent throughout this landmark competition are how the participants--including the hijacked jeans-wearing professional skaters, today's legends Sims and Burton, and random skiers attracted to the newness of this then burgeoning sport--recorded here for the first time, exemplify the free spirit and sense of adventure today's snowboarders are known for. Snowboarding Old School shows not only how far the sport has come in the years since the first ever snowboarding competition but how true to its roots the sport has remained. --DJ Alton |
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