There is no better way to kick off the ski season than with a Warren Miller Entertainment film premiere.
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, WME’s “…Like There’s No Tomorrow” made its debut in Boulder at the Boulder Theater.
Despite the fact that WME has been putting out a film each year for the past 62 years, the atmosphere in the Boulder Theater was one of excitement and wild anticipation. Vintage WME clips, poster signings by the athletes and a full bar got the crowd riled prior to the show.
All the usual Warren Miller-ites were in attendance—everyone from the teenager who revels in kick-flips and rails to the 85-year-old who has been skiing Colorado mountains since birth. Regardless of their differences, everyone at a Warren Miller show has at least one thing in common: They love to ride.
The Boulder Theater presents Warren Miller's latest ski film. (CU Independent/Lee Pruitt)
This camaraderie made for one exciting night. The entire theater erupted when the film began with a series of rails, crashes and impossible stunts, ending with the tagline, “Are you ready for winter?”
For the next two hours, WME took the audience on a trip around the globe with a cast of world-famous skiers and snowboarders.
The film opens with skiers Lynsey Dyer and Lel Tone in Kashmir, India, on the disputed border war zone between India and Pakistan. The next segment takes us to Squaw Valley, Cali. WME Director of Photography Tom Day explains what it feels like to be riding in those mountains.
“It’s a certain feeling that’s really hard to describe,” Day said in the film. “It just hits you and you know it.”
From the lush powder of the Valley we travel to the ice-crusted face of Mount Washington in Tuckerman Ravine, New Hamp. Here, Chris Davenport and Hugo Harrison battle against the “worst weather in the world,” including hurricane-force winds at the top of the mountain.
Then, from 360 tail grabs, back flip iron crosses, and daffys in Andreas Håtveit’s Backyard Battle in Sundalen, Norway, we go to Portillo, Chile to watch U.S. Ski Team champions like Jessica McMillan and Julian Carr race each other down the white slopes of the Andes.
Even though we don’t need it, about an hour into the film we get a 30-minute intermission where WME gave out door prizes like Swany gloves and the chance to win a heli-skiing trip in Alaska.
When the film resumes, we find ourselves in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and then the Southern Alps of New Zealand, where they call mountains “hills.” The following sequence features the Rahlves Banzai Tour, which is basically ski racing without rules on the “gnarliest terrain you can find.” This segment highlights some of the best wipeouts of the film.
After a stop in Salt Lake City, we get a solid five minutes of Warren Miller-esque stunts, from jumping off trees and three-story buildings to grinding on soccer goal posts and winding stair rails.
Ultimately, we end up in Cordova, Alaska, a favorite location of WME. The film closes with a tribute to Kip Garre, a friend of WME who passed away last spring while skiing the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Athlete Seth Wescott spoke about Garre and the significance of the film’s title.
“It doesn’t matter what’s going to happen tomorrow because you are living for the moment,” Wescott said in the film. “You are totally engrossed in it…and you are loving being there and being present like that…like there might not be a tomorrow.”
Besides the locations and a few unsuccessful comedic shorts involving a Canadian Yeti scattered throughout (let’s face it, these people are athletes, not actors—stick to the snow), WME doesn’t do much differently in this film than in the past 61. The beauty of a Warren Miller film, though, is that it doesn’t have to. We’ve seen the steep, white faces of the Wasatch Mountain Range countless times, but there’s something about watching a board cut a fresh line into powder that never fails to astound and excite. We love cringing at an epic crash or witnessing a world-class skier land a kangaroo flip no matter how many times WME puts it on film.
As Wescott said, “It never gets old.”
If you’re looking for a good time this week and a fun way to get pumped up for ski season, I’d recommend grabbing a few of your friends and checking out this film. It is playing at the Boulder Theater until Sunday, Nov. 13, and every ticket earns you great deals like buy one, get one free lift tickets at Steamboat and a $25 discount at Boulder Ski Deals.
Winter Park opens this weekend, Copper started the lifts last weekend and Arapahoe Basin has already had skiers riding down its slopes for weeks. So, in the words of WME, “skip work, get out there, and play.”
Contact CU Independent staff writer Natalie Proulx at natalie.proulx@colorado.edu.
