Impressions - Warren Miller's Ticket to Ride

Over the weekend I got to see Warren Miller's newest film, Ticket to Ride.  It was at a local theater near by and all the proceeds went to a local childrens hospital. On top of that it came with 4 tickets to local mountains who were sponsoring the event, so it sounded like a pretty good way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Ticket to Ride on the Big screen at The Palace Theater, Manchester NH. 800+ In attendance.

The movie started out fairly promising, with a few big mountain segments with some really sick skiing and big back country jumps. As always the cinematography was top notch throughout. The issue I had started around half way though. The pacing in this movie was glacial (pun intended). It felt as if it was dragging on and on, which is not something you want your audience to be thinking (which both my friends and I though). I don't have the exact time, but I would say this movie clocks in somewhere just over 2 hours. I am not one to normally complain about a movie being too long, but I would have to say this one was. The issue for me was that there was almost no variety to differentiate the segments. They were all absolutely massive back-country segments, that despite being shot all around the world, felt very similar to one another. There were only 2 park segments (3 if you count the intro, which had some urban shots that really had my hopes high for a great park/urban segment), one of which was snowboard exclusive, and the other was basically mixed in with the end credits. Occasionally there would be a single random 'urban' shot (like the Aspen/Snowmass Green Energy one that has been in the last few issues of Freeskiier), but other than that in a 2+ hour movie, there was maybe 15 minutes of park. Being someone who is a park rat, this disappointed me greatly. I love watching sweet back-country shots as much as the next guy, but not for essentially two hours straight.  I will say however, that the narration is still pretty damn good, but on occasion it felt preachy and a little too 'deep' for my tastes.

Overall if you absolutely love huge back-country/side-country segments, this movie is probably for you, but if you want some variety in your ski films, or love park and urban segments, I can't recommend this. It would however make excellent fodder to be played on a loop in a ski-shop or mountain-bar in the background. I however will be continuing to buy most of my ski films from the Level 1, Stept or 4bi9 guys instead.

Keep on shredding internet!