‘Sup guys.
So if you’ve missed the Banff Mountain Film Festival as it tours over to your city, you pretty much suck and you can stop reading this right now.
The festival plays like everywhere, folks, so don’t gimme no lame excuses.You don’t even gotta go to Banff to see it. But if you do, send me a postcard. Eh? http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainfestival/worldtour/
I just so happened to be doing a promotion to do slackline back flips from the top of the Sears Tower to whatever that building is across from the Sears Tower. It was pretty rad. And I didn’t die, which is always cool.
The film about me that made it into the festival is called Reel Rock: Sketchy Andy, and highlights some of my most kickass tricks. If ya just cant’ enough of me, check out the You Tube video in my profile.
What do you mean that doesn’t look like me? It’s just the camera angles that make me look almost human in these shots. My beard has grown a little longer and whiter since that vid was taken too. But seriously, take another look or buy some glasses or something. It’s totally me and you know it.
Whatever, I’m not here to defend myself. I’m actually here to give a review of the other six films from the festival. So get your panties out of that conspiracy theory wad and settle in with a cup of tea spiked with whiskey.
The first film All.I.Can: The Short Cut showed this rad dude skiing down concrete streets, over cars, and through peoples’ ‘hoods with their clothes lines hanging up and stuff. How whack. There’s tons of ski slopes aroudn the world. Surely, (and don’t call me Shirley) he could have found his stoner way to one of them. The music totally pumped me up though.
The film, Origins – Obe & Ashima, was about this cute little nine year old girl would could totally kick my ass at bouldering. Her dad is some kind of a freak show dancer and they live in New York City, which makes no sense for climbing whatsoever. But anyway, they hired bouldering legend, Obe Carrion, to train the pipsqueak. Finally, little Ashima gets to hit up some real rock and Obe takes her to the bouldering mecca of Hueco Tanks. I can’t wait to see what this crazy kid does next.
I’m no wimp, but the film, Kadoma, totally made me tear up. South African kayak legend, Hendri Coetzee, (nicknamed “Kadoma”) has explored the craziest freaking rivers in all of Africa. A couple American pros followed him into the Lukuga River in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Turns out, he legend ends up dying. I hate crocodiles even more than I did before. Not that I ever really thought about crocodiles much at all before. Whatever.
Blue Obsession was all about ice climbing…something I’ve been wanting to get into just to step up the slackline gig a notch. The glaciers in Alaska are wicked beautiful. I gotta see that for myself. Secretary: Add this to my bucket list. Thanks, bitch.
The film, On Assignment: Jimmy Chin was about this Chinese photographer, who after a bunch of sleeping in his car and getting shit from his family, made it big in the world of climbing photography. His stuff is pretty rockin’. His shots seem to catch his pro climber subjects in a moment where nothing else matters. Truly freaking beautiful.
The final film, The Freedom Chair, was all about this dude, Josh Dueck, who rocked as a skier but got in a real bad accident that left him paralyzed. He was way bummed for awhile but eventually learned to sit ski and got awesome at it. He went the Olympics and got back to his real passion of skiing in the back-country. These types of flicks always seem a bit cheesy, but even jaded fuckers like me can’t help but feel inspired.
Shoutout to Gnomeplaya who invited me to live in the Gnome Abode and join the blog world as a contributing author! I owe ya a beer or seven.
Once my Sears Tower vid comes out, ya’ll be the first to know about it.
Yeah,
Sketchy Andy The Gnome
