I pledged (kinda) to hate on the shitty movies that come out every year, rather than provide the standard ski mag review of “great riders, great locations, great movie.” So it’s a little dangerous to start with such a sappy bullshit review, but I love the Traveling Circus series. It is probably the only film project in skiing that I have no qualms about. The damn thing just succeeds on so many levels:
- The hosts (Will and Andy) aren’t committing any of the sins every skier commits when they are asked to speak on film. These sins include- overdoing a thug persona by making hand gestures and mugging for the camera, attempting to get intellectual with it and philosophizing about the meaning of style or the transcendence of the mountains (I’m talking to you Nimbus), and finally…they aren’t self-consciously posturing /overdoing it. This final sin is relentlessly transgressed by the host of another popular webisode series that shall remain nameless (rhymes with “thug wife”) to the point that I have to look away from the screen because his awkwardness makes me feel squeamish.
- It’s a new form. Sure the video-blog format is already kind of played out in internet media, but within skiing it serves a different purpose. It’s a bridge between the old format of annual full length ski movies and the newly ubiquitous web edit. It works as a marketing tool for the sponsor companies (important bc that’s how those fancy cameras are paid for), but it maintains the immediate and personal feel of a midseason edit by your favorite unknown rider.
- There’s a plot, and it doesn’t suck. Ski film companies have tried several times to imbue their films with some sort of cohesive theme, but it usually fails miserably. You’ve got the absurdist radio show of Tanner’s WSKI, MSP’s (lame ass) attempt with Yearbook, or Poorboyz more recent film Reasons. They all SUCKED.
- Traveling Circus doesn’t suck.
