Jon and the gang would never post this video because it contains:
1. Big clothing
2. Rap music
3. Simon Dumont
But that being said, I have a nifty login here at BroBomb and damn it, I’m using it. Enjoy the 2010 Team America JOSS Edit. God knows Jon won’t.
-Rogge
About three weeks ago I was in Burlington, VT with Mike Rogge. I was going on the Ski Show that night, and the timing couldn’t have been better. I was sitting on the couch, checking out the latest edits, and I came upon Tanner’s now-deleted rant at the Linecatcher event. I heard Rogge coming down the stairs, so for dramatic effect I held up my laptop and said, “check this shit out” as I pushed play.
Those of you tuned into the Ski Show that night already know that Rogge drinks a special brand of Kool-Aid that renders him blind to all of Tanner’s miscues. You also know that I’ve been known to sip the Haterade a bit myself. Mike and I went skiing at Smuggler’s Notch the next day, and spent a great portion of those long lift rides discussing/debating the issue.
Tanner makes for good conversation—his mannerisms, outbursts, accent, and ever changing self-identity are like a case study in being famous too young. At some point in the conversation I used Mike Tyson as a comparison. Little did I know, the comparison would only get more compelling.
The trailer for Eric Iberg’s new Tanner-based documentary, “Like A Lion,” dropped yesterday. This is the point where you expect me to shit on the cheesy monologue about skiing as a “means of survival,” but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you figured that part out on your own. I actually think this project has a ton of potential, if it takes some cues from Iron Mike’s recent documentary- “Tyson.”
Tanner isn’t as famous as Mike Tyson, and he hasn’t come close to the career implosion that befell him either. That’s just the point though; that documentary was honest about Mike’s mistakes, and thus it restored the humanity of a man commonly portrayed as a monster. If “Like a Lion” can be unpretentious and honest about Tanner’s amazing achievements and at-times bizarre behavior, then all the petty hate will be put to rest. It’s a lot less fun to point out that somebody’s crazy if that person just said on film, “You know what? Sometimes I’m a bit crazy.”
Is that the type of movie we’re likely to see? Hopefully, but probably not. It’s unlikely for one reason: Eric Iberg is Tanner’s close friend. It’s really hard not to protect your friend, and this movie will suck if it’s just a bro-fest of Tanner accolades. I’m hoping we see a human, not a bizarre Rasta-robot, but the tag line “the true story of legendary skier Tanner Hall” might have already tipped their hand.
There isn’t much to say about Everyday is a Saturday. If you like Poorboyz releases and find that they fulfill what you want in a ski film, then this one will likely fall into the same category. If you tend to find them visually and conceptually overwrought, there’s no growth demonstrated that would change your mind. It’s the same formula, and damn near the same movie they’ve made for years.
Tanner gets the call for narrating duties, and it’s largely what we’ve come to expect from him. There’s the suburban-Rasta patois & clothing with some discussion of “passion” thrown in to assure us that nothing’s changed. Frank Raymond gets about 15 seconds for the absolute best rail footage in the video, and then quickly moves aside for the standard cast of characters. Theory-3 import, Charley Ager, is the only person with lifestyle footage that comes across as remotely affable or relatable. It’s immediately apparent that he’s having fun in the mountains, without any footage of him sitting on a couch and telling us so. Who’d have known you could capture that in a film without a contrived monologue? Finally, Dane Tudor absolutely slays. It’s the kind of skiing that snaps you out of the trance you’ve fallen into and makes you say, “Damn, this dude is too good.” It’s against the rules to end a paragraph with a quotation, so I’ll say that this movie is exactly what you expect it to be. Whatever that is.
