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B the Hiker said:
A new movie is out, The Last Mountain. No recreations, the entire movie is of actual footage.

The movie covers a lot of ground, from what I can make of it, but seems to be about a family coping with loss. In this case, the loss of two family members. The first Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to solo Everest without oxygen, among other achievements. The second is her son, Tom Ballard, who was only six when Alison died on K2.

This BBC movie examines how the Ballards were impacted by the loss of their mother and brother.

Tom and his Italian girlfriend, Daniel Nardi, died attempting a winter ascent of the Mummery Spur on Nanga Parbat in 2019. and I get the impression Nardi's family was all that pleased that she went on the expedition with the more-experienced Ballard.

It doesn't strike me as the warm and fuzzy movie that Torn was, with footage of people making accusations and speaking of the deaths in harsh tones that Torn seemed to elide.

There is also the problem that the son had more footage than the mother, so it should come as no surprise that his story gets more screen time, even as a the movie focuses less on climbing and more on the family. Indeed, I get the impression this isn't much of a climbing movie at all.

I haven't watched it yet. It's streaming on Amazon.
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Spoiler Alert:

Some corrections, mostly of one paragraph: The movie covers a lot of ground, from what I can make of it, but seems to be about a family coping with loss. In this case, the loss of two family members. The first Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to solo Everest without oxygen, among other achievements. The second is her son, Tom Ballard, who was only six when Alison died on K2.

This BBC movie examines how the Ballards were impacted by the loss of their mother and brother.

Tom and his Italian climbing partner, Daniel Nardi, died attempting a winter ascent of the Mummery Spur on Nanga Parbat in 2019. Tom's fiancé did not go and speaks near the end. get the impression Nardi's family was not that involved and likely not all that pleased as the Ballard's seem to elude that the Mummury Spur, still unclimbed at the time of the film, was Nardi's route he had to have.

Tom had been the more prolific climber below 7,000 meters with his apparent claim to fame was climbing the six European North walls in one winter, a feat some had given his mom, although she took an NW route on one of them. Nardi, OTOH, had a few 8,000 meter peaks under his belt, no mention on how he got those done. He may have been on some very strong teams. Nardi had tried on multiple occasions to get up the Mummury and seemed to be obsessed with this route. It's almost a straight line straight up to the summit while the other routes tend to hug ridges less prone to falling seracs and avalanches.

Alison was a female alpinist in a time when women were only getting some coverage in Yosemite Valley, and some questioned women belonging in the death zone. She had done Everest and was caught descending K-2 in a deadly storm that claimed several that year. (In the mid-90's she graced EMS' expedition weight base layer "Bergeline" for women's packaging. Once she had died and after the family went to K-2 It was thought that Tom was one day go back to K-2.

I watched it yesterday, very good, thinking it is mostly a cathartic piece for Tom's sister and maybe Dad. When she goes back to Nanga Parbat's base camp, she meets the local man, maybe a porter in 1995 who had carried her as a child in a basket when she went to K-2. As a parent, I wonder what goes through the father's head; could you have bombarded an eight-year-old with other activities hoping he learns to love soccer or rugby or something else. However ill-fated, was climbing the best way for Tom to feel connected to his Mom? Some families just need risk, which is odd as I don't get the feeling dad is an adventure junkie. At the end, Katie, Tom's sister is seem floating in the, I believe the French, sky para-skiing. (I also read a review from a climbing mag or website, I was not a Nardi fan or would have know Tom had never been above 7,000 meters)
 
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Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the folks who brought us Free Solo and Meru have a new movie out in theaters, The Wild Life (93 min).

The film is about Kristine McDivitt Tompkins (CEO of Patagonia) and Douglas Tompkins (founder of Esprit clothing), who married late in life and, among others things, purchased over a million acres in Argentina and Chile and then donated the land as parks.

The New York Times gave a mediocre review, largely on the critique that the editors had a hard time finding an arc that could move the film beyond snippets, which is a real shame for such interesting people. I am hoping I find it more interesting than the reviewer, who didn't seem to be someone too connected to the outdoors.
 
To provide some background for ‘The Wild Life,’ the oldie but goodie ‘Mountain of Storms, A Legendary Road Trip’ is freely available by Patagonia (google it). This film (52:27) is about the 1968 Viva Los Fun Hogs van expedition from Ventura, California, to Patagonia by Yvon Chouinard, Doug Tompkins, Dick Dorworth, and Lito Tejada-Flores. A lot of surfing was accomplished along the west coasts of Central and South America on the way to climb Fitzroy in Patagonia. Doug Tompkins tragically died in a sea-kayaking accident on a 50-year reunion trip to Patagonia five years ago. Everyone knows Yvon’s and Doug’s connection to Patagonia the outdoor clothing company that Yvon’s family gave away to charity last year. But, one of Dorworth‘s claims to fame was as a founding editor of the wonderful Mountain Gazette magazine. And, Lito Tejada-Flores wrote the great book ‘Games Climbers Play.’ I was lucky enough to attend a slide show in 1969 by the four of them about their Viva Los Fun Hogs expedition. Fond memories!
 
Netflix now has a movie, Race to the Summit, about Dani Arnold and his role model and, later, competitor Ulie Steck.

A review says the following:
The film deftly explores how for Arnold, Steck evolved from being a role model to a rival. Featuring archive interviews with the climbers and those closest to them, plus insight from soloists Alex Honnold and Don Bowie - and never-before-seen-footage from the Himalayas and French Alps - viewers get an insight into the mindset of these men and how introducing an element of competition to solo endeavours can stir up a media frenzy and potentially influence climbers' motivations. The controversy surrounding some of Steck's solo summit claims due to a lack of proof is also broached.
https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/202...p3tA6zw8Xh9BilXwuRha64wBttSBiZ_4nhyVbZPv-hrYE
 
B the Hiker said:
Trailer for 109 Below has just dropped.

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This looks awesome! Is it only going to be on the Arc'Teryx film tour or will it eventually be available online? The Arc'teryx site shows pretty limited showing only 3 US cities (2 of which are already sold out - I think LA was only venue left). I don't see any details about it being on their website. Their films in general are pretty high quality. Would be a shame if it wasn't available to the general public.
 
Shoe said:


We just watched "Buried: The Alpine Meadows Avalance" on Netflix. 👍👍
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I've already written about it above, but it's such a powerful movie! Again, for anyone who skis or is interested in avalanche science, it held me in rapt attention. I was surprised at their ability to reach so many of the people involved that long ago.

It was also fascinating to see what a "spread sheet" looked like before Excel changed everything!
 
DayTrip said:
This looks awesome! Is it only going to be on the Arc'Teryx film tour or will it eventually be available online? The Arc'teryx site shows pretty limited showing only 3 US cities (2 of which are already sold out - I think LA was only venue left). I don't see any details about it being on their website. Their films in general are pretty high quality. Would be a shame if it wasn't available to the general public.
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I feel like it has to go on-line at some point. I feel like they started filming this over a decade ago. Given the star of the movie teaches at MIT, I would imagine it would have some showings in the Greater Boston area.
 
Shoe said:


We just watched "Buried: The Alpine Meadows Avalance" on Netflix. 👍👍
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The amount of old pictures and real records used in this was fantastic. It took a lot for me get through the million-% stereotypical “retro” “ski montage” song though in the beginning, must say
 
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B the Hiker said:
On $5 movie night, saw Infinite Storm with a hiking buddy in an otherwise empty movie theater. I will say this, if you intend to see it, see it in a theater and go immediately, because it might not be around by the weekend.

If we don't support movies of this kind when they come out, producers won't be as willing to risk making them in the future.
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The worst movie ever made.
skiguy said:
No great loss IMO.
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Agreed.
SpencerVT said:
Just got back from Infinite Storm. This movie was WAY better than I expected.
I thought it was excellent.
It is thought-provoking regarding a lot of concepts like - how do you rescue someone who doesn’t want to be rescued?
…And that could apply to a lot of different life scenarios like helping a loved one with drug addiction
who doesn’t want to stop, etc….
It raises questions like: how far do you sacrifice to care about someone’s life, even when they don’t care about their own?
And what is the beauty that can come out of the ashes of grief, hardship and struggle?

I thought the lead actress was excellent, so genuine and real.
My only complaint is that it wasn’t filmed in New Hampshire!!!!

Apart from that though, it is well worth seeing and far better than some ratings and reviews I have seen. Awesome movie with a multitude of thought-provoking layers.
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What on Earth 🤯
I could not watch this at all. This film was an embarrassment and a disgrace to even mediocre hikers.
Her struggling to get through what resembled the highway median somewhere….
I was well aware of this not being filmed on site in NH but they couldn’t find real snow either?
The best part was my looking up the real story online after and wondering who paid someone a lot of money to create this garbage
 
Moderator Hat on

I deleted a non topic post and a response. This is a thread about movies, stick to movies. Folks are allowed to state opinions that may or may not differ from yours, but they have the right to post their opinion about a movie and to some extent the subject it covered. On the other hand, personal attacks are not acceptable.

If you want to "play", "play" nice or someone may take your toys.
 
peakbagger said:
Moderator Hat on

I deleted a non topic post and a response. This is a thread about movies, stick to movies. Folks are allowed to state opinions that may or may not differ from yours, but they have the right to post their opinion about a movie and to some extent the subject it covered. On the other hand, personal attacks are not acceptable.

If you want to "play", "play" nice or someone may take your toys.
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Thank you PB. We have some who must inject politics into everything. On the ham radio forum I post on, they have a separate section for politics and religion. Of course, you have to be a premium member (high cost) member to post there.:)
 
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