Doak Creek
BY MELISSA BEARNS
CHRIS COLLINS AT
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484-9206
By Appt.
83331 JACKSON MARLOW RD. • EUGENE
GREG EPSTEIN
Daniel’s
Adrenaline Powered
Restaurant
MEXICAN-AMERICAN CUISINE
Films to get you hyped for the season.
• Excellent Customer Service • Tequila, Margaritas & Cocktails
• Freshly Made Foods • Homemade Tortillas & Cakes
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STARTING AT $4.95
ull out the rock boards and get hik-
ing. Winter is here, ushered in yet
again by a new crop of movies so in-
tense you’ll leave the theater with your heart
pounding, ready to launch off a cliff. With
weeks to go before the lifts roll, two new
movies showing in town this week will leave
you on your knees praying, no … begging,
for snow.
Start your weekend early Thursday night
at The McDonald Theatre with Yearbook, the
new one from Matchstick Productions. Then
Saturday check out
YEARBOOK Teton
Gravity
(MATCHSTICK) Research’s
newest,
Thur., 6 pm
Soul Purpose. Every
The McDonald
year these two produc-
$5
tion companies push
the limits further, going bigger, higher,
steeper and deeper and this year they bring
out the big guns.
Shane McConkey, who many credit with
inventing the sport of skiBASE jumping
takes it to a whole new, gut-wrenching level
in Yearbook. In May 2004 McConkey
teamed up with 23-year-old pro skier JT
Holmes and Matchstick Productions and
went looking for the biggest, scariest close-
out lines they could find. The trip ended with
a jump off the Eiger in Switzerland, a moun-
tain that has claimed numerous lives in
mountaineering accidents.
Under clear blue skies McConkey throws
a double front flip off the Eiger. If the term
“sick” originated from people watching
something that made them feel all icky on the
inside, then the term applies here.
The film features pro skiers Seth Morrison,
Shane McConkey, Mike Wilson, Mark Abma,
Ingrid Backstrom, JT Holmes, Sarah Burke,
and Chris Davenport to name a few.
They get medieval on your ass with
enough huge drops, narrow lines and waist-
deep snow get the adrenaline flowing faster
than Eugene’s winter rain.
But not all “action” films are created
equal and when it comes to drawing the row-
diest crowds and bombing the craziest lines,
TGR’s flims and their athletes are in a class
by themselves. Their newest, Soul Purpose,
is no exception, and plays Saturday, 8pm at
WOW Hall.
With sections shot in Bulgaria, Stowe,
VT, Russia, Jackson Hole, and Corvara, Italy,
they traipse across the globe and come back
with enough footage to keep you barely
breathing for an hour.
Erik Roner pulls off a seriously scary
skiBASE jump sequence when he launches
off a 3,000-foot cliff, gets part of his chute
stuck under his arm and swings around in a
sharp 180, missing the massive rock wall by
inches.
Soul Purpose seamlessly moves between
sections with skiers and boarders, men and
women, park and backcountry. And that’s the
way it should be. No patronizing nods to
Victoria Jealouse and
SOUL PURPOSE Meg Oster, two female
(TGR)
forces to be reckoned
Sat., 7 pm
with. No little blurbs
WOW Hall
on how skiers and
$5
boarders are getting
along great these days.
No. Soul Purpose is all about the rush, the
adrenaline, the insanely steep, narrow and
deep lines and the huge, huge air. One ele-
ment of the film that’s particularly cool is that
the athletes narrate much of it, often reading
from diaries and journals they kept while
filming.
Another section that sets Soul Purpose
apart is the avalanche sequence shot in Mica
Creek, B.C. They start small. Jonny Law sets
off a small slide right as he drops a 45-foot
cliff but emerges grinning. Then another one.
And then the big one. The music drops out and
all you hear is growling howl of thousands of
cubic feet of snow and the panic in the voices
of the crew as they look for the skier.
If there is one criticism of Soul Purpose, it
would be that this footage makes it looks like
everyone just walks away from an avalanche
unscathed. Anyone who’s ever desperately
followed the faint beeping of a transceiver
with just minutes to save the life of a friend
knows that’s not true.
Snowboard legend Jeremy Jones easily
has the best line in the film after dangling
from the helicopter in a harness to get to an
otherwise inaccessible chute. The film has a
sweet section with Victoria Jealouse, hands
down the best female freeride snowboarder
out there. Soul Purpose features Bend local
Sage Cattabriga-Alosa as well as Micah
Black, Chris Collins, Candide Thovex, Jamie
Pierre, Tanner Hall, Jeremy Nobis and others.
By the time the credits roll and you catch
your breath, you’ll be aching for those first
turns. Let it snow.
ew
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NOVEMBER 18, 2004 31