{"id":1166,"date":"2009-04-28T09:59:02","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T15:59:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allclimbing.com\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2009-04-28T09:59:02","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T15:59:02","slug":"review-of-rocky-mountain-highball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allclimbing.com\/review-of-rocky-mountain-highball\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of Rocky Mountain Highball"},"content":{"rendered":"
When I saw the premier of Pure<\/a> back in February, I mentioned in the notes about the trailer for Rocky Mountain Highball<\/a>. At the time, I was really disappointed since the premier was scheduled for April 27, the due date for my daughter.<\/p>\n Well, it turns out one of the side benefits of her being born 10 days early was my ability to attend the premier of Rocky Mountain Highball last night at the Boulder Theater.<\/p>\n Overall, I found this to be an excellent climbing movie and I really only found a few minor flaws. The following are my impressions of Rocky Mountain Highball. The title may lead the viewer to think this is just for Colorado boulderers. Rocky Mountain Highball was set in Colorado, but not specifically about<\/em> Colorado. This is an important distinction. The film was more about the essence of bouldering and how highballs fit into the equation. How we as boulderers attempt to push our limits within the pursuit of bouldering. Rocky Mountain Highball appeals to all climbers regardless of style or geographic preferences.<\/p>\n That said, it depicted a nice overview of Colorado bouldering, really showing the breadth of rock type and quality here.<\/p>\n Rocky Mountain Highball had a great story line. Simply having a story, let alone an interesting one, is a major accomplishment for any climbing film. They started with examining the past, looking at the history of bouldering (not just highballs) and then progressed from the present to the future of highball bouldering.<\/p>\n The movie balanced between amazing footage of highball bouldering problems and short clips of commentary from boulderers both old and new.<\/p>\n The interviews with John Sherman, Pat Ament and John Gill were fantastic and likely worth the price of admission by themselves. Their insights and commentary on bouldering contrasted with the newer generation of climbers was striking.<\/p>\n During Rocky Mountain Highball I didn’t think much about the music until I started thinking about what I would say about the music! So I’ll take that to mean the score was unobtrusive and fit well with the climbing.<\/p>\n An often discussed topic, Rocky Mountain Highball took great care to dive into what highballs actually are and how climbers define them. Jason Kehl had one of my favorite quotes where he defined highball bouldering as when you personally feel like you’re too high off the ground (paraphrased). A highball for one person may not be highball for others. That’s really the essence of the experience, right?<\/p>\n It was also nice to watch a climbing film that wasn’t exclusively focused on the hardest boulder problems in the world. There were numerous problems shown that mere mortals could aspire to climb. Unfortunately, they were still scary and tall as hell.<\/p>\n There was also an all-star cast. From their web site<\/a>:<\/p>\n Director\/Filmmaker Scott Neel, and Yama Studio have brought in a huge cast of world renowned climbers, like Paul Robinson, Mark Wilford, Kevin Jorgeson, Lynn Hill, Daniel Woods, John Sherman, John Gill, Steve Mammen, and Jason Kehl. Having filmed more than 70 climbs with more than 35 athletes, this film proves to be an exciting journey through the world of highball bouldering.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now for a couple negatives.<\/p>\n The film only showed names of climbers during their interviews, not during actual climbs. More frustrating though was the film only displayed the names of individual problems, but not the areas where they were located. As a new local to Colorado, there were many problems where I could place the area or specific boulder, but many I had no idea where they were located.<\/p>\n
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\nBefore the show, the filmmakers mentioned that it took them over two years to make. That care and dedication for delivering this product was unmistakable throughout.<\/p>\n