8/17/2009

I am going to watch every (fictional) movie about skiing

so I have a goal: to try to watch every (fiction) movie about skiing. The movies are all about the same: some wild and crazy party guys have to save the mountain/win a contest against some jerks/rich guys who want to make the mountain lame/not party. There are rarely any famous actors in them, a lot of hijinx ensue, some girls take their tops off, and the good guys win. And probably like many guys my age, I have fond memories of ski movies as they usually have boobs and used to be on Showtime and Skinemax all the time, which is a plus when you're a 13-year old boy. Looking back, a lot of the clothes are pretty hilarious too, like skin-tight multi-colored neon from head to toe.

Plus, to me, skiing is inherently corny. I enjoy skiing and have been many times, but it's hard to show skiing highlights in a movie without it looking cheesy. It's rarely thrilling or exciting, although they always shoot it so you're supposed to think it's TOTALLY EXTREME! when generally it's just goofy. It's kind of an unusual sport too, as you basically have to go to a town that exists solely for skiing, and there's a certain culture with that: everybody works in some job related to skiing, people wear generally the same clothes, there's lots of rich people, and so on. There's no towns devoted only to say baseball or basketball, not even college towns. There was a South Park episode about ski movies, but I can't remember if I've seen it -- it might have inspired this quest.

I thought it quest would be pretty easy -- how many skiing movies could there be? I thought I had them all on my queue: Ski Patrol, Ski School, Aspen Extreme, Hot Dog. However, after searching Blockbuster.com, which is what I use to rent movies, I discovered there are actually a ton, maybe 20-30 (including Better Off Dead, which people actually like non-ironically). So it's going to be tough. I've already seen about 5, but there's a lot to go. I'm saving Better Off Dead until last (or near the last, since I may find more).

I also decided to include snowboarding movies, since they're basically the same thing. There are also some action movies about skiing, like the one whose name I forget where the guys have to do all these extreme sports (skiing, snowboarding, mountain climbing, etc) to stop the bad guys. I'll probably include those ones. And movies that have skiing in them but aren't about skiing, like Dumb and Dumber, don't count. No documentaries either. Here's my list so far:

Ski Patrol, Ski School, Ski School 2, Aspen Extreme, Hot Dog... The Movie, Ski Trippin', Ski Wolf (seriously, it's about a werewolf at a ski resort), Ski Troop Attack, Christmas in the Clouds, Copper Mountain (starring Jim Carrey), Gran Slalom, Icy Spiders, The Ski Trip, Snowball Express, Snowbeast, both Snowballin' and Snowballing, etc etc.

Needless to say, I'm going to watch some shitty movies. And I will write reviews here.

2 comments:

krs10 said...

I totally just had this same idea and found your page researching more movies. I've got Hot Dog and Ski Patrol under my belt so far, and am also saving Better Off Dead for last. Let me know how your ski marathon went.

Unknown said...

Deep Winter, Ice Queen, Shredder, Shred, Revenge of the Board School Dropout, Frostbite, Snowboard Academy, The Art of Skiing (Goofy), Downhill Racer, Out Cold

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