Rage’s team just kill it in “Corduroy”.  They’ve got burning big mountain footage, rails that will make you holler “OOOOHHHH!!!!” at your big screen and dizzying, bluebird-framed kickers all set to a tightly edited, blitzing pace.  “Corduroy” has got living legends (Reggie and Zach Crist) and vital new blood (Tim Durtschi, Cody Townsend, and Sammy Carlson) that in five years time will be legends.  Kyler Cooley and Kent Krietler show you the drill in the two opening sequences and destroy in both.  Durtschi then steps up to unleash the dogs of war in the back-country and a slew of rails.  Then he schools you on an insane but  effective way of getting speed to hit those rails – I can’t say more, you just have to see it.  “Corduroy” rolls out like that for the rest of the movie with guys like Ian “Chug” Cosco, Wiley Miller and Dan Marion.  John Spriggs, the 6’4” big man launches off kickers and spins in the air with the agility and style that some top NBA players can only dream of.  If you have forgotten or never knew Sammy Carlson’s early skills in the back-country and outside of park, take a look at the little segment he delivers in “Corduroy”.  Tom Hayes and Titlus Engelberg get the honours to close out the show as they surf down mountains in a slick, liquid fashion while pinned up against Chrome Locust’s track “New World Disorder”.  Rage filled their soundtrack shopping cart with primo material and it looks like they edited with a canister of nitrous oxide attached to the computer to ensure that every jump, flip and tear explodes off the screen with maximum impact.  If there’s a weak link at all it’s the animation linking the segments, not the coolest idea on the planet but who cares.  What counts is the film and it’s all money.    By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 8/10

In previous movies like “Eyes Wide Open” and “Get Lucky”, director Filip Christensen’s visual style, his edits and his choice in soundtracks has always added up to stellar film-making.  His end product was so arresting that it sometimes made you over-look the talents of his crew of skiers.  This time out, in “Side By Side” the quality level of the film-making remains high but the progression in the tricks by skiers like Jon Olsson (double corked 1440 big air), Aleksander Aurdal (back flip off a roof) and the film’s co-director Even Sigstad (killer performances on a series of urban rail rides, half of them on one leg) is totally off the hook. These guys are like aerial drones on air strikes: they fly in and destroy.  Just as a good ski movie should, “Side By Side” cruises through the back-country, rips in the park and on the rails and astounds on the big mountains.  The only point on which “Side By Side” does not match up with Christensen’s previous works is in the soundtrack – most of it is uninspiring with the lone standout being Pretty Lights’ “I Can See It In Your Face” which undperpins an awesome urban sequence that carries on into the Norwegian back country with the same group of skiers.  Christensen and Sigstad are a strong team though and deserve their place in the leading ski movie companies out there.     By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 9/10

Filip Christensen and his band of, largely, Scandinavian skiers go bigger, farther and spin more times than ever before.  Christensen’s vision of what a ski film should look like is coming into its own as his edits get more inventive and intentionally, or not, more dramatic.  Nothing engages the attention like leaving the shot when a skier is still up in the air in the middle of a certain crash and cutting to the same skier on the same run but in another attempt.  Simple, but it  works as a visual hook.  Opening with an awesome sequence at Mica Heli Guides’ locale in south-central British Columbia with Norwegians Asmund Thorsen and Eirik Finseth along with Canadians Chris Rubens and Eric Hjorleifson surfing down pillows and coasting through beautiful gladed runs sending showers of snow skyward.  Soundtracked with The Deftones’ “Hole In The Earth”, it’s an electric dream that sucks you right in. As with his other films, Christensen continues to be a great musical selector. Jon Kennedy’s “East Is East” elevates a kickin’ urban sequence in Stockholm and Helsinki with a Bhangra flavored backpack hip-hop beat which then flows smoothly into a Euro-popped-out synth and vocal harmony track from Norway’s F.A.C.E. as PC Fosse, Christopher Frankum, Even Sigstad, Aleksander Aurdal and Anders Backe launch themselves into outer space in a wickedly cool big air sequence.  That kind of uncanny blend of the sonics and the visuals works throughout “Eyes Wide Open”.  The most riveting sequence of the piece has got to be the not just “big mountain” but “massive mountain” footage from Sogndal and Sunnmore, Norway with the deep space techno vibe of Kohib’s “Dogs Don’t Bite”s over top of some absolutely surreally arresting film of the boys screaming down the steeps.  While the crew is peppered with stars like PK Hunder, Anders Backe and Tom Wallisch, there’s a serious deep bench in the Field Productions team including mad underrated talents like Even Sigstad and Christopher Frankum.  “Eyes Wide Open” is a terrific step forward for director Christensen.    By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 9/10

Up and coming Norwegian director/editor Filip Christensen shows he has the eye and the imagination for assembling compelling sequences from park, urban and big mountain settings.  His editing cuts take the viewer on canny little twists and turns that make well-shot park and rail fare an even more compelling watch. From the looks of the bonus material Christensen shot a lot of film in 2008 but he’s a ruthless editor and he’s presented a solid 45 minutes of deftly edited pieces.  The variety is good here: night shoots, dawn shoot, sunset shoots and everything in between.  The clincher is the soundtrack.  Loaded with Euro indie tracks, the sound steers clear of the rock and hip-hop territory colonized by North American ski film posses.  And while there’s nothing wrong with rock and hip-hop, Christensen’s vibe is a refreshing alternative.  All in all, this is a production company to watch.       By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 8/10

Director Max Bervy has put together a great collection of ski stories ranging from Mike Wiegele’s heliski operation in the Caribous in Blue River, BC to the now seemingly bitter-sweet segment on Ingrid and (the late) Arne Backstrom skiing at Crystal Mountain.  Famous and infamous skiers both past and present drift in and out of the frame as the stories of those who have spent their lives skiing unwind in beautiful shots.  The soundtrack rocks and the editing is tight and that coalesces to punch certain segments into overdrive like the piece on the Points North Heliadventures guides when the track from Silversun Pickups locks in or when the volume hitches up on the Snow Patrol track as The Crist Brothers shred The Burn in Sun Valley.  It’s all done with the casual, folksy attitude that’s the trade-mark of the Warren Miller brand even in the segments they have licensed from other ski and board film companies like Poor Boyz and Standard. As always, they ship ski-icon Chris Anthony out to some far-flung place and this time he reports back with an awesome story on skiing with the locals in Northern China.  Cool film; it makes you glad that winter begins now.   By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 8/10

Aptly-titled, “Eye Trip” is a tightly edited and gorgeously shot piece of eye-candy. It’s easy to see why “Eye Trip” has been a best seller on iTunes for 2010-2011. It’s imaginatively edited, accentuating both the action and the beauty of the shots. Ahmet Dadali leads off the super-solid skiing with the sequence that won him the “Best Male” Award at the 2010 International Freeski Film Festival Awards.  His smooth style in the urban and back-country settings keeps you riveted with its primary colours jumping off the screen.  “Eye Trip” then keeps the pedal to the metal with terrific use of fast-forward and slow-motion that has J.F. Houle killing it to Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog”.  The obligatory Alaska sequence is a visually impressive treat that includes new-guy Logan Imlach, Duncan Adams and Tanner Rainville.  Cued with a Fontan remix for a track from the Shout Out Louds, this piece sounds as good as it looks.  “Eye Trip”’s performance stand-outs include Tom Wallisch delivering the goods and showing why he’s Freeskier Magazine’s “Skier of the Year”.  Between the left-side and right-side spins that he dials in here and the left-side 1440 he throws in “Side By Side”, this year’s offering from Field Productions, there’s no getting around it – Wallisch has had a great 2010.  Wiley Miller drops some jaws, as always, with a fine sequence soundtracked to Ladyhawke’s “Magic” (which keen ears are going to remember showing up in Rage’s 2009 film Pretty Good”).  “Eye Trip” winds up with a big air sequence shot in Sun Valley on a ramp that redefines “huge” and skiing that redefines “graceful”.  Scored with Black Sabbath’s “Children of the Grave”, I guess it’s a small mercy that nobody died on this monstrous thing.  These guys make everything look easy and fun.  Awesome job from the Level 1 team. By Mark “The Attorney General” Quail – 9/10