Warren Miller's Journey
Octogenarian Warren Miller has been making extreme snow sports documentaries so long he offers, as a gift, footage in the awe-inspiringJourneyof Marilyn Monroe taking a tumble--albeit gorgeously--on a ski slope. The rest ofJourneyis Miller's usual dazzling display of downhill poetry and madness, including high-altitude stops in breathtaking Portillo, Chile and Heavenly, California. An amazing chapter about "ski mountaineering" in Chamonix, France, could cause a viewer to skip a heartbeat while also admiring athletes who scale narrow rock formations at the peaks of a violently rugged range--only then to ski 4,000 impossibly steep feet. A brief report about back country snowboarding gives way to a stay in the lovely Cordova hills of Alaska and a misadventure getting lost in Valbruna, Italy. Not just for snow nuts,Journey, driven by Miller's ability to blend beauty and shock in remarkable, remote places, is a treat for everyone.--Tom Keogh