Claim

Watching a Matchstick movie will make just about anyone want to become a pro skier.

You don’t need to know what it feels like to cram your feet in ski boots and step into your bindings to see that besides being incredibly atheltic and adventure driven, there is always a touch of Hollywood to any of MSPs featured skiers. Just watch Claim.

The scene at last week’s Seattle premier at times reflected the rock star element almost more than it relfected the stoke of the crowd. Held at Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall (think The Nutcracker), it wasn’t your typical ski movie venue. The doors to the theater were flanked by tuxedo clad men and the lines for coffee and tea were almost as long as the lines for the bars, which housed more tube tops and stilletos than beanies and Nikes. I’m pretty sure no one had ever yelled “Take off your pants!” during the introduction to any show there before Wednesday night.

The movie itself had a similar feel. Shunning the notion that it’s not about the satisfaction you get from being the best skier out there and giving it all you have, MSP praised the raw emotion that comes from acomplishing some amazing things on the mountain and staking claim. It made for some really funny segments (esp Shane McConkey and Colby West), but at parts it balanced awkwardly between being endearing and cocky.

With the amount of resources MSP has, though, they’re able to visit some of the best places to ski in the world. They chose to open the film with Tj Schiller, Mark Abma, and CR Johnson dropping huge pillows and skiing trees in BC powder. The terrain was unreal, the snow was deeper than Neitzsche, and the high def cinematography was impressive to say the least. In short, if the scene in the lobby had made you wonder whether or not you could still get psyched to ski at such an event, the combination of elements in the opening shots made you forget where you were and question only how much longer you’d have to wait until you were actually out in the mountains.

The rest of the movie was more of the same. Petit seeemed to be the most impressive to most people. Simon Dumont’s world record 1/4 pipe exit in Western Maine was captured on film. Some of the best skiers in the world showed us exactly why they’re up on the screen and we’re not. A production company of that size and reputation has the rely on more than just the core skiers that smaller companies are able to cater to. But Claim conveys the same thing - we all want to be out there every day, staking our own claim.