Flaking Out

Dynasty celebrates 60 years of Warren Miller ski travelogues

Don’t expect the Carringtons and scenic Moldavian locations to turn up in Dynasty, the ski flick presented annually by Warren Miller Entertainment. But do expect lots of clips featuring extreme ski stunts, slow-motion images of powdery wipeouts and in-your-face attitude as the athletes hit the T-bars.

Dynasty is being rolled out during an 82-city tour stretching from October to December. There will be nationwide showings at various performing arts centers, high school auditoriums and vintage vaudeville houses like downtown Syracuse’s Landmark Theatre, which presents the film at the tail end of the tour on Thursday, Dec. 3.

Max Bervy, in his seventh year as director for these icy extravaganzas, orchestrates a different theme for Dynasty that goes beyond the usual “Think Snow” mantra. In honor of godfather Warren Miller’s 60th anniversary as the ski auteur of this series, Bervy mixes scratchy footage from some of the earliest Miller ventures with new visuals shot in crystal-clear high definition. 

The antique stuff has its charms, like watching vintage autos and trailers filled with happy campers as they enter a resort’s long-ago parking lot. Meanwhile, the recent snippets offer breathless montages of energized, aggressive skiers in action that will make novice skiers glad to hang out at the bunny slope. No matter what the decade, Bervy affirms, there will always be ski nuts who enjoy their hot-doggin’ with extra mustard.

Olympics mogul champ Jonny Moseley again serves as narrator for this peppy 98-minute travelogue, which encompasses stopovers at Crystal Mountain, Wash., Colorado’s Rockies, Norway’s fjords and even northwestern China, where modern-day cinematic schussers Chris Anthony and Austin Ross encounter villagers in a 3,000-year-old community that still fashions skis whittled from tree bark. 

Since action always dominates these showcases, Moseley’s intros are serviceable enough (“Tahoe just attracts the good, the crazy and the crazy-good.”). If you listen closely to the soundtrack, however, at times you’ll hear that Bervy has subliminally inserted some of Miller’s folksy wisdom from previous entries, especially a tidbit about a ski bum’s diet of oyster crackers and ketchup.

The downhill excitement is again married to an eclectic score of alt-rock tracks such as Primal Scream’s “Can’t Go Back.” But there are also some oldies on hand that seem culled from a deep-cuts FM format, notably the Emerson, Lake and Palmer classic “Karn Evil 9” that opens the movie, and Deep Purple’s “Space Truckin’” as the closing track, with both songs accompanying those 8mm clips shot by Miller himself. 

It’s that sense of merging past and present that makes Dynasty one of the more satisfying productions from the Warren Miller pipeline. That’s evident when Bervy chronicles the history of Rodger Crist and his family, who left San Francisco’s hubbub in 1979 for the wintry weather of Sun Valley, Idaho. The Crist kids, Reggie, Zach and Danielle, grew up to become ski athletes, while Rodger is still hitting the slopes at age 70, a birthday milestone that is featured in the film with a celebration at Sun Valley, apparently one of the last bastions for fondue. And hang on for the interlude that features a snowboarding alligator; the critter displays such on-screen orneriness that he just might be a department-store handbag by now.

Dynasty will screen on Thursday, Dec. 3, 8 p.m., at the Landmark Theatre, 362 S. Salina St. Tickets are $18.50, which also includes free vouchers for lift tickets to Stratton, Gore and Greek Peak mountain resorts and a $25 discount on a purchase of more than $150 at the Ski Company, 3401 Erie Blvd. E., DeWitt, and 5301 W. Genesee St., Camillus. For discount tickets, call (800) 523-7117; for Landmark lowdown, call 475-7980.

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