Mountain Town Documentary

For all of you who think I am a pretty weird guy, I would have to agree with you. The most likely reason I’m weird: I grew up in a Rocky Mountain ski town with 1,500 people where it was Winter 75% of the year; no chain restaurants, no stoplights, no shopping malls, no senior prom (weren’t enough girls to go around)– a perfect place to spend my childhood in other words. A couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to see ‘Mountain Town,’ a film documentary by Rattle Can Films that reminded me a lot of home. Granted, ‘Mountain Town’ was filmed in Aspen, CO, which may be close to my hometown geographically, but has a much different aesthetic feel (e.g. the presence of Gucci, Prada, and Fendi stores). But at the heart of it all, Aspen is still a ski town, and this film does a great job of showing us the behind-the-scenes gears that turn the engines of these unique mountain whistle stops. The filmmakers followed a wide range of people with their cameras: the cowboy, the park goddess, the olympian, the soldier, the dreamer, the restauranteur, the survivor, the mystic, the architect, the teacher, and the mountaineer. The result: a well-made documentary that may surprise your pre-conceived notions about what mountain towns are really all about. ‘Zoltan‘ is another Rattle Can title worth seeing– it follows a professional white-water tuber from Eastern Europe as he tries to make his U.S. debut at a kayak competition in Vail, CO.