UKC

In reply to UKC Gear: is there anywhere i can get a full tracklisting for the music, saw the widdop wall section at kendal and thought the music was fantastic

In reply to UKC Gear: I thought that this was one of the worst climbing films i've seen in a long tome. It's an amateur job, albeit with Al Lee's name on it. Most of the filming seems to have been done by Ian Burton, who's default position seems to be to hang near the top of the route and er, just film. as the climber gets closer we get the ridiculous situation where you cannot see the climbers hands and/or feet, large parts of their bodies, where they've come from or where they are oing. the gaz parry ascent is comically bad on all these points.

the attempts at humour and difficult to hear mumbeld comments from some climbers were dire. there is no narrative or engagement with any of the characters (apart from lucy creamer) and the whole feeling is one of total disappointment. five of us sat down to watch it and about half way through we were either brewing up, reading the paper or on the web reading mick's hilarious review of this film.

mick, your review is fawning and nonsensical.

You say that "If you watch the film with an intelligent mind it deconstructs gritstone climbing. This is an important climbing film, it lays bare the preparation and practice that enabled some climbers to climb short technical difficult routes and then label them with hyper-inflated grades."

what does *that* mean, an intelligent mind? how does watching rehearsed and badly filmed ascents with no narrative lay anything bare apart from the lack of planning and filming talent? why should this laying bare be so interesting anyway? after all, that headpointing thing has been filmed over and over again in all grit films it is well known and endlessly filmed! the film does not lay bare any preparation and practice and you know what, mick? it's OK to say a film isn't very good, even if your fellow editor is part of the cast. people respect an honest review.

you describe the stories as "well crafted" which is nonsense. they are bits of film from various angles stuck together to make a DVD. overall? a thorough waste of money and time.

In reply to Aiden Wright: I agree with Aidens review of this movie, its poorly made on many levels. I was surprised by the review here on ukclimbing by Mick. This got me to thinking I have'nt seen a bad review of anything be it gear or movie on ukclimbing in a long while. Is this because all gear being reviewed is excellent or Are the reviewers not up to par or Are ukclimbing caving into companies who put there products foreword for review and subsequently generate revenue for the web site through advertising. I like this web site but it has gone up a gear in the last year regarding quantity of advertising and good for ukclimbing, Its a success in a world of failed dot com websites. However this often can com at a cost. The cost can often be that the integrity of the website can easily be compromised with a keep the advertisers happy attitude. I have seen this on other websites all to often.

In reply to Aiden Wright:

Hi Aiden,

So scathing was your review of my review I just had to watch Grit Flick again whilst I was doing my Saturday morning chores.


...and Al Lee and Ben Pritchard I think, could be wrong there. Al would be able to give you a breakdown. This is becoming typical of many climbing films these days, see Big Up and Sender film credits.

The Gaz Parry section on Reservoir Dogs is about 2 minutes long. It's in the supporting acts section. Yes it is weaker than the rest, although I liked the nervous heavy breathing and his quote at the end...back to bouldering now.

The Headliners are the strength of this £12.99 DVD. I'm glad he charged that price rather than £20. Climbing films are moving on, no longer are they rare, it's competitive market what with the internet and bigger budget productions coming out of the USA.

My favourites in the headliners are Lucy Creamer on Slab and Crack, Jordan Buys on Widdop Wall and Ryan Pasquill on Gerty Berwick....less so Ben Bransby at Rylstone.

My three favourites are well filmed, well crafted and entertaining. The dialogue from the climbers is clear and informative, and entertaining....especially Old Skool John Dunne, a great climber and great self publicist, wax about grades, continually contradicting himself, it provides a great insight in to the mind of 80's/90's climbers and how they used the E grade system to inflate themselves.

I loved Lucy Creamer on Slab and Crack...especially her dialogue. Explaining why she is doing the route and how she feels about it. Then she just gets on with it.

These are climbing stories not just climbing porn.

Over the years the gritstone myth has been deflated. Hard Grit is brilliant and of its time. We've moved on. Grit Flick shows this... these everday top climbers featured just go about their business of enjoying these Hard Grit routes without much fanfare, hype or drama. That's what I mean about Grit Flick being a worthy successor to Hard Grit.

McHaffie at Brimham I also enjoyed. That lad is ripping it up on Grit at the moment.

Some of the humour I found laugh out loud, some of it lame. That is the nature of humour.

Art is subjective whether it be writing, paintings or films. I enjoyed this film, you didn't and that is fine.

It isn't a blockbuster film by any means, not ground breaking, but a fine record of some climbers climbing some great grit routes over the last year or so.

Mick

I stand by my review and you can stand by yours. That is the nature of the interaction and opportunity to comment that the internet gives us.

In reply to Aigen:

Hi Cyberpunk,

For any media reviews of products are difficult. In fact open any climbing magazine and you will rarely see a gear review.

What you will see are advertorials. A page of products with a few lines of text.

We also have those on our gear page, in the left hand column under GEAR NEWS.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/

These are uploaded by our advertisers and provide you with an image of the product, what the product is designed for, technical specifications, and sometimes stockists. They aren't reviews.

A forum thread auto starts when these are published and anyone can comment.

Gear Reviews. We are again rejigging how we do reviews. We have some great reviewers: Toby Archer, Es Tressider is doing some, Jon Griffith, Will Sim, Viv Scott...etc

All we ask reviewers is that they read up on the product they have, look at what the manufacturer says it is to be used for, they give it a hammering in the outdoors. Then they report back and described how it performed.

We publish, then anyone can have their say if they have experience of the product. And you do! Sometimes negative, sometimes in praise.

As well as doing individual gear reviews, we are also in the process of writing GEAR GUIDES for a whole range of outdoor equipment.

If you look at some of our recent reviews you will almost often find some criticism, usually constructive.

One of our most well known critical reviews was by Toby Archer and the DMM offsets:

So, the much awaited DMM Alloy Offsets, good, but in their current form far from perfect.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=1066

It had a positive outcome. DMM acted on Toby's criticism.

Recently Jon Griffith wasn't happy with the xs fabric on the TrollW all jacket

http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=2171

Will Sim had issues with the durability of the Sportiva Batura

http://www.ukclimbing.com/gear/review.php?id=2224

Again gear reviews are kept honest by the attached forum threads.

Mick

In reply to UKC Gear: i was excited by this DVD given the hype that surrounded it, so much so that i got it sent over to the US so i didn't have to wait 5 months to watch it.

however i'm gonna have to whole-heartedly agree with Aiden with his review......it's a mess of a film. i'm just glad it was 'only' £12.99 and to be honest apart from 3 'ok' segments (widdop, gerty and bransby's highball) i'd be embarrassed to put my name to it. some of the attempts at humour, as Aiden points out, were just cringeworthy.

a couple of points to add to Aiden's review: it is absolutely criminal to misspell the names of climbers or participants in films like this yet somehow allysder (joke) has managed it, and not just in this film either. secondly some of the camera work is really poor and seems lazy, not doing justice to the climbs and climbers. the lucy creamer section was so boring that i could only get through the first couple of minutes before skipping, it's no slight on lucy but i just couldn't give a poop whether she did it or not. does al lee have tourette's or something? i've never heard a cameraman talk so much.

anyone want a copy? it's going cheap.

In reply to Aigen:

In addition to Mick's reply, don't forget that Aiden and dodfoster's review are live on this website.

My two penneth:

I quite enjoyed this DVD although it is far from Al Lee's best work. I suspect a certain Asgard Project had a distracting effect, but he seems to acknowledge this in the price.

I did enjoy the Jordan Buys on Widdop section. I think it gives a good account of the obsessive nature of climbers and gives a great portrayal of an individual who always comes across as a great climber with plenty of integrity, and a nice guy to boot. By far the best bit of the video though was the classic scene where John Dunne desperately tries to persuade Ryan Pasquill to overgrade Gerty Berwick. For me it is worth £12.99 for this scene alone.

Alan

In reply to dodfoster: Hey George how's it going?