Public Address | Cafe | Polity: “Everest”: Reviewing the reviews

Kyle Matthews

Sat, 16 Jan 2016 13:06:38 +1300

I finally saw Everest last week, really enjoyed it. I was able to draw conclusions about where things went wrong for the deaths that were portrayed – Hall and the climber he was with clearly shouldn't have continued to the top, Fisher was unwell and exhausted and never should have…

Peter Calder

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 10:00:13 +1200

Authenticity alone does not make a movie great. If it did, the James Bond franchise would have been stillborn. Conversely, of course, the lack of authenticity does not make a movie bad, though I have a lot of trouble liking movies in which journos who take no notes for weeks…

izogi

Wed, 23 Sep 2015 00:01:11 +1200

I remained dry-eyed during the phone calls between Rob and his wife – which seemed specifically intended to wring tears out of the audience.

At about 22m into the 38 minute interview with Kathryn Ryan a week ago, Jan Arnold more or less said that there’s no way she’d have…

AndrewJ

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 22:07:01 +1200

Saw the film last night – thought it was a good but not a great movie. It seemed pretty faithful to Into Thin Air but lacked something (I'm not quite sure what) to make it really compelling. It didn't get me really emotionally involved – i.e, – I remained dry-eyed…

James Littlewood*

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 15:18:19 +1200

I like Hemingway: There are only two sports worth talking about. Boxing and mountain climbing.

Rob Salmond

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 11:02:16 +1200

@Rich: Certainly people with some pre-knowledge do better out of specialist films. That’s always true. But for my 2c I reckon there’s something in here for anyone who cares likes everyman heroes and/or is a sucker for a well-told tragedy. I’d hate it if every movie had to have the…

Craig Ranapia

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 10:04:59 +1200

Whose fault was Everest ‘96? Why do people climb mountains anyway?

The film’s answers to those questions were respectively “dunno” and “piss off.” I reckon they’re appropriate.

Eh, it's a choice but I'm not sure it's an appropriate one. When you're billing your movie as a true story in which,…

James Littlewood*

Tue, 22 Sep 2015 00:17:36 +1200

lots of film reviewers haven’t ever meet a climber.

From what you am saying Rob, it seems only mountaineers (or perhaps New Zealanders) will enjoy it. But just because a thing happened doesn't mean its interesting.

Here's a link illustrating this point by means of the complete destruction of Nicholas…

Rich Lock

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:49:37 +1200

I read 'into thin air' a few years back, and for all the criticism that's been levelled at it, I thought it did an exceptionally good job of getting the issues and problems over to a lay audience.

That's far easier to do in a text format. I haven't seen…

izogi

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 19:18:08 +1200

Ugh. Vertical Limit brings back uncomfortable memories of a blind date during which I couldn't stop giggling because it was so mind-numbingly absurd. I didn't hear back.

I first learned about Gary Ball and Rob Hall thanks to their writings for School Journal, and despite being relatively young it really…

Russell Brown

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 17:41:59 +1200

I must go and see this film. I'm not a climber, but I went to school with Jan Arnold and was great friends with her brother Peter. I thought about her a lot when it all went down.

One nice thing is that lots of the family made to the…

Public Address

Mon, 21 Sep 2015 17:41:59 +1200

Discussion from blog post.