Was thinking about seeing it soon. What did others think?

Looks awesome definitely want to see. Been reading about climb for years. Jimmy chin did a q&a here in NYC yesterday at my wife's work disscussing film that I went to and was cool.

It's in a very limited release starting tonight and luckily Minneapolis is one of the cities. We're going so I'll let you know what I think. Read an article yesterday and found out Jimmy was from Mankato, MN - the flatlands.

here is good Q&A along with an "mtv cribs" of the portaledge

http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic ... exclusive/

Going to go down as the greatest climbing doc ever....I'm foaming at the mouth.

Dang. This film is scheduled to show close by, but I won't be able to see it. The good news is that I'll be in the hills. I do hate missing it on a large screen.

I managed to catch it at the NZIFF, really really good film. As much about the climbers as the routes they're doing. And all filmed while they're climbing, not a retrospective or recreated thing so much except for the interview parts. Also would recommend Sherpa which was showing at the same film festival.

Great movie and all the back stories and how they come together really add to the show. Jimmy has been filming a long time as have other climbers around him so the access to real footage regarding the events in this story make it more real. My girlfriend was on the edge of her seat.

An added plus was North Face was there giving out coupons at the first showing which you could bring over to the store to redeem on a as supplies last basis. Walked over right after the show so we would be assured of a redemption and received a Black Diamond Cosmos ($30 retail) headlamp for free. Not a bad deal to get paid to see a great movie.

Looks like Jimmy Chin will be attending and speaking afterwards at today's (Aug 22) 4:15pm screening of the film in San Rafael:

http://rafaelfilm.cafilm.org/meru/

I would not recommend it if you DON'T like films with a lot of backstories, especially 'family values' backstories. Including stories about Jimmy Chin's divorced sister and Bernaud's girlfriend(?) feels like they were included to try and create a 'family' for them, so as to create a female left at home senario (the helpless female left at home while the manly-man of the house goes off on a death defying adventure" syndrome); that wasn't necessary, and it takes up a lot of the movie, too. Anker's story about his relationship with alex Lowe and Jenni Lowe was somewhat unessesary, too. But including Bernaud's accident was a good idea. The climbing scenes were good, but I would have liked to have seen more of them (I wonder what was left on the editing floor?), more on the planning and route selection, past history of attempts on the Sharks Fin, scenes of the climbers interacting with the people they meet in the Indian villages on the walk-in to the base camp, etc. Overall it was pretty average, I thought Touching the Void was much better even though it was a re-creation of the actual climbing event.

Also, this isn't about climbing to the top point on Meru, but climbing the prominent protruding granite monolith on it called the Shark's Fin.

On the mountain, the climbers cut the tags out of their jackets and sawed their toothbrushes in half along with all the other gram counting tricks many of us know. Memory cards and camera batteries were rationed more stringently than food so there is almost no cutting room floor footage to omit. I'd love to see more footage too but it's a lot to ask of the athletes.

I agree with some of the sexist archetype criticism but a crossover hit, able to succeed on the festival circuit and now in theaters, requires a human element and an introduction to the climbers and their lives. Even seasoned climbers like you have never heard of Renan Ozturk ("Bernaud").

Saw it last weekend and liked it a lot. Didn't mind the family background on the climbers. It's nice to know these climbers have families and health concerns, yet find it impossible to resist the lure of the mountains/routes. I'm glad it wasn't a fake climbing movie that makes you laugh in disbelief.