Boarding School

Even legions of couch spuds whose primary form of exercise is channel-surfing will enjoy this instructional tape on snowboarding. Why? Because it's loaded with bells, whistles, and a host of other weird sound effects in a format that does more dancing around than a college student trying to find nirvana by walking across hot coals. Produced and directed by Taylor Moore, a Canadian director who has clearly experienced a toxic level dose of National Film Board cartoons, Boarding School follows a pair of neophytes at Whistler Mountain in British Columbia as they learn the tricks of the snowboarding trade from their erudite instructor Greg "Cheezeball" Daniells. From suit-up to performing a traverse with a dynamic stop, viewers will learn the basics of snowboarding, along with pertinent safety tips (like how to stop) and, as a bonus, how to use a chair lift (sit down). The fun is in the wealth of sound bites, video clips, camera techniques, and on-screen arrows that come at the viewer at warp speed. One of my biggest laughs of the year so far came when a boom mike accidentally appeared in frame; immediately a colored arrow with the words "boom mike" appeared. A video with considerably less cool would have ignored the mike and prayed that viewers would too. Whether you live in Aspen or on the plains of Kansas, Boarding School is a blast (and, oh yeah, it will teach people how to snowboard. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. (R. Pitman)