Seattle, Washington--Somehow, I'm not really sure why, I found myself at a Seattle theater attending Warren Miller's 47th annual winter film, "Snowriders."

Okay, I'll admit I was stoked to go see a ski movie after being inundated with snowboard crap the past few months, and hey, the tickets were free. But things aren't like they used to be. First off, ski films ain't cheap. At ten dollars a head Warren and Co. are making out pretty well and that's not even counting the money Miller charges resorts, ski companies, car companies, and airlines to be featured in the movies. Secondly: everyone was either over 40 or under fourteen. Come to think of it, that might have been right around that last time I went to a Warren Miller film.

But it's eight years later now, and I'm with my snowboard friends with their bleached blond hair and pierced body parts. The door people looked us up and down. One guy even thought I was trying to sneak in. Right, like I'm going to sneak into a Warren Miller movie.

But still, I tried to remain optimistic because Mike Hatchett and Standard Films did supply some footie to the ski film Baron this year, and who am I to judge.

Warren Miller makes personal appearances at three openings a year: Portland, Vancouver, and Seattle. So, instead of going straight into the film, we were given the rare pleasure of fifteen additional minutes of his famous voice, which sounds a lot like it does on the movie except you get to see him standing there like the animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland.

You can tell that Warren has faired well. A dignified grandfatherly looking man somewhere in his early seventies, Mr. Miller has a shiny bald head and skinny, expensively-slacked legs below a pot belly. He looks like a fine Grandpa for some nice young skiers-in-training.

For about fifteen minutes Warren explained that he named the film "Snowriders" because we are all interested in getting down the mountain with a smile on our faces no matter what we are on. Welcome to the 90s Warren. It's nice that you've finally made that discovery--even if it is six years late. Okay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just waiting for his friends at Park City to say that snowboarding was okay.

After the lovely "can't we just get along" speech the movie started. To his credit, Warren Miller, Inc. put in some incredible Alaska footage shot by the Hatchett's right up in the first twenty minutes. If he hadn't every snowboarder in the place would have left after his fifteen minutes of snowboarding tollerance babble.

Unfortunately, everything that followed the snowboarding footage was pretty bland. I hoped it would get better, so I waited. I was ready for Glen Plake, Scott Schmidt, and the new breed of bad-ass, nameless skiers to make me look at my board and laugh as if it were a toy. But it never happened. All we got was a little Weigele Heli Ski footage, some flat East Coast terrain, and a cheesy snowboarder carving big S turns on flat groomers. I decided I could hold out till intermission.

The last shot before intermission was a skier gliding off a 1,500 foot cliff and opening a parachute. Impressive, but we've already seen it done on a snowboard in TB5. I let out a yawn, sat through the boring raffle at intermission, and chatted with my friends who were begging me to leave. Then the movie came back on.

Much to my amazement and disappointment the next section involved an awful ski chick complete with lipstick, perfume, and nail polish (Warren was kind enough to show her primping). On top of that the movie included an awfully contrived narration by her about going skiing at Big Sky with a snowboarder and two skiers.

All I could say was, "Princess, you need to take a serious look at how the hair spray is affecting your brain cells, because they're dying off." The footage sucked. We had to escape. We could take no more. Warren Miller had completely succeeded in chasing out some of the most tolerant snowboarders in the world--we were the ones who really genuinely liked skiing.

On a scale of 1-4 stars Warren and company get a star for effort, but then loses half of it for putting the silly girl in the film. And what happened to all of the awesome skiers I remember from back in the day when I rode two planks regularly? Have they all grown old and withered with Warren, or has his company grown so old that no one there knows who can ski and who can't.

Perhaps we'll never know. One thing for sure: if you snowboard don't waste your money with Warren Miller.

For information on when Warren's Ski Dinosaur is lumbering into your town click here: http://www.wmfilms.com/Feature/schedule.htm