Warren Miller's newest ski documentary—if you can call it that—came to San Francisco last night. Guests paid $17.50 each for the honor of watching Higher Ground, in which amazing cinematography fights for time with grotesque product placement in what seems to be an extended Jeep commercial.

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Miller, the legendary octogenarian, always has been comfortable mixing the cheesy with the exquisite in his hundreds of films, and this one is no exception. I'm fine with the over-the-top tribute to the FDNY—complete with fire fighters holding onto hoses and sliding down the mountain—so long as it's followed by shots of an 85-year old guy barreling down a run and doing a 360 off a jump. But what's not fine are the lingering shots of the granola-bar wrappers the guys are eating, or the repeated (and incongruous) references to a certain liqueur.

I've got no problem with advertising. Hell, that's how Gelf makes (or doesn't make, as the case may be) its money. But the ridiculous product placement in this film almost serves to cancel out the amazing shots of skiers descending from helicopters onto virgin slopes, or snowboarders gleefully smashing into trees.

Warren Miller—the man—has had less and less to do with the films that bear his name since his son, Kurt, sold Warren Miller Entertainment to Time Warner in 2000. Miller the elder was reportedly furious with the sale, and had previously accused Kurt "of corrupting his magic formula with conspicuous product placement" (Outside).

Though this film bears the Warren Miller brand, the old man's voice is rarely heard, save a few short soliloquies. I hope that once he realizes that his movies, previously synonymous with the joy of the outdoors, have become the extreme sports version of The Apprentice, he will cease any involvement at all.

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