Into the Thin Air of Everest (1999)
Film:
DVD:

Features:

• Consists of three separate programs: Everest: The Quest, Everest: Tempting Fate and The Conquest of Everest
  
• Slide show
  
• Interviews with Sir Edmund Hillary and Sir Christopher Bonington
  
• Biographies of Hillary and Bonington
  

Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: Rent It.

As stated above, this two-sided disc is actually three different programs about the tallest mountain on Earth. It's not the deadliest as I understand it (an old friend maintained that K2 had that title, as it would actively try to kill you), but it's seen its fair share of death on its slopes, as well as stories of victory and human endurance.

The first two, Quest and Tempting Fate could have been combined into one long documentary and you'd have never known the difference. Although their respective focus is slightly different, Quest giving you a bit of history about the mountain whereas Tempting Fate outlines the crazed tragedies that have occured up there, it's obvious they've basically taken the interviews and whatnot and chopped them in half. No real problem with that, mind you, it's just that you get a bit of overlap in the information being presented.

What they get extra points for including, though, is the Conquest documentary from 1953, which is on the flip side. It won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Oscar. And it's nice to have on the disc just for historical purposes. There's nothing quite like 50's documentaries for sheer anthropological curiosity. After coming off of the two other modern docus, it's pretty amusing to see them testing the latest technological breakthrough in fabric in a wind tunnel.

The features are a bit skimpy for what you would think a disc about Everest would muster. There is extra information about two individuals who figure prominently in both Everest history and in the docus, Sir Edmund Hillary (one of the two first humans to summit Everest) and Sir Christopher Bonington (who's one of the world's foremost mountaineers). The Hillary interview is only a little over two minutes, so that's a bit disappointing, although Bonington makes up for it with nearly ten minutes of footage. The bios are decently extensive, so nothing to complain about there. Probably the biggest misstep on the disc is the slideshow of Everest-related pics. They have no captions, so who knows what expedition we're looking at? Or when the pics were taken? Do they have any significance whatsoever? No idea.

If you're looking for an interesting overview of Everest from both a modern and a not-so-modern perspective, then this disc will serve you well. No need to plonk down the coin unless you're a huge fan of mountaineering, though.