Jackson Hole Underground

Gary Strieker is using new media to spotlight critical environmental issues.

Tonight the Jackson Hole Film Institute and Pursue Balance are sponsoring a free talk and screening of some of Strieker’s films from 7 to 9 p.m. at Teton Mountain Lodge. The filmmaker will be on hand to answer questions.

Strieker is a former award-winning international correspondent for CNN who went on to found the Environment News Trust, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to producing video news reports. His short films can be viewed at the Assignment Earth home page and via Yahoo! video, as well as on a new half-hour program on PBS.

Recently Strieker has worked with Jackson journalists Melinda Binks and Rebecca Huntington on stories such as coal-bed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin, delisting of bald eagles and depleted trout stocks in Idaho.

Binks, a videographer who owns Fall Creek Productions, and Huntington, the former ace environmental reporter for the News&Guide, also will show some of their work.

Strieker will screen “Mountains of Coal,” a feature about hilltop mining in West Virginia, and the short films “Mexican Wolves” and “Smuggling Apes.”

As town gears up for the Jackson Hole Film Festival, tonight there will be a showing of an off-festival movie that revs the debate over snowmobiles into a full-throttle indictment of the Bush-Cheney administration’s approach to government.

“A Snowmobile for George” is the story of California filmmaker Todd Darling’s ride into the exhaust cloud of deregulation. Following his own curiosity after buying a sled, Darling races from the controversy over allowing snowmobiles in Yellowstone to runaway coal-bed methane drilling in the Powder River Basin to a hideous die-off of salmon on the Klamath River.

The 96-minute film will screen at 6:30 p.m. at the Jackson campus of Teton Science Schools, off Highway 22. The event is being sponsored by the Western Organization of Research Councils, an association that represents ranchers and other landowners on issues of water, air and soil quality. On hand will be George Smith, a cowboy poet from Sheridan.

(Updated 5/23 — be sure to see comment below)

The cold, dreary weather outside is a cinema owner’s dream, especially when a certain snake-fearing professor in a fedora returns to crack the whip.

Besides last night’s midnight premiere, Movieworks has five screenings of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: 4:15, 5, 7, 8 and 9:30 p.m. There will be two additional matinees at 1:30 and 2 p.m. over Memorial Day weekend. (Movie listings always can be found here.)

The N.Y. Times review laments the lack of “any sense of rediscovery,” and there are plenty of reader comments decrying the efforts of Lucas and Spielberg, but you’d have to work pretty hard to spoil the fun of an Indiana Jones movie. Then again, the Star Wars prequels kind of sucked.

We have idolized Harrison Ford since Han Solo first fired the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace, but that boy crush turned man crush was cemented when, on our first or second day of work in Jackson Hole, Ford came into Billy’s Burgers for lunch. We knew we were in the right place.

Since then we have followed his exploits running the Snake River and swooping in with his helicopter to rescue a sick hiker in the Tetons. At 65, he continues to be an inspiration for us all, especially to anyone who has seen him work the bar at Rendezvous Bistro.

An adult circus came to town Saturday, as the Yard Dogs Road Show mixed music and theater in a saucy revue at the Jackson Hole Playhouse.

Gypsy burlesque drew nearly a full house. All weekend, from the Whodunit? show at the Art Association to the Pangea video campfire at LMC gallery, found people thirsting for art in all its forms. Mountain dwellers are restless for spring, even if Mother Nature is not.

The Road Show’s vaudeville was perfectly tailored for the Playhouse, a fantastical theater straight out of the Old West. Here is a slide show from the performance.

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Our beloved local brewery made like Bode Miller and took home a lode of medals at the World Beer Cup.

Snake River Brewing Co. won three golds and one silver at the competition in San Diego, which drew nearly 2,900 entries from 58 countries.

Winning gold were the much decorated Snake River Pale Ale and Zonker Stout from the Jackson brewery, as well as Rock Chuck Rye from the pub in Lander. On Belay IPA, also from Lander, took silver in the English-style India Pale Ale category.

Grand Teton Brewing Co. of Victor, Idaho, won a bronze for its Bitch Creek ESB.

Congrats to all the brewers, and let’s drink the spoils!