Plenty of sound, white-water fury

Subscriber-supported niche publishing moves past the printed page and onto DVD with Lunch Video Magazine, a digital retelling of the latest tricks, waterfall drops, wave riding and news from the white-water kayak set. With digital videocams as common as bloody noses for this crowd, LVM smartly feeds back to the faithful fresh kayaking footage shot by amateurs and small production companies around the nation.

Now in its ninth quarterly release, LVM offers profiles of pro kayakers, “first descents” of white-water streams, and river access updates provided by the advocacy group American Whitewater. LVM succeeds best with the tried-and-true formula of action footage set to a hard-core soundtrack. It’s no longer enough to simply run a river or ride a wave; kayakers now pull somersaults and spin like pinwheels in raging rapids. But with little need on DVDs to edit for space, the action can be overlong, repetitive and stiff, proving that even eye-popping feats can be dull with artless presentation.

-- Emmett Berg