BOOK RELEASE: THE HAWAI'I MOVIE AND TELEVISION BOOK

The Hawai'i Movie and Television Book: Celebrating 100 Years of Film Production Throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

 

Aloha 24 X 100

 

Just in time for the holidays, Honolulu’s Mutual Publishing has released The Hawai'i Movie and Television Book: Celebrating 100 Years of Film Production Throughout the Hawaiian Islands, co-authored by this publication's prolific writer Ed Rampell.

The handsome, four-color 216-page volume celebrates 100 years of filmmaking throughout the Hawaiian Islands with the focus on Hollywood feature films and television production since 1995, when Rampell co-authored Made In Paradise: Hollywood’s Films of Hawaii and The South Seas.

 

The Hawai'i Movie and Television Book includes: The screen images of Polynesians and Asians; how South Seas Cinema more than any other film genre is obsessed with the theme of Utopia; where films/TV shows were shot on location in the Hawaiian Islands; a history of the present day Hawai’i Film/TV Industry; and iconic Hawai‘i crime fighters as portrayed on screen. Rampell also places in historic context and reevaluates important movies such as 1995’s Waterworld and 1998’s Godzilla, revealing how they are motion picture parables of global warming and nuclear testing.

 

The films and television programs are covered in detail, heavily illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs. A valuable reference for film aficionados, a treasure trove of memorabilia for Hawai‘i movie fans, and an important document of Hollywood’s cinematic history with Hawai‘i. Film trivia enthusiasts will have a blast and discover where to go to see the Island locations where popular productions such as From Here to Eternity, Jurassic Parkand The Descendants were made.

 

Hollywood directors brought their own unique vision of paradise to the screen which receives special treatment in a chapter on the South Sea film genre. There is also coverage of films about Hawaiian life made by Native Hawaiians and other local filmmakers.

 

Los Angeles-based film historian Ed Rampell, who formerly lived in Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa and Micronesia, where he covered the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific and Hawaiian Sovereignty movements for ABC’s “20/20”, Radio Australia, Radio New Zealand, Honolulu Weekly, etc., is now one of L.A.’s most prolific reviewers, covering film/theater/opera for JEstherEntertainment.com, as well as HollywoodProgressive.com, Legends and Legacies, The Daily Dissident, People’s World and The Progressive Magazine.

 

Rampell previously co-authored Made In Paradise: Hollywood’s Films of Hawaii and The South Seas and Pearl Harbor In The Movies with Luis I. Reyes, who also co-wrote Hispanics in Hollywood. Rampell is also a co-founder of the South Seas Cinema Society, an Oahu-based fan club/film society.  

For more information about The Hawai'i Movie and Television Book: Celebrating 100 Years of Film Production Throughout the Hawaiian Islands,including a rave review by Honolulu’s top entertainment reporter, or to order copies  see Hawai'i Movie Book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAAPFF 2012: PAPA MAU THE WAYFINDER

A scene from  Papa Mau: The Wayfinder.

Come sail away with me

By Ed Rampell

Hawaiian director Na’alehu Anthony’s Papa Mau: The Way Finder literally traverses two of the three Pacific Island regions that compose Oceania: Polynesia and Micronesia (the third is Melanesia). Anthony’s camera and archival footage carries us aboard the Hōkūle'a, an ancient-style Polynesian voyaging canoe, from Hawaii to Tahiti and eventually to Satawal atoll in the Caroline Islands, now part of what is called the Federated States of Micronesia.

Rather remarkably, starting in 1976 Hōkūle'a (translated as “the Glad Star”) made these seafaring odysseys of Homeric proportions minus the use of modern technology: compasses, radio transmissions, GPS, engines, even maps per se. Instead, Hōkūle'a relied solely on the age-old techniques: navigating by following the stars, winds, ocean swells, birds and the like, using dead reckoning and more.

Hōkūle'a’s success helped spurr a cultural revival and ethnic pride, a Pacific Renaissance in the world’s last region still dominated by colonialism. Nevertheless, infighting on the canoe during the 30-plus day voyage disturbed Mau, who surreptitiously left the voyagers after they safely arrived at Tahiti and returned to Satawal (mostly, presumably, via jet), leaving the Hawaiians to fend for themselves for the long return trip home with his tape-recorded voice instructions.

The documentary briefly mentions in passing the dissension among the crew, but does not go into detail about the disputes and divisions. This may be because rather than being an objective observer and outsider, director Anthony has been a crewman aboard Hōkūle'a, and may not have wanted to ruffle feathers. Fractiousness among Hawaiians, especially among those in the “movement,” can reach Shakespearean proportions -- but that’s another story.

In any case, over the years Mau was wooed back to Hawaii and, moved by a desire to perpetuate his vanishing seagoing knowledge, rejoined the Hōkūle,a. However, this time, he would not lead as its helmsman, but rather as a teacher training and imparting to Nainoa Thompson of the Polynesian Voyaging Society and company his navigational genius so others could become and continue the master navigator legacy.

I arrived in Tahiti about three months after Hōkūle'a’s first voyage there, and although I’ve never had the luck, honor and privilege to sail aboard this venerable vessel, in the late 1980s I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the canoe’s return voyage from what, until that point, had been its most epic voyage throughout the Polynesian triangle -- taking it all the way to Aotearoa/New Zealand, thousands of miles away from Hawaii.

Now, Hawaiians have been turned by the vicissitudes of a cruel history into an oppressed, landless minority in their own ancestral homeland, and are often what the French call “les miserables,” full of suffering. But I never saw masses of Hawaiians so happy as when Hōkūle'a proudly sailed into Kaneohe Bay at Oahu, and thousands of Hawaiians joyfully participated in the reenactment of ancient customs and traditions. The then-Hawaiian Gov. John Waihee declared: “In my bones, I am screaming, 'I’m proud to be Hawaiian!'” I believe it was at this joyous homecoming where I had the great luck to meet Mau himself, as well as crewman En Hunkin (who became American Samoa’s Congressman), and I subsequently interviewed the then-youthful Nainoa (OMG, he has grey hair now in this documentary!), and became pals with another Hōkūle'a crew member, Donna Wendt (whom I’d share another epic voyage with on the Aranui, from Tahiti to the Marquesas -- but that also is another story).

So this documentary has profound personal meaning for me and this Paliku production (with support from the stellar Honolulu-based Pacific Islanders in Communications, as well as the State government’s Office of Hawaiian Affairs) should be experienced by anyone interested in sailing, Oceania, cultural rebirth, etc., – and in karma. The documentary follows what could be called the further adventures of the Hōkūle'a, its subsequent voyages since I left Hawaii, and reveals the fate of Mau. In what could be called cultural turn about fair play, the Hawaiians whom Mau taught to be master navigators return the favor in a very moving, meaningful way.

FREE FILM SCREENING: HAWAII A VOICE FOR SOVEREIGNTY

Haunani-Kay Trask in Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty. Photo by Catherine Bauknight.

Paradise lost

By Ed Rampell

The 2011 Hawaii-set feature, The Descendants opens by asserting that it’s crazy to consider the Aloha State to be some sort of a paradise, where no major problems exist. Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty is a documentary about those troubles, or pilikia. However, whereasThe Descendants protagonist (George Clooney) plays a character who has a smidgen of indigenous blood and belongs to a privileged family with a multi-million dollar land trust, Catherine Bauknight’s powerful, multi-award winning doc focuses on the Disinherited: The Native Hawaiians, who have become a landless, disenfranchised, disempowered minority in their own ancestral homeland.

Say, just how did this Polynesian archipelago, about 2,000 miles from California, become part of the American empire anyway? Just how did the U.S. gain the Pearl Harbor Naval Base that Imperial Japan bombed on Dec. 7, 1941 anyway? History is usually written by the victors, just as Americans often trade in unexamined assumptions, but in Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty co-writer/director Bauknight dares to examine the assumed. Bauknight’s probing camera takes a peek behind the curtain of U.S. imperialism and presents a platform for the Islands’ aboriginal activists to present their side of the story.

Hawaii may be popularly portrayed and imagined as a visitors’ playground, but Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty exposes the social, political, cultural and environmental pilikia confronting the disinherited descendants of the Polynesian people Captain James Cook encountered when he made landfall there in the late 18^th century, thus putting Hawaii on the map for Westerners. Of course, the Hawaiians’ ancestors – masterful navigators -- discovered the Islands a millennium before Cook arrived. The culture clash that ensued after Cook made one voyage there too many was a harbinger of the societal convulsions that would engulf Hawaii and its indigenous inhabitants. These calamities include a swarm of “Christian” zealots and the armed invasion of the isles by the U.S. military -- acting in league with the original missionaries’ descendants -- and the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893. Auwe!

Far from the Waikiki high rises and mega-resorts Bauknight shows us Hawaiians who are not only landless, but homeless, too, living in encampments on the beach before the Occupy movement was cool. Best of all, Hawaiian activists, artists, fishermen, taro farmers, hula dancers, practitioners of the pre-contact religion, et al, explain their plight and cause in their own words, instead of having Bauknight, a “Haole” (Caucasian person) from da kine (mainland) impose her spin on indigenous viewpoints. The struggle against militarism (the Pentagon owns a higher percentage of Hawaii than it does any other state), mass packaged tourism run for the benefit of multi-national corporations, ecocide, the desecration of sacred sites, the theft of the aina (land) and the courageous resistance to all of these (and other) injustices under the battle cry of “Sovereignty” is compellingly depicted and commented on.

On a personal note, as a journalist who spent 23 years living in Tahiti, Samoa, Micronesia and half of this time in Hawaii, reporting on the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific movement and the Hawaiian Sovereignty cause, a highlight of watching Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty was seeing some of the leaders I used to cover as they now appear. They include: Dennis “Bumpy” Kanahele, a sort of Malcolm X-type of activist (the so-called Black Muslims even marched with Bumpy’s Nation of Hawaii group at the Iolani Palace in Downtown Honolulu during the 1990s). Kalani English of Hana, Maui, who became a state senator. Sarong-clad Professor Haunani-Kay Trask, an indefatigable academic and poet, whose courageous outspokenness is only outmatched by her brilliance -- and the fear her righteous rage raises amidst the staid status quo.

I got a special kick out of seeing one of Haunani’s former U.H. Department of Hawaiian Studies students, Kaleikoa Kaeo, who I used to cover at all of the Sovereignty demos when he was a bearded youth with longish hair. Today, he’s completely bolohead (bald), covered in traditional tattoos, and is himself now a professor, who expertly explains Hawaiian history in his thick Pidgin English accent. He’s a Hawaiian Howard Zinn, a true people’s historian!

Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty includes an interview with a legendary figure of the movement with a rascally reputation, whom I’d heard of but never met, and my hat is off to Bauknight for tracking the elusive Skippy Ioane down for at the Big Island. The film also includes organizers, rank and filers, etc., whom I was not aware – but am now, thanks to this wide ranging doc.

Like Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, this documentary has a great sonorous soundtrack of Hawaiian music by talents such as Cyril Pahinui. Some of the musicians, such as Henry Kapono and Willie K (who I remember when he started out, and has gray hair now, auwe!), are also interviewed onscreen. A Cd with the soundtrack has been released.

The documentary also includes sumptuous cinematography; Bauknight, a noted photojournalist, is also the film’s director of photography. There is also archival footage, news clips and soaring aerial shots, as well as lots of original footage shot specifically for this nonfiction film.

Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty has won seven awards since its premiere at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. and has had a special screening at the U.N. in Geneva. Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty won the awards for Best Environmental Film at The Red Nation Film Festival in Los Angeles and Best Environmental Film at the New York International Film Festival, as well as a prize at Aotearoa/New Zealand’s Wairoa Maori Film Festival.

And in the end, what is this thing called “Sovereignty”? Competing factions and trends of thoughts have different visions. When I covered the Hawaiian Revolution during the 1990s, Bumpy’s Nation of Hawaii advocated independence from the U.S. Ka La Hui Hawaii, the organization Haunani was linked to and which her activist attorney sister Mililani Trask led, endorsed a nation within a nation, government to government relationship with Washington, similar to the political status the so-called American Indians have, to exist on a land base somewhat similar to tribal reservations. Be that as it may, most Hawaiian activists share the belief that sovereignty is a form of self determination that guarantees indigenous empowerment. Perhaps above all else the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement means that the disinherited shall re-inherit the aina.

The digital launch of the documentary in North America will take place soon on iTunes, Netflix and Gaiam TV. But, before that, there will be a free screening of Hawaii A Voice For Sovereignty March 31, 11 a.m., at Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101. After the screening there will be a panel discussion and/or a Q&A with director Catherine Bauknight, Hawaiian activist Leon Siu, veteran journalist Robert Scheer and myself.

Admission is free, so, as they say in Hawaii: "Try come!”


For more information: Hawaii A Voice for Sovereignty.

FILM REVIEW: THE DESCENDANTS

Matt King (George Clooney) in The Descendants.

Sharing his Payne

By Don Simpson

Chinos and Hawaiian shirts are normal every day attire for Honolulu lawyer, Matt King (George Clooney). Unfortunately, Matt’s life is not nearly as relaxed as his fashion sense. His wife, Elizabeth (Patti Hastie), is in a coma after a serious boating accident while Matt’s daughters, 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and 10-year-old Scotty (Amara Miller), are both suffering through rebellious periods of their lives.

After prioritizing his career over his family for the last decade, Matt decides that it is prime time to buckle up and become a better husband and father. But… How? He starts by forging an alliance of sorts with Alexandra — who has been suddenly catapulted into the role of substitute mother for Scottie — which requires Matt to accept her mere-caricature-of-a-stoner-[boy]friend, Sid (Nick Krause) as more than the dumber-than-a-rock idiot he seems to be. It is a tough pill for Matt to swallow but, against all odds, he pulls it off without beating the living shit out of him.

It is not without purpose that Matt’s change of heart towards his family occurs on the eve of his decision on what to do with his family’s 25,000 acres of virgin land on the island of Kauai. Matt and his family might be a-holes, I mean “haoles” (white Hawaiians), but they are also the direct descendants of the House of Kamehameha. Matt and his family have been collecting pitches from several developers; no matter which one Matt — the sole executor of the estate — chooses, the entire family will instantaneously become unfathomably rich.

It is far too predictable what Matt finally chooses to do with the land — though would we really desire any other possible ending? Writer-director Alexander Payne opts to give the audience exactly what they want, opting to turn The Descendants into pure, unfiltered Oscar fodder. Let’s just say that I can already guarantee that my mom will love The Descendants, and not just because she thinks George Clooney is one dreamy motherfucker (my words, not her’s — my mom is a good Catholic woman, while I am obviously not a good Catholic or a woman…though I do find Clooney to be quite dreamy). Clooney’s severely understated performance as a severely undemonstrative character,  who is incredibly bland and undeniably average, is at the absolute heart of The Descendants’s appeal. As Payne did with Jack Nicholson (About Schmidt), Paul Giamatti (Sideways) and Thomas Haden Church (Sideways), he all but castrates Clooney to restrain his performance, leaving him as a mere shell of his formerly entertaining self.