Tag Archives: Hawaii

The Descendants

I feel like I’ve had a treat of a movie weekend, and if anything, we saved the best til last, wrapping up with Alexander Payne’s quite, quite brilliant The Descendants. George Clooney – just on top form – is Matt King, an overworked lawyer and descendant of one of the 1860 missionaries who won vast tracts of land from the Hawaiians. King has been neglecting his family whilst negotiating a massive land-deal for a huge slab of coastal land over which he is the only trustee. In the middle of the negotiations, his wayward wife is injured in a boating accident, and he’s forced to round up his daughters and try to keep the family in one piece as his own life collapses around him.

It’s – I’ll say it again – a brilliant film, the kind of film that sits with you afterwards, so well is it made, so honest are the emotions, so true the performances. It’s neither mawkish nor maudlin, and the gentle re-connection between George and his daughters (the eldest is fantastic) is just marvellous. It’s kind of a perfect film. Hawaii is front and centre too – it’s history, its characters, its magnificent landscapes. (hat tip to Jerry Garrett’s blog on finding the real-life bay Matt King’s trying to sell.) Fantastic too is the use of Hawaiian music throughout – Payne skipped an orchestral score altogether and illuminated the script instead with recordings of some of the best Hawaiian artists. It’s an aural treat.

Battleship

I was wondering how they’d turn a dodgy board game into a blockbuster aliens-blow-shit-up sci-fi spectacle. I thought they might skip the strategy stuff altogether and I was really pleasantly surprised how they pulled it off (it’s actually pretty inspired, something to do with tsunami buoys – seriously.) And whilst there’s little character development, some truly hokey dialogue, and way not enough time getting Alexander Skarsgard even vaguely naked, it zips along at a cracking pace, to a thunderous soundtrack, in an entirely entertaining way. I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

Battleship is set in Hawaii, and it largely filmed there, on Maui and Oahu – you’ll expect Jurassic Park dinosaurs to scuttle about in certain locations – although it did also do some stuff in Louisiana. This is a movie that famously pulled its production from Gold Coast Australia because of a lack of incentives; brutal. I’m glad it’s good, though; Taylor Kitsch really didn’t deserve to be poisoned by John Carter.

Just Go With It

I’ll say this nicely. There’s a guy in my gym who’s suffering from some sort of elephantiasis. Seriously. He’s got this wee, completely normal-sized head that’s carrying no extra flab around his chin or cheeks, but his body is lumbering and massive and each of his legs are the size of my entire torso. As a result he wears ginormously outsized clothes, tent-like t-shirts and shorts the size and volume of Volvo round-the-world yacht sails. I only mention this because Adam Sandler in Just Go With It is clearly dressed by the same stylist. He looks square and sickly, like a humongous, bobble-headed, wize-cracking Rubiks Cube, and it’s off putting.

And that’s a shame because this is a film that’s very hard to like at the best of times. The premise is simple enough; a doctor falls for a younger woman who, mistakenly believing the doctor is married, insists on meeting the ex-wife to get the all-clear. Said Doc asks his assistant (Jennifer Aniston) to step up, setting in motion a whole series of ad-libby vignettes where the entire crowd is expected to “just go with it”. So, it’s cringe-worthy, mostly, and crass, with shit jokes and folks lying to each other. It is saved, and then only barely, such is the task at hand, by the not inconsiderable skill of Ms. Aniston, who, frankly, knocks everyone else off the screen with charisma and charm. I’m guessing the Doc had never noticed her because of his elephantiasis?

Locations are Beverly Hills and Hawaii, and there’s a lot made of the romantic getaway stuff AND all the great things for kids to do. The Hawaiian hotel called the Waldorf Astoria was actually shot at the Grand Wailea in Maui, owned by Waldorf Astoria Hotels and Resorts. This is the kind of film tourism stuff that money just can’t buy, and Hawaii is the only other thing I ended up liking in this film.

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The Rise of the Planet of the Apes is a glossy re-imagining of how the world of the seventies Sci-Fi tv series – where talking chimps rule the world and humans are dumb slave labor – comes about. This time, a crumply scientist (James Franco) tries to cure Alzheimers and creates a brain potion that’s tested on chimps in a slick, impersonal animal testing facility. This new potion heals chimps with damaged brains, but does even more remarkable stuff to apes with healthy brains, advancing their intelligence and reasoning exponentially. And when one of the test subjects begins to object to his cruel and unusual treatment at the hands of impersonal scientists and sadistic welfare workers alike, it’s the dramatic turning point in simian-human relations….

The film is set in San Franscisco, and several city landmarks, notably the zoo and the Golden Gate Bridge, are front-and-center visual icons in the film. However, the film mostly filmed in Canada – the domed roof of the chimp rehabilitation facility is actually the Pacific National Exhibition Center sports facility.

But is it any good? Well, yes, actually – it’s compelling and entertaining and engaging, mostly due to the efforts of CGI-enhanced performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar the chimp. Rise in fact pulls off quite a remarkable feat; for the first time I can ever remember, the movie concludes at the threshold of the humiliation of vicious, kak-handedly brutal and thoughtless mankind, and it feels completely right and proper to celebrate the end of the world as we know it. Having created such sympathy for Caesar, it will be interesting to see how future films (and believe me, there will be more films) turn these apes into the human-like monsters of the original series.

A Perfect Getaway

Super-Serb Milla Jovovich and chunky little Steve Zahn (that’s new, serious Steve Zahn, not the former doofus version) are ostensibly a pair of love-struck newly-weds on Honeymoon in Hawaii. It’s A Perfect Getaway. They take a hiking trail to a remote part of one of the islands, falling in with an Iraq war vet and his almost-fiancee plus a pair of somewhat scary hitchhikers along the way. And its the scary that does it. Because a man and a woman have reportedly viciously murdered another pair of newly-weds back in Honolulu…..we just don’t know who.

So, A Perfect Getaway is a perfectly serviceable little thriller, particularly if you haven’t seen the trailer and aren’t expecting any of the twists and turns. Milla’s pretty good, Steve Zahn has (somewhat unnervingly) become really rather, how can I say this? smokin’, in his old age, and it’s also got Chris Hemsworth AND Timmy Olyphant, so there’s eye candy galore. And as for the Hawaii locations…..

And again here’s a twist. Because for all the times that Hawaii has stood in for Vietnam, Costa Rica, the Pacific, Africa, yadda yadda yadda, here’s one where Puerto Rico stands in for Hawaii. The climactic beach scene was actually filmed at the enigmatic Aguadilla in Puerto Rico (though the cave is actually found in Jamaica.) Ah, the magic of the Movies.

Predators

Predators asks just one thing of it’s audience, but it is a pretty big ask nonetheless: that you consider only the first Predator film (starring the Gubernator himself) as source material, whilst figuratively drinking your own bodyweight in order to forget the unmitigated trash of Predator 2 and the even worsePredator/Alien mash-ups that followed. No problem there, then. Figuratively or literally.

There’s not much to tell about the plot of this latest incarnation, except that it is fairly faithful to the original film. A group of mismatched mercenaries are jettisoned on hostile alien planet, where they are hunted down by a trio of hideous (and hideously well-armed) space creatures. There’s a bit about “having to work together” but mostly its an excuse to watch a series of bone-achingly violent deaths. Which is pretty entertaining, actually. Even the casting of whippet thin Adrien Brody as the muscular lead seems to work. I mean, he’s not Kenneth Branagh, but this isn’t Shakespeare, so really, who’s picky?

The main filming location – suitably lush but unspeakably deadly – is actually the Kolekole Beach Park, on Hawaii’s Big Island.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Doofus musician Peter (Jason Segel) has spent six years idolizing his girlfriend, television star Sarah Marshall. When she dumps him, he takes an impulsive trip to Oahu, Hawaii, where he is confronted by his worst nightmare: his ex and her hip new Rock Star boyfriend, Aldous, are staying at the same resort…..

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is one of those guy-rom-coms. The interesting thing is that all the characters are actually really nice. Even the dastardly Aldous – played with flair by Brit shock-jock Russell Brand – does his level-best to befriend Peter, and he’s only ever honest. Even Sarah Marshall, the ice queen bitch (Kristen Bell) is ultimately redeemable. Paul Rudd is also unrecognisably fantastic as the stoner surf-dude Chuck. But it’s Peter who stands out as a genuine decent human being trying to find his way back from the pain of a horrible relationship. And we’ve all been there. Jason Segel is Everyman; just taller. The Turtle Bay Resort on North Shore, Oahu – about 45 minutes out from Honolulu, gets something of a star billing too. I’d travel, now, if I could.

And PS – just to show that someone out there has brains as well as a sense of humour – here’s an NBC website for Crime Scene, Scene of the Crime, starring Sarah and that Baldwin brother.

Jurassic Park(s)

With a bored, rambunctious child to entertain, I thought I’d scare the wits out of her with a Jurassic Park marathon – 1 (awesome), 2 (ho-hum) and 3 (pretty good.)

In brief, a mad scientist (transformed in the movie into a kindly old man) has found a way to clone dinosaurs using blood from 65 million year old mosquitos. He creates a dinosaur theme park on a remote Costa Rican island – Jurassic Park – but sabotage sets the animals loose. All three films recount different tales of human interaction with the prehistoric giants, with different degrees of thrills and gore. As one of the more perspicacious protagonists says:

“Oh, yeah – Oooh, Ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and screaming.”

Jurassic Park was released – if you can believe this – back in 1993, and filmed Costa Rica mostly on Kaua’i and O’ahu in Hawaai, with Red Rocks Canyon Park and the Mojave Desert playing stand in for Montana. The interiors (including the classic kitchen scene) were shot on LA sound stages. As usual, the Hawaiians follow up with great movie-related tourism opportunities. Even better though is the Movie-Locations.com site, sadly for the inferior The Lost World, Jurassic Park II – but there’s a ton of precise travel information on the sites from the film – sadly San Diego was mostly just a delicious establishing shot.

Tropic Thunder

I’m not quite sure what to make of Tropic Thunder - Ben Stiller’s raucous romp through Indochina (Zoolander meets Apocalypse Now). Some belly laughs (mostly covering my mouth going “Oh my god!”), some knowing smiles, a whole lot of “what now?”s. I got all of the jokes and everything; I just didn’t find them all that hilarious. Or maybe it’s because the comedy rollicks along so briskly, there isn’t time to let it all sink in?

The movie’s premise is simple; during the filming of a big-budget Vietnam war movie, several over-primped and self-obsessed movie stars are dropped in the middle of the jungle and forced to make their way home without personal assistants, TIVO or little bankies of cocaine. Along the way they fall foul of the Flaming Dragon drug cartel ruled by a vicious pre-teen thug with a bamboo whip and a penchant for a particular soppy Hollywood drama…..

Yes; no matter what you’ve heard, Tropic Thunder is not a throwaway, third grade-schoolyard style bullying of disabled folk but rather a sharp skewering of the vanity, vapidity and insincerity of Hollywood. And that’s a good thing, right? The cast is great – I have fondest memories of Steve Coogan as the hapless Brit director trying to contain the team of divas before – whump! – he steps on a mine, and a semi-naked, drug-addled, bleach blonde Jack Black strapped to a tree. Or the back of a buffalo. (Off set, the buffalo had a calf during filming they called “Little Jack” – I kid you not.) Downey Jnr would have been even better if he hadn’t lost me up front with a dreadfully fake Australian accent and Stiller of course is always Derek Zoolander – something for which he is still, just, forgiven.

I also secretly believe that Tom Cruise in reallife actually is just like foul-mouthed, fat-fingered Les Grossman; the fact that Tom in a fat-suit is a dead ringer for someone I once worked with made it all the more unnerving.

For a movie about fakes, it’s not surprising the team chose a fake Vietnam; the movie was shot on Kauai, where Stiller has a home. Locations included the movie’s two major set pieces, the Hot LZ and Flaming Dragon Compound. The Hot LZ – location for the tumultous opening “war scene” – was situated on an expansive valley of tropical land, part of the privately-owned 40,000-acre Grove Farm property. TheFlaming Dragon Compound where the movie’s final action sequence takes place was filmed a few miles inland, on set that was constructed over several months at the edge of Mount Waialeale. Mount Waialeale gets 350 rainy days per year – more rain than any other place in the world.

Wsbradio has some interesting production notes on the film; the Hot LZ explosion was apparently created with a 450 foot-long row of explosive pots filled with 1100 gallons of a 90/10 gasoline/diesel mix that were arranged across a field lined with coconut palm trees. In one take and at the flick of a switch, 11 cameras captured the controlled explosion that created a mushroom cloud fireball reaching 350 feet in the air. The entire staggered explosion consisted of 12 separate explosions, the full run of which was completed in 1.25 seconds.