Movie Review: The Descendants

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At the 2011 Hawaii International Film Festival the closing film was The Descendants. The film screened and director Alexander Payne received the Vision Award to recognize him for his broad insights into all facets of the film trade. The screening had sold out and the word of mouth was very good. I was looking forward to the general release of the film. When it did release, the movie was not showing at the main theater, the Regal Dole Cannery which is the home to HIFF. Instead, Regal pushed it out to a smaller theater. This was surprising considering all the positive buzz the movie has been receiving. Instead of heading out a dozen miles to Regal’s location, I once again headed just 3 miles to the competitor’s location.

The movie was well worth the effort to try to figure out where it was playing and the effort to get there. Starring George Clooney as Matt King, it tells the story of a man navigating through turbulent waters. The opening sequence to set the mood for the story has Matt talking in a voice over about the mainland perception of Hawaii vs the realities of living in paradise. As he talks, somewhat of a controlled rant, images of the beauty, dirt and yet ordinary everyday scenes of life in and around Honolulu backdrop the narration. As a twenty plus year resident of Hawaii, I could fully understand where he was coming from. Hawaii and the cultures here play a very important role in the movie setting the framework in the world of the King family.

Matt is being squeezed from different sides. He is the lone controlling trustee for a large tract of land from the estate of a Hawaiian Princess who married a white businessman that has been handed down through several generations. The trust which currently holds the property will dissolve in seven years and local residents and family members fall on both sides of the coin to retain the land in its pristine condition or to sell it to developers for shopping centers, marinas and housing. Either decision will have an impact on the people in the state of Hawaii but a direct impact on the relatives.

Matt and his family live a comfortable life style. He works as a real estate attorney and lives in what I call an established home, a house that has been around for decades in one of the older neighborhoods of Nuuanu or Manoa. He lives off of his lawyer income and not the money from the trust. He doesn’t want to squander the money that he has. He wants to provide enough for his kids but not so much that they don’t have to work. He’s trying to find the balance between modern day necessities and what having the trust could provide.

His wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) has just had a terrible boating accident and lies in a coma. While everyone tells Matt she’s a strong woman, she’ll pull through, the doctors have said otherwise. They have no hope that Elizabeth will recover and have recommended disconnecting her from life support equipment as instructed in a living will. Matt now has to struggle with this decision. The woman who he married lies there in the bed and he’s unable to receive a response to his statements about how he has treated her and his two girls over the past several years. He says he’ll be more attentive and responsive, but it doesn’t matter now.

His youngest daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller) is acting out in school. His older 17 year old daughter Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) has been sent off to boarding school on the Big Island. Matt needs to pick her up at school and bring her back to Honolulu and break the bad news to her. He wants to try to keep the younger daughter shielded from the bad news as long as possible. He’s challenged because he was never really close with his daughters, as he says he was the backup parent to them.

Matt tries to talk to Alexandra about her behavior and her anger but she won’t listen. He shoots straight from the hip about her mom dying. After a breakdown in the pool festooned with floating leaves she knocks Matt in the gut by letting him know that the reason she is upset and angry is that she had caught her mom cheating. So now the knowledge of an affair adds to the turmoil sending Matt into a further state of shock.

In the end, this is not a total feel good movie. You know early on that Elizabeth is not going to make it so no bright flowers and rainbows let’s watch the couple sit on the beach in each other’s arms as the sun sets on the Pacific Ocean. The acting all around was superb. You are drawn in as Matt and the kids go to talk to her parents. The dad’s gruff exterior with the feeling that Matt wasn’t good enough for his daughter or the dad trying to explain to his dementia afflicted wife are not played in a goofy or over the top manner. Matt takes the kids over to Kauai to show them the land that he has been entrusted. While both Matt and Alexandra talk about the times they have spent camping there Scottie pipes in pointing out that if the land is sold she’ll never be able to have the family camping experience. You feel for them all the way around. In the end you see a family that has some fractures and splits and has to try to heal if they want to stay together.

I think the biggest compliment that could be given to the movie I heard in the restroom afterward. One man was talking to another and saying “I knew this was a George Clooney movie, but I forget it was George Clooney”. If you have a chance to see this 115 minute R rated for language including some sexual references movie, make the effort I think you'll enjoy it.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: The Bengali Detective

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The Hawaii International Film Festival wraps up this weekend and I took in another film. This one from India. I thought it was going to be a Bollywood movie with the sudden departures from story blooming into colorful sequences of song and dance. Wellllll....not quite. The description and the trailer for the film really didn't describe the story the way that it revealed itself on the screen. The Bengali Detective was not a piece of fiction, but a documentary shot in reality TV style. So the movie doesn't stand up as a piece of Bollywood, but it stands firm as a unique documentary.

Rajesh lives in Kolkota (formerly Calcutta, the place where Mother Teresa served the poorest of the poor) with his wife and son. The population doesn't trust the authorities as the murder rate has increased and 70% of those murders go unsolved. The populous turn to private detectives like himself to help with investigations. This might include murders, counterfeit products or unfaithful spouses. Rajesh's agency Always has himself and a half dozen other men who track down their marks. We follow them as they attempt to solve a brutal slaying of three young men, an abused wife wondering if her husband is having an affair and busting businesses that are involved with the sale of counterfeit products like hair oil.

From the American perspective looking in, we'll probably take a slightly different view to their reactions and how the detectives go about their job, especially when looking at the issue of the counterfeit hair oil. Large corporations in America are concerned about copyright infringement, particularly media companies with concerns about people posting digital files online for easy copying. Rajesh has the company who makes the hair oil pressuring him to find anyone and everyone involved with the sale and production of the fake oil and shut them down. It's understandable that they want to protect their product.

On the home front Rajesh is concerned about his wife of seven years, Minnie. She has diabetes and has lost both the pigmentation in her skin and her eye sight. He juggles both the responsibility of the office and the care of his now blind wife and their young son. He's concerned about the entire family in all aspects. To help him relieve stress, he loves to since and dance. He loves it so much that he applies to a TV show where he and his detectives will perform. The other agents agree, even if it was with a bit of reluctance. These segments of the movie do break the tension of the day to day investigation duties, but at the same time seem so out of place that it almost comes through as completely made up and fictional especially when the men are provided costumes for the contest. The laughter they provided did bring some moments of levity amidst some intense moments. This was also about the closest you get to a stereotypical Bollywood movie but without the true triple threat of singing, dancing and acting of say an Anil Kapoor or Shar Rukh Kahn.

Director Philip Cox took the approach of a reality show like COPS or Dog the Bounty Hunter while following Rajesh and his detectives both on and off duty. They might be re-enacting a position of a body on a railroad track, looking into boxes of merchant inventory, blurring out the face of alleged adulterers or running to catch a suspect. There was quite a bit of adjusting focus to bring the picture into a sharp image or blurry abstraction and back again or changing the depth of field so that the focus went back and forth between background and foreground objects. We would look at what they're doing with jaded eyes after watching all these procedural shows and their recreations on TV. The most high tech they have to use is their color ink jet printers and cell phones never mind having access to DNA processing or cell phone records.

The uncredited actor is the city of Kolkota. The city acts as a backdrop with conditions that most Americans won't experience in their everyday lives. The crush of people; the constant honking of horns; the rush, rush rush of the traffic; colorful clothing and people bathing or performing rituals in the Hooghly river provide the framework in which Rajesh's daily interactions occur. One particular scene of note is when Rajesh takes his wife onto a small boat into the river and he describes the scene for her telling her of birds flying and following each other, nearby boats or flowers floating in the current.

The movie as a documentary does not have a rating. I didn't see any bad words in the sub titles as most of the dialogue was in Hindi with some English. If any bad words were spoken, I wouldn't have recognized them anyway, my Hindi is rusty. That is to say it's nonexistent. There are scenes of extreme poverty and a religious ritual which if rated may give it something other than a G rating. It ran for 110 minutes in one of the larger theater venues of the festival at Regal Cinemas and was about 60% full of attendees. It did have an audience ballot for which I gave it mid marks based on the fact that I was expecting a different type of film. If the HIFF web site movie's description page said documentary I would have given it a 4 out of 5 rating.

The Movie Monkey

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Movie Review: RED

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This weekend has a lot of choices, at least for me. The Hawaii International Film Festival is this weekend running thru October 24, 2010. They are celebrating 30 years of motion pictures with almost 250 movies to choose from during the Fall showcase. I'm doing a number of volunteer shifts working at the theater and in Waikiki at the hospitality suite so I'm not sure what I'll have time to see with my vouchers. If you're reading this and you're in Hawaii, HIFF could always use more help, check out www.hiff.org and look under GET INVOLVED and then volunteer at HIFF. In the mean time the general releases this week consisted of two offerings: Jackass 3D and RED. Since I generally don't do 3D and I didn't watch Jackass on MTV, I was left with just one selection: RED.

Now you're probably wondering why the name RED is in all caps and not proper case with a capital R and lower case e-d. That's because it's an acronym meaning Retired, Extremely Dangerous. The name is very appropriate. Right off the bat we meet Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and we can see that he is leading a very boring life. It's around Christmas time and the whole neighborhood is all decked out expect for his house. The one spice in his life seems to be conversations with Sarah Ross (Mary Louise Parker) who he talks to repeatedly after making up excuses to call her at the US Government Pension Services Office in Kansas City. So there is the retired in RED.

While walking to the bathroom in his own house at 4am he's attacked by three men dressed in black. He very swiftly and deftly takes them out without breaking a sweat and barely messing up his house coat. More guys show up and he dispatches them in short order. Extremely Dangerous needs to be explained no further after seeing this. By this time you know that the movie is going to be over the top with action. His home is riddled with bullets punching so many holes in the wood that even a block of Swiss cheese would have more material in it than what was left of Frank's house siding. With that level of intense action sequence in the movie and some brief strong language the movie earned a PG-13 rating.

So starts Frank's adventure. He realizes that someone from inside the CIA is out to kill him. He also realizes that the interest of his attention, Sarah, could be in danger. Let the road movie began! With postcards flashing on the screen showing us where Frank is going he goes to get Sarah and then to old and also retired black op friends Joe, Marvin and Victoria (Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and Helen Mirren) to solve the mystery of why he's trying to be taken out. With the gang along we now have the buddy movie.

As already mentioned the action was over the top with bullets, bazookas and bomb blasts. Each of our agents with unyielding and resolute calmness approach the mission stages with a mischievousness joy and delight as they get back into the game after being retired for so long. This is what they were born to do and know that they are good doing it. The level of comedy was unexpected but thoroughly enjoyed. You know you got a good one when the people in the movie make noise, cheer and yell "OH Snap" at the action on the screen.

They have some great characters to build upon if they decide to do a sequel, but they better move quickly. Of the main characters, Willis is the youngest at 55 with Malkovich at 57 and Freeman at 73. And I must say at 65, Helen Mirren still looks great and in the white gown used in the movie, very shapely and sexy. The run time of 111 minutes kept my attention and according to some tweets and Facebook posts that I've seen appeared to have kept other peoples attention as well! This was a very well done popcorn chomping action flick!

The Movie Monkey

To subscribe to the audio podcast of the reviews via iTunes click here. Audio versions are released the following Wednesday.

Movie Review: Princess Ka'iulani

The correct name of the Princess contains the 'okina or the glottal stop which is treated like a character within the Hawaiian language. For the Princess' name, it is between the a and the i. I don't have the correct font to do the Hawaiian language so for the rest of the review I won't be using any of the formal Hawaiian spellings for this formal Hawaiian picture. Why am I making this disclaimer? Because when the movie was shown at the Hawaii International Film Festival last year it was titled The Barbarian Princess and there was a big uproar within the Hawaiian community and I don't want that same uproar over my review for not having formal spellings of the Hawaiian names or places.

The movie Princess Kaiulani is not a documentary, but it attempts to convey some of the history of Hawaii's change from a Kingdom with its own sovereign rulers to that of an annexed property of the United States of America while focusing on the young ruler. Most Americans don't know about Hawaii's history like how the missionary families gained power in the islands or what led up to Hawaii being the last state admitted to the Union. Just last year we celebrated our 50th anniversary of the admission. I use the term "we" loosely as there were some people who protested what happened. Ultimately, President Clinton signed an apology resolution in 1993 for the part that the US government played in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy in 1893.

In the movie, Princess Kaiulani (Q'orianka Kilcher) traveled from England to Washington DC after the overthrow of the Monarchy to talk to President Grover Cleveland. The problem was she had to do it as a citizen and not a princess. She made an explanation to the President involving salt, pepper and cumin. It was a brilliant way to explain the situation to an outsider.

What I found great about the movie is that they used the actual Iolani Palace here in Honolulu for the movie. I've been into the palace a number of times on Kaamaina Sunday where residents are allowed to take the tour for free. The floors are made of Douglas fir so you're required to wear these booties, kinda like surgical booties over your personal footwear to protect the floors.

They have some of the furniture that was in the Palace at the time of the overthrow and they have attempted to give you a feeling of what it would be like in the palace. The last part of the tour is the Throne Room where they describe how the windows would be open allowing people to walk in and out to the lanai or patio and the overall atmosphere during a royal gathering. To even see actors in period costumes on the screen brought a whole new meaning to me of the palace. There were a number of other exciting shots were shown in the movie including the room where Queen Likiuokalani was imprisoned where you can go during a palace tour, but also the Chamberlain's Office in the basement that you can't enter but just view through a Plexiglas door or Kaiulani walking up the grand staircase from the first to the second floor which you are NOT allowed to do at all.

The costumes for the movie were magnificent. I was reading where Kilcher had 20 some odd pieces that were made for the movie. Apparently many of the costumes were made not only to look like the designs of the time but also the material itself was that of the last decade of the 19th century. The one part that would make for a hard time would be the corsets. They were part of the time and were part of the requirements to be the foundation of the dresses. Several pieces of jewelry were reproduced to form the complete package to showcasing the style of the time. If you visit the basement gallery at the palace on display are the Crown Jewels of the Kingdom of Hawaii where you can see actual pieces worn by Hawaiian Royalty.

Something that non Hawaii audiences will be exposed to is some of the culture like the language and hula. Most people know hula as the smooth swaying of the hips called auwana but it didn't start out that way. Kahiko is the older style with strong forceful movements done to chants in Hawaiian olelo or language. Kahiko is generally not shown when there are tv specials coming from the islands. Audiences will experience the olelo both in chant and as conversational language. There is a beautiful scene while the princess walking on the beach, she's presented with a haku or woven lei with an accompanying chant. What was once a dying language has been making a come back. I'm glad this exposure is showcasing what a beautiful and lyrical language Hawaiian is.

The one part of the movie that didn't completely work for me were some of the transitions between segments of the movie. This wasn't the cinematic transitions with fades or wipes, but the abruptness of jumps between locations or situations. If there would be one recommended change, it would be smooth out some of those jumps.

Something that I do find of interest is about the choice of Kilcher as the Princess. A number of people complained about the original title. When it was suggested that Duane "The Rock" Johnson play Kamehameha the Great there were rumblings over a Samoan playing a Hawaiian. Disney is building a resort on Oahu and the Hawaiian community is saying they better get it right with their depiction of Hawaii. Yet strangely enough, I don't remember hearing anything about a non-Hawaiian playing the Hawaiian alii or royalty.

Audiences at the Hawaii International Film Festival sold out five showings of this movie as well as awarding it the Audience Award. It brings to people a great period piece shining a light on an undeserved portion of Hawaiian and American history while spotlighting Princess Kaiulani. If you can find this film at your local theater, I highly recommend checking it out. It is rated PG for some sensuality, brief language, smoking, thematic material and some violence and has a run time of one hour and 37 minutes.