Making the Scene in 2009

This is the time of year that movie studios acknowledge the fact that life is messy, instead of trotting out the latest superhero to pretend it’s not. (Jan. 8)

Paced by Kate Winslet and Sally Hawkins amidst all the other international actors and actresses nominated for Golden Globes this year, the evening still belonged to “Slumdog Millionaire.” Set in India and telling of a street kid who improbably rises to fame on a TV game show, the only people not surprised by all the wins, including Best Picture, are all the people who have seen the movie. (Jan. 15)

It was pure coincidence that the “Miracle on the Hudson” took place on the day former President George W. Bush had picked to give his farewell to the nation. It was just coincidence that the rescue and tales of survival rather than his address dominated that particular news cycle. U.S. Airways Flight 1549 won’t replace those other numbers — 9/11 — that have set the agenda for our hopes and fears since 2001. It just turned the page. (Jan. 22)

On the whale watch, our naturalist included sharks among sea creatures we should start appreciating more. Sharks kill or maim far fewer people than drunk drivers. Thousands fewer. Last year, they didn’t kill anyone. When visitors talk about dangers from sharks, locals laugh. Now, a Portuguese man-of-war — there’s something to worry about. There are all kinds of things you can be afraid of out there in the world. Or not. It’s a brand new year on the Chinese calendar. It’s your choice. (Jan. 29)
Normally heroic, noble and solid as a rock, Liam Neeson is the last guy you’d expected to find cutting a bloody swath across Paris chasing the Albanian sex slavers who have abducted his daughter. His surprise box-office winner, “Taken,” seems to have struck a universal Oedipal nerve with dads of teenage daughters. And everyone in the theater knows that for all the bad guys he leaves dead in his wake, if he ever finds his daughter again, he’ll be putty in her hands once more. (Feb. 5)

Cataract — a clouding of the lens inside your eye — is a term I always associated with old people who had blue hair and used walkers. But now we have a new term for old people like that: It’s us. (Feb. 12)

The news Monday morning will be about who won the Oscars. But on Sunday night everyone’s a winner — not just those rare beautiful beings on stage, but all of us watching who have had our hearts touched by what is still the most moving and powerful and illuminating and inspiring way of telling stories we humans have yet created. (Feb. 19)

“Start aligning yourself with feeling good,” best-selling author and Maui resident Wayne Dyer advises. “There’s no difference between that and feeling God.” A good place to start is to stop focusing on yourself, and start focusing instead on service, gentleness and love. “The other thing you can do is to turn the TV off and stop looking at the news.” (Feb. 26)

Novels, once the bedrock of literature, now compete for shelf space with any number of things that aren’t even books at Borders. And there’s the gnawing sense in the age of Twitter, that if something can’t be expressed in 140 characters, it probably isn’t worth expressing. More than that, though, there’s this writer thing. A lot of writers are like surly bears. We’re fine when napping or preoccupied, but if there’s an unauthorized breach of our perimeter, we’d rather tree the culprit than discuss the matter further. (March 12)
According to my unofficial polling, viewers are running 9 to 1 in thinking “Saturday Night Live’s” “Hawaiian Hotel” featuring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a hoot — and right on the mark. The 10 percent who aren’t laughing include Hawaii’s lieutenant governor, and some top tourist officials.  Butchering the cash cow in a tourism economy is not a good idea, they say. Especially now. Is this the time “SNL” got it wrong? And what about Frank DeLima then? Or Andy Bumatai? Or Da Braddahs? Or the late Rap Replinger? (March 19)

My role model these days is my friend Mike Spalding. Two Mondays ago, when Hawaiian Superferry service was ended by a decision from the state Supreme Court, Mike’s version of interisland travel ran into a different sort of problem. His effort to swim the 30-mile Alenuihaha Channel between the Big Island and Hana — the only channel the 61-year-old athlete has not yet swum — ended with an encounter with a small, hideous-looking creature known as a cookie-cutter shark. Less than 2-feet long, a cookie cutter shark looks like an alien or a smiley face gone bad. With that little pinhead and a row of razor-sharp teeth, it’s like a poster image for “Revenge of the Food Chain.” (March 26)

When you log on to Facebook, the first thing it asks is, “What’s on your mind?” Some Friends answer the question every time. They obviously assume someone cares. Which causes other Friends to wonder whether Facebook might have had its origins in ancient Greek mythology when Narcissus first said, “Hey, who’s the handsome dude in the pool?” (April 2)

“Adventureland” is what used to be called a coming-of-age comedy, except coming of age is something kids don’t do much anymore. It’s another casualty of the digital divide, where kids seem to know from birth more than their elders ever will about technology — but don’t have a clue about much else. What do you expect? They’re just kids. (April 9)

“Hawaiian things are not lost. But the fields need to be weeded, the river needs to flow.” (Sam Ka‘ai, speaking at The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua Celebration of the Arts, April 16)

There hasn’t been a week recently when the fate of newspapers wasn’t a major story. Ironically enough, the stories have been on television. But two experiences last week shined a different light on the matter — the death of my friend James D. Houston, a longtime collaborator with Eddie Kamae, and the chance to interview Haiku’s W.S. Merwin about the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry he had just received. These were both great men of letters. We journalists are more like pests in their faces, taking notes for the rough draft. But it turns out, we’re all in the same line of work. We’re all living for those rare brief moments when we can string the right words together to tell the story — or, rarer still, when we can lock them together to tell the truth. (April 23)

I’m not sure about “Thank God for Hana” bumper stickers anymore. Seems to me, it’s more like God lives in Hana. It’s fine with Him if you want to stop by for the afternoon. As long as you appreciate the hospitality and don’t trash the place, He’ll be happy to party with you. (April 30)
Cast as an extra in 1986’s “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home” was how I came to find myself in the makeup trailer with a real professional Hollywood hair person shaving my beard. Sitting in the chair, face lathered, eyes wandering around the trailer, I suddenly noticed them. Spock’s ears. Right next to me, mounted on a styrofoam head. (May 7)

The problem with most movie versions of old favorite TV shows is by the time Hollywood studios decide to recycle it. all they’ve got is a brand name associated with warm fuzzy memories, and millions of marketing dollars to translate it into Happy Meals. (May14)

A phone call with Maui Film Festival Director Barry Rivers as he ramps up the annual event in Wailea is like trying to herd cats. Carrying on four conversations at once, the words and thoughts fly off in all directions. (May 21)

So I read recently that Ben Stiller will receive MTV’s highest movie prize, the Generation Award, in ceremonies Sunday. Speaking as a member of the generation that got all this talk about generations started, Ben’s prize made me realize it’s not our g-g-g-g-generation we’re talking about anymore. (May 28)

Announcing Willie Nelson and Zooey Deschanel as the honorees of this year’s Maui Film Festival at Wailea, festival director Barry Rivers said, “This year has more heart than ever before — and it’s never been short of that.” (June 4)

Michael Jackson’s prodigious musical genius had been too great a weight for his fragile psyche to bear. For those unprepared, fame is a beast that eats its young. (July 9)

For outrageous English sketch artist Sacha Baron Cohen, over the top is where the fun begins. His “Bruno” made it to the top of the box-office charts early this week — at least until Harry, Hermione and Ron arrived to make things right again. (July 16)

The death of iconic TV anchorman Walter Cronkite this week reminded us that he earned the distinction of being “the most trusted man in America” before those words got cheapened into marketing slogans. He was a pioneer at discovering the powers and the limits of the new medium. It fell to him to explain and comfort a nation through the assassination of a president, or guide it home from fighting a wrong war. Buried under all his stellar accomplishments was the accidental role he played in shaping an era, and a mindset, that would come to be known as “the ’60s.” (July 23)

They’re going to have to change the name of the Kapalua Fun Swim. Unless your definition of fun includes near-death experiences. Granted, this is coming from the Rodney Dangerfield of open-ocean swim races. Few do this spooky sport, so you get points for just showing up. When you go my speed, humor helps. (July 30)

Two years ago, four Maui cycling friends got off their bikes and went for a walk. Their destination was a remote Tibetan Buddhist monastery in a restricted valley barely over the border in Nepal. It produced an adventure for their spirits as well as their bodies, and it also produced “an accidental movie.” (Aug. 6)

“This isn’t a love story,” we are warned early in the smart, tender screenplay of “(500) Days of Summer.” We watch the movie hoping the warning is just a trick being played on us. After all, movies are where love stories live, right?  (Aug. 13)

Signals of racial progress and hope for a more united society triggered by last November’s election have given way in recent weeks to shrill, polarized, increasingly violent expressions hailed by one side as free speech, and by the other as bullying threats to democracy. Interestingly, each side uses the same images and symbols to makes its point. (Aug. 20)

With a hundred-watt twinkle in his eye and a Kentuckee twang in his voice, Brad Pitt cavorts through “Inglourious Basterds,” playing Nazi-scalping Lt. Aldo Raine as though he’s doing the latest “Oceans 11” movie instead of refighting World War II. (Aug. 27)

School’s back in session; new lessons have begun. Last weekend they were in history, a subject that becomes more relevant as you realize you’re becoming part of it. (Sept. 3)

It didn’t take the movie industry long to realize there was more money to be made in merchandise than in selling tickets. Now the movies themselves are the merchandise. The theatrical run is just like a trailer for selling the DVD. (Sept. 10)

Our daily lives are made more and more of technology in ways we scarcely notice anymore, from our iPhones and online “communities” to the 24-hour news cycle that wasted no time morphing into dueling propaganda streams. As we let our machines do our thinking for us, the media offer more options for making “the news” what we want it to be. (Sept. 17)

The Emmy Awards signaled the loss of the connection television once embodied, when there were only three channels to choose from. For all the talk of a “vast wasteland” in those days, the medium was also a vast unifier. (Sept. 24)

Unlike George Orwell’s “1984,” once the gold standard in techno-political paranoia, the threat no longer comes from an ominipotent dictator and mindless bureaucracy. It’s no longer Us vs. Them. Now it’s Us vs. Us. “Big Brother” is no longer code for the Party that invades our privacy, reads our minds and publically humiliates us. Now we happily volunteer to do it all ourselves and turn it into a reality-TV series. (Oct. 1)

Zombies — you can’t live with ’em. you can’t live without ’em. At least not at the movies. The funny thing is, for all the blood and gore that flows so freely at times, “Zombieland” — starring part-time Maui resident Woody Harrelson — winds up feeling as warm and fuzzy as a horror show can get. (Oct. 8)
Although they’re the most famous lovers in history, Romeo and Juliet weren’t around long enough to discover one basic truth on the subject: True love gets boring. (Oct. 15)

In the media age, kids like balloon boy redefine “innocent victims.” They’re helpless pawns of the sick, self-absorbed so-called adults around them. But the media also need to hold a mirror up to their own eagerness to tar and feather balloon boy’s dad. As deft as he was at manipulating them, it was the media, after all, that didn’t check the facts before jumping on board and taking us for the ride. (Oct. 22)

Some people think it’s eccentric that I use the road by the airport runway whenever I drive between town and my home Upcountry. From this end of the runway, the airport is like a watering hole for exotic avian life, and you are the photographer for National Geographic. (Oct. 29)

On Halloween in my neighborhood, the little clusters of fairies, vampires, ninjas and princesses straggling to the door never fail to delight. You have to wonder what’s going through the minds of the youngest ones. Not quite grokking the concept of trick-or-treating, the littlest ones boldly walk right into the living room when we open the door. (Nov. 5)

“2012” is a case where suspension of disbelief is more like a lobotomy. There’s nothing in this movie that makes sense or obeys the laws of physics, from characters’ ability to outrun exploding fireballs or airplanes’ ability to take off from crumbling runways to the audience’s lemminglike willingness to watch everything come to an end (that’s our world, folks — that’s us!) and call it “entertainment.” (Nov. 19)

Her name won’t come up in many prayers around Thanksgiving tables today, but Sandra Bullock is something to be thankful for. (Nov. 26)

“When I was a kid, I worked for Hawaiian Dredging out on Wake Island. I came to appreciate the spirit of the locals. There was a generosity of spirit that always moved me.” (Hana resident Kris Kristofferson, Dec. 3)

With all the changes on Maui, Haleakala Waldorf School is one of the few things that seems to be getting better. Its commitment to letting kids be kids is showing signs of producing some pretty cool grown-ups. Its colorful celebration of this festive season offers the rarest of gifts: a hopeful future. (Dec. 10)

News that Clint Eastwood will be filming for three days in Lahaina next month was followed last weekend by the opening of his new “Invictus.” Clint’s playing Maui’s Santa Claus this holiday season, bringing gifts in a variety of packages for the island economy as well as film lovers. (Dec. 17)

Top 10 movie lists are always works in progress. (Dec. 24)

• Contact Rick Chatenever at  scene@maui.news. com.