Tag Archives: Hawaii

Interview with Kristina Anapau

01 Sunday Apr 2018

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Kristina Anapau has been an actress since 1997, when she made her screen debut in Escape from Atlantis. Since then she’s appeared on stage, and continued to appear on screen in movies such as Black Swan (2010), and Cornered (2011). Kristina has worked steadily in television as well, bagging guest spots on shows such as CSI: NY and House, and a recurring role on True Blood. She is even more talented, having trained as a classical ballerina as a child, while also being a classically trained pianist. More recently, Kristina has had articles published in a variety of magazines including The Hollywood Film Journal. Her work on the Hawaii-based production, Kuleana (2017), prompted thedullwoodexperiment to interview her about the movie and filming it in the US state where she was born.

How did you come to be involved with Kuleana?

I met the director, Brian Kohne, back in 2011 at The Big Island Film Festival – his first feature won [the] Grand Jury Prize that year. He sent me an earlier version of the Kuleana script about a year later – every time he sent a new draft, I thought the script just couldn’t get any better, but it did. Every time. It was such a beautiful story, I knew I wanted to be a part of it right away.

How did you approach the character of Rose, and were there any particular challenges to playing the role?

I drew a lot from certain elements of myself in creating Rose – Brian and I spoke a lot about her before filming – [and] added layers upon layers. Rose was a pleasure to portray. I think the only challenge were the “fake” cigarettes I had to smoke all day in the scene at the police station. I swear there was something else in those cigarettes!

What was it like working with Brian Kohne?

Brian is so lovely to work with. He has a vision for exactly what he wants to see on screen and puts 200% into everything he does. His creative drive is infectious, and you can’t help but want to join in to help bring that vision to life.

The movie reflects on a turbulent time in Hawaiian history – how much were you aware  of before coming on board?

This film was definitely an education for me in that regard! I’m not a Hawaiian history buff to say the least, and wasn’t born until about ten years later, so I learned a lot about the cultural upheaval of that time period during the making of this film.

How important is your Hawaiian heritage to you both personally and professionally?

I actually don’t have any Hawaiian heritage other than having been born there. My parents both came from the mainland U.S. shortly before meeting there in the 70’s – Anapau is my middle name. My real last name is Roper – British heritage on my Dad’s side and Swedish and German on my Mother’s. Although I just sent my 23andMe kit in, so ask me again in 6 weeks! Maybe I’ll discover a surprise in there!

How was it filming on Maui?

It’s always lovely to go home to Hawaii and Maui is an island I had never explored. A beautiful place to film!

What’s the vibe like in Hawaii in terms of the film industry there?

I haven’t actually spent too much time around the Hawaii film industry other than while making Kuleana and attending a few film fests throughout the years, but everyone seems very driven – very creative – I’m really hoping that Brian’s success with Kuleana will open the door for local filmmakers in a big way.

You were an executive producer on Kuleana – do you see yourself supporting other Hawaiian movies in a similar way in the future?

If the right project came along. Absolutely.

You were awarded a special No Ka Ai award at the 2011 Big Island Film Festival – how important was that to you?

It was a wonderful honor – it was such a special event to be a part of.

Away from acting, you’re a writer and a musician, and you trained to be a classical ballerina – do you have any other ambitions within the arts?

Just to write more!

Who has influenced you the most in terms of your career?

Linda P. Brown. In terms of my career. My life. Everything.

And finally, what’s next for Kristina Anapau?

Last year I co-created and produced a kids show with award-winning host and comic John Kerwin. It’s essentially The Tonight Show for kids – we have all the young stars of Disney, Nickelodeon, and everywhere else – kids in the audience – it’s a lot of fun. It has been airing nationwide on DirecTV, but [is] about to launch across a variety of big streaming platforms, so keep an eye out, we will be everywhere. Follow us on insta@johnkerwinkidsshow for all the latest! So, very busy with that – I have a few more projects in development as well. Writing and producing are my main focuses now.

Kuleana (2017)

16 Friday Mar 2018

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D: Brian Kohne / 95m

Cast: Moronai Kanekoa, Sonya Balmores, Kristina Anapau, Stefan C. Schaefer, Augie Tulba, Marlene Sai, Branscombe Richmond, Mel Cabang, Vene Chun, Kainoa Horcajo, Steven Dascoulias

Hawaii, 1971. Nohea (Kanekoa) has returned home from Vietnam minus his left leg from the knee down, and with an uncertain future. He’s under pressure to sell the land his family has lived on for generations, and his grandmother (Sai), the current family elder, isn’t well enough to stop him. Things become even more complicated when his Aunt Rose (Anapau) appears to have committed suicide. Rose was married to a property developer who came from the mainland, Victor Coyle (Schaefer). In 1959, their adopted daughter, Kimberly, and Nohea’s father (Horcajo), disappeared. Victor accused Nohea’s father of kidnapping Kimberly, but as no trace of them was ever found, both are now presumed dead. Rose’s death brings the past and the present into sharp focus as Nohea tries to make sense of what happened twelve years ago, while also trying to fit back into a life and a culture that he’s lost his connection to. With Coyle intent on buying up as much land as possible for his own financial gain, and Nohea being drawn into Rose’s death, Kimberly’s sudden reappearance brings even further problems.

Kuleana is the Hawaiian word for responsibility. It’s a word that hangs heavy over writer-director Brian Kohne’s second feature, a sincere, culturally sensitive drama that unfolds patiently and with quiet skill. It’s a movie that focuses on the characters first and the drama second, but which also ties them together so that as the twin stories unfold in both 1959 and 1971, the characters drive the events that happen much more than they react to them. Pitched against a backdrop of the continued homogenisation of Hawaiian culture by US influences – Coyle’s development plans inevitably make no room for maintaining any traditions or beliefs about the land – the movie shows how the erosion of cultural values was taking its toll. Nohea’s conflicted struggle to make sense of his own future is reflected in the attitudes of his uncle, Bossy (Chun), who supports Coyle’s plans, and The Moke (Richmond), an enforcer for a local mobster (Cabang) who finds it increasingly difficult to put aside his tribal roots. By showing the political and social divisions that were prevalent at the time, Kohne ensures the movie is more than about the mystery surrounding Rose’s death, or if Kimberly’s return will complicate matters.

Kohne gets his message across clearly and concisely, and makes the most of a limited budget. Dan Hersey’s cinematography highlights the natural beauty of the Maui locations without making them look like picture postcard versions of themselves, while Adi Ell-Ad’s fluid yet measured editing ensures the narrative plays out in confident style and at a good pace. The performances are good, with Kanekoa giving an understated yet compelling portrayal of a man trying not to be at odds with his heritage, while Balmores carries the weight of the wrongs done to Kimberly with a steely determination. As Coyle, Schaefer is stuck with the one character who doesn’t have an arc but who does have a bad wig, and Anapau, as Rose, doesn’t get the opportunity to do more with her pivotal role than is absolutely necessary. This is due to the demands of the main storyline, and is therefore unavoidable, but Rose is one character we could have spent more time with. Kohne adds some magical realism into the mix to good effect, but scores even higher with his choice of Willie K and Johnny Wilson for the score. Their efforts, combined with a soundtrack that includes a poignant use of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale, add an emotional layer that complements and enhances the material from beginning to end.

Rating: 8/10 – despite some story elements that are either prosaic and/or predictable, Kuleana is an involving, credible drama that ensures its Hawaiian cultural backdrop is just as important as its central storyline; if this is an example of what can be achieved by Hawaiian movie makers working “at home”, then let’s hope that there will be many more opportunities for them to do so in the future.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)

22 Tuesday Nov 2016

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D: Jake Szymanski / 98m

Cast: Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Adam Devine, Aubrey Plaza, Stephen Root, Stephanie Faracy, Sugar Lyn Beard, Sam Richardson, Alice Wetterlund, Mary Holland, Kumail Nanjiani, Jake Johnson

The Stangle brothers – Mike (Devine) and Dave (Efron) – are party animals who consistently disrupt and ruin any and all family occasions. Their parents (Root, Faracy) are fed up with their antics and provide them with an ultimatum: for their sister, Jeanie’s (Beard) upcoming wedding in Hawaii, the brothers have to bring dates with them, dates who will stop them from trying to impress all the single women there and causing chaos in the process. For two young men in their twenties, finding “nice girls” proves to be a bit of a challenge. So what’s the obvious answer? Easy – put an advert on Craigslist offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii for the two lucky women who are suitable companions.

Unsurprisingly, the vetting process isn’t as speedy as the brothers would like, and it’s not until they go on The Wendy Williams Show that best friends and equally riotous party girls Alice (Kendrick) and Tatiana (Plaza) take an interest in the offer, and decide that they are the perfect candidates for the “job”. They meet Mike and Dave, pretend to be a hedge fund manager and teacher respectively, and find that their machinations have done the trick: they’re off to Hawaii.

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The brothers’ parents, and everyone else for that matter, are impressed with their choice of partners. But as the stay continues, Alice and Tatiana’s true characters begin to express themselves. Tatiana refuses to have anything to do with a clearly infatuated Mike, while Alice begins a tentative relationship with Dave. They do their best to have a good time, while Mike and Dave do their best to behave themselves. But an unscheduled quad biking trip through Jurassic Park country finds Jeanie the victim of Mike’s carelessness, and suffering facial injuries that threaten her wedding day. Add to the mix a conniving cousin (Wetterlund), a massage therapist (Nanjiani) with a very “personal” touch, a groom considered by the bride to be boring, and increasing divisions between Mike and Dave, and there’s very little chance that their sister’s wedding is going to go ahead as planned. Far from it, in fact…

By now we should be used to the idea that women can be just as non-PC and crude as their male counterparts, and it’s an idea that Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates clings onto with all its might. In fact, it clings onto the idea as if it were the only idea it could have. Even when it becomes clear that Alice and Dave are falling in love – and therefore it’s only a matter of time before the same happens to Tatiana and Mike – the movie wants to have its cake and eat it by trying to convince the audience that any redemption will be short-lived. But we’ve all been here way too many times for such a clumsy notion to work, and by the movie’s end, Mike and Dave and Alice and Tatiana are no longer the rough diamonds we’ve been encouraged to cheer on from the start, but polished individuals with an improved sense of propriety, and heading for a life of domesticated bliss.

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It’s a well-worn road to Damascus that these characters take, and that familiarity breeds an acceptance that the script, by Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien, won’t try to do anything different in its closing stages. With examples of gross-out humour proving unforthcoming, the movie falls back on a handful (literally, in one scene) of sex jokes, and a short sequence where Alice and Jeanie get high on E’s. Elsewhere, Devine yells and shouts and makes agonised faces, while Efron adopts a strained, perpexed expression throughout, as if he’s read the script, passed on it, and is completely amazed that he’s actually making the movie after all. And Kendrick does what Kendrick does, not best, but all the time: plays Alice in the same perky, quirky way she plays all her other roles, from Martha in Mr. Right (2015) to Dana in The Accountant (2016). (Is there no beginning to her talent as an actress?)

Thankfully, there’s respite from all the stillborn humour and desperate attempts to instill laughter, and it comes in the form of Aubrey Plaza. Plaza has an uncanny ability to appear bored and engaged at the same time, and this apparent displacement allows her to give a performance that keeps the viewer on their toes; you’re never sure just what she’s going to say or do next. All you can be sure of is that the combination of her expressions and the way she delivers her dialogue won’t be as telegraphed or predictable as that of her co-stars. Plaza isn’t afraid to take risks in her performances, and it’s this that makes her so interesting to watch.

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With the movie proving entirely lacklustre, and relying on the kind of contrived set ups so familiar from a dozen or more similar movies – it even references Wedding Crashers (2005), a movie that makes this movie look like it was put together by people who haven’t actually seen Wedding Crashers – all the viewer can do is hope that it’ll all be over sooner rather than later. In the director’s chair, Szymanski makes his feature debut after years of writing and directing video shorts with titles such as Bat Fight With Will Ferrell and Denise Richards’ Funbags (both 2009), and makes a decent enough fist of things but can’t make it all flow together in a way that would make it more palatable. And with the performances being so wayward – Efron seems to be in a different movie from everyone else (maybe he was still wishing he was), Wetterlund sets back the cause of credible lesbian performances by about a thousand years – it’s a movie that doesn’t even do justice to its Hawaiian locations.

Rating: 4/10 – despite being based on a true story (two brothers really did advertise for wedding dates on Craigslist), Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates takes the basic idea and doesn’t come up with anything it can run with; unfunny for long stretches, the movie lurches from one dispiriting confrontation to another without ever stopping to think if what it’s doing is actually working – which it isn’t.

Aloha (2015)

31 Monday Aug 2015

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Aloha

D: Cameron Crowe / 105m

Cast: Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, Bill Murray, John Krasinski, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin, Bill Camp, Jaeden Lieberher, Danielle Rose Russell

After being injured in Afghanistan, Brian Gilcrest (Cooper) is invalided out of the Army and goes to work as a private defence contractor for billionaire Carson Welch (Murray). Welch is looking to consolidate two army posts in Hawaii and launch a telecoms satellite at the same time, having made a deal with the military. As his representative, Brian is tasked with seeking permission from the leader of the Nation of Hawaii for a blessing to be carried out on the site of the combined army bases’ new gate. Given a military liaison in the form of Allison Ng (Stone), Brian also has to contend with the presence of his ex-girlfriend, Tracy Woodside (McAdams). She has two children, twelve year old Grace (Russell) and younger son Mitch (Lieberher), and is married to pilot “Woody” Woodside (Krasinski).

Brian and Allison meet with the Hawaiian Nation’s leader and they reach an agreement about the blessing, but it’s as much to do with Allison’s presence as it is Brian’s. He begins to reassess her opinion of her, while fending off Tracy’s attempts to get him to talk about the reasons they broke up thirteen years ago. With the blessing assured, Welch lets Brian in on the details of the satellite launch, but when he accesses the USB stick he’s been given he finds the satellite has an extra payload that nobody has mentioned: a missile system. Brian is aware that what Welch is doing is illegal, but he feels a sense of obligation to him and keeps the information to himself, also knowing that he’s promised the Nation of Hawaii that the skies above their land won’t be populated with weaponry.

His relationship with Allison deepens, and they spend much of his remaining time together. But her quarter-Hawaiian heritage and belief in the myths and legends of the islands begins to play on his conscience. On the day of the launch however, Welch calls Brian urgently to the launch centre to deal with an attempt by Chinese hackers to access the satellite. With Allison next to him he sets about protecting the satellite, while also being aware that this is his only opportunity to stop Welch’s plans for the payload.

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Cameron Crowe’s career has had its fair share of setbacks in recent years, with his movies failing to capture fully the early promise shown by Say Anything… (1989) and Singles (1992). Jerry Maguire (1996) was perhaps his most fully realised project, and Almost Famous perhaps the one he was most passionate about. But then he changed tack with the remake of Vanilla Sky (2001), a movie that defied even his and Tom Cruise’s talents to make interesting. Four years later he returned with Elizabethtown (2005), a movie that seemed to play to his strengths as a writer/director, but which was so unsure of itself that it ended up collapsing in on itself (and featured an awkward performance from Orlando Bloom). It was even longer before he directed another feature, the based-on-a-true-story tale We Bought a Zoo (2011), but it lacked that certain spark that would have elevated it above its TV movie of the week feel.

And so, after another break, Crowe is back with Aloha, another movie in which the main character is redeemed by the love of a good woman, while coming to terms with the mistakes of his past. It’s a simple movie, told in a straightforward style, with few stylistic flourishes, and features cosmetically interesting performances from Cooper and Stone. It’s a movie that doesn’t aim very high, and as a result feels tired and worn out from the start. It also features a raft of characters that are hard to care about – Brian, Tracy, “Woody” – or serve no useful purpose other than to give certain actors – McBride, Baldwin, Camp – another role to add to their CV’s. Only Stone and Murray make anything of the material, but that shouldn’t be regarded as anything other than a major achievement in the face of a script that Crowe appears not to have worked on beyond the first draft.

Crowe’s script is so uneven and rife with so many coincidences that after a while the viewer has no choice but to just go with the movie, knowing exactly where it’s going and with no sense that anything will be a surprise. There’s a subplot involving Tracy’s daughter that is signposted so clumsily that even a blind person could spot it, and Crowe doesn’t even try and throw some mystery onto the subject; it also leads to the most cringeworthy scene in the whole movie. But that’s not as bad as when Brian discovers the weapons payload on the satellite, another clumsy moment that smacks of Crowe’s desperate need to beef up the drama and give himself a final act (as if Brian dealing with Allison and Tracy wasn’t enough). And everything’s all wrapped up neatly by the end – only a bow is missing to complete the effect.

It’s sad to see a writer/director of Crowe’s talent waste his time on something so unexceptional and bland. That he still has a certain caché is good, but the anticipation for Aloha that was garnered by the trailer has been soundly trampled on, leaving only Baldwin’s description of Cooper as “Mr Sexy Pants” as one of the few things to look forward to. Perhaps next time, Crowe will direct someone else’s script, or work with someone who’ll be able to strengthen his ideas and material. Either way, if he’s in the same two seats again as writer and director, then the anticipation might not be as great as it was on this occasion.

Rating: 4/10 – dull, uninspired, and lacking any degree of charm to help offset the tedium of the narrative, Aloha arrives looking like a new, shiny dollar, but leaves looking like a battered nickel; Crowe misjudges almost everything, and only the technical credits warrant any merit, making the movie inviting to look at, but sadly hollow upon closer inspection.