The Maui Goodness

The 2010 Maui Film Festival was incredible with big stars, great movies, and fun parties.

This year’s Maui Film Festival had the regular parties with many new faces.  The Starry Night Moondance party hosted by Tommy Bahama’s Wailea was a hit!  The dance floor was moving like never before.  Most of the photos on this page were taken at this event.

Another great night event was the Taste of Chocolate at the Four Seasons next to Duo.  Here guests enjoyed countless chocolate treats while sipping drinks and mingling.

The Taste of Wailea was held again above the Celestial Cinema on the golf course.  All of the best Maui restaurants showed up to make their signature dishes.  Southern also provided excellent wines for pairing.

A new event this year was held at the Wailea Resort (formerly known as Diamonds.)  This involved a pool side fashion show with club music and great drinks.  We hope this is offered again next year.

Celebrities such as Zac Efron, and the beautiful Malin Akerman (pictured below at the taste of Wailea) enjoyed the parties and promoted their movies.

Local celebrities also found their way to the parties such as Sherri Van and Lucas Woodford causing a veritable frenzy among young Maui fans.

As always, the events surrounding the Maui Film Festival are only secondary to how great the movie experience is.  Watching films under the stars on a Maui golf course with friends and family can not be compared to any screening at any other film festival.

Thanks for joining us!  We’ll post again about the events next year!

Aloha!

Maui’s south and west side are drier than the rest of the island, which will often be the catalyst for serious fires.  In the recent past, we’ve seen quite a few brush fires flare up in the summer.  Some of these are natural, and others are started by arsonists.

As you can see in the photo, Maui fires can scorch huge areas in a short period of time.  This one is in West Maui close to the Pali (the winding, coastal cliff road from Maalaea Harbor to Lahaina.)  Personally, I’ve spent  a long night in my car due to a similar fire a few years back.  I was driving south from Lahaina, and the roads were completely stopped.  The road closure lasted until the next morning around 8am.

If you ever find yourself stuck in traffic due to a road closing from a fire, it’d be wise considering staying on the side you’re on.  Some adventurous people decided to drive around the back side of the West Maui Mountains.  This route takes much longer, but some of them made it.  Unfortunately, annoyed locals shut the road off after sometime.  This area is pretty dangerous to drive in traffic because it is often 1 lane on cliffy roads.  If someone is coming in the opposite direction, someone is in for a long, scary reverse.

Almost every year, Maui experiences some fires.  There’s not much you can do about it.  Stay away from it and hope it doesn’t cause too much damage or danger to homes and lives.  If you need to get anywhere, and you’ve heard there’s a fire, call (808) 986-1200 for road closure updates. You can also contact your Maui car rental office.

JUST GO WITH IT with Brooklyn Decker between Jennifer Aniston & Adam Sandler

On the Set with Maui’s Own Megan Edgar:

I started off a nervous wreck. I bought dresses. I bought make-up. I bought shoes. I curled my hair. I panicked. I felt sick. I wanted to back out. I couldn’t wait to start. All of a sudden it was 5 PM on March 23rd and everything was happening whether I was ready or not. Hair styled, make-up adjusted, wardrobe checked, and then I was whisked off to the set.

What a set it was; the most beautiful luau I’ve ever seen. Smoking volcanoes, Chinese lanterns, Hawaiian gods carved into totem poles, fire dancers, hula, pulled pork and poi. Brilliant stadium lights dimmed by huge white cloths. Small, bright lights angled just so with red, blue, and yellow filters. Cameras on wheels. Cameras on cranes. Cameras on tripods. Paparazzi cameras peeking out from behind the bushes. Cameras and lights and fire dancers. I was mesmerized and we hadn’t even started.

The crew lined us up and started pulling people out of the crowd of extras. I wasn’t picked. And I wasn’t picked again.  I felt like I was in PE and no on wanted me on their team. I wasn’t going to be in the movie after all. They made a big mistake.

Then suddenly, miraculously, I was “the girl in the pink dress” and they seated me at a table with eight other people. The director introduced himself and told us to clap for the fire dancers, eat our food, and act like we were thoroughly enjoying our evening. Tough.

Words like reset, background, action, and cut became a regular part of my vocabulary and I knew exactly what to do when each one was yelled out. Make-up came by to “take off the shine.” Hair came by because I was “right in the shot.” Wardrobe took my picture so I would look exactly the same if they needed to reshoot the next day. I couldn’t believe my luck. I was “in the shot.”  I couldn’t look up from my plate without staring at Jennifer Aniston. I could have leaned over and touched Adam Sandler. I felt beautiful and important. I was being paid to have fun. How was this even possible?

Three weeks prior to my first night shooting I needed to feed some fish. My school has a fish tank and my friend Greg and I went in on a Sunday to take care of its inhabitants. When we got to school hundreds of people were lined up to get in the door. We had no idea why they were there so we just walked to the front and went inside. Before we knew it we’d filled out a form, got a number (I was lucky 999), and had our pictures taken.  3,000 people were in line that day and we scooted right by without a wait. Fate? Good thing the fish were hungry.

After our first night on set with cameras in our faces, Greg and I (we were cast as a couple) were placed in “deep background” and spent all our time walking back and forth from one set place to a second set place.  We weren’t right in the shot, but we were lucky enough to have the director use us to reset the scene.  The leads would start their dialogue based on our position, and it made us feel like we were still in the movie even though the cameras were far away.  And we could actually talk, which was a nice change from the first evening of pantomiming conversation because we were so close to the microphones.

Filming Just Go With It was amazing. I’ve never seen so many people doing so many different jobs all at the same time only to have it all come together just as the cameras start to roll.  Lighting would move huge lamps and screens at a moments notice.  Cameras would swing by on booms and roll through peoples and tables.  Make-up artists, hair stylists, wardrobe crew, and sound people would zip past one another, all on a separate mission that ended with a single goal.  Watching people work together like that was inspiring.

Then add the leads. Jennifer Aniston really is beautiful. Nicole Kidman really is elegant and lithe. Brooklyn Decker is gorgeous!  Dave Matthews can act!  Adam Sandler is very funny. (You try not to laugh when you can hear all of Adam and Nick Swardson’s dialogue as they ad-lib and improvise their way through the 20th take of a scene. Even Jenn couldn’t hold it in.)
Movie making is fun. And the paparazzi love you even if you’re not famous!

Megan Edgar

Maui Living Furniture is located in the heart of Kahului (285 Hukilike St. off of Dairy Road), specializing in Eco-Friendly furnishings.  They have beautiful pieces that fit every home, from casual beach hut to elegant resort style estate.

They have great prices on organic mattresses, bamboo furniture, Maui style futons, homemade wool pillows and much more.  Finding the right furniture for your home is important.  We highly recommend checking out Maui Living Furniture for quality, long-lasting furnishings that are good for the environment and good for you!

Visit site: Furniture Maui

Some the products that most impress us are:

• Clove Cases: 5 and 6 drawer dressers, nighstand, armoire

• Juniper Cases: 5 and 7 drawer dressers, nightstand, TV stand

• Spices Bedroom Collection: Platform Beds

• Sonoma organic pillow tops and mattresses

• Organic bed and bath products: Towels, sheets, and more

• Comfortable Maui style futons

Maui Living Furniture has been in business in Hawaii since 1985.  This family operated business has grown naturally due to their offering quality items with the best service possible.

Shopping here for furniture is not only good for the environment but it is good for local Maui business. We appreciate when small business owners are able to offer quality products at great prices; Maui Living Furniture has been doing this for decades on Maui.

Contact them today by calling (808) 871-6406 or drop by the store today.  They have their showroom open from 11-6 Tues-Friday, and 10-2 on Saturdays.  You can also visit their website at Hawaii Furniture.

We’ve just recently discovered Beach Portraits Maui, which is run by Grins 2 Go out of Kaanapali Beach, Maui.  They offer very affordable rates for high-quality photography.

Specializing in beach portraits, they’ve earned a reputation from their professionalism and skill when photographing couples, families and groups on the beach.

Give them a call at (808) 242-12424 or stop by their beach kiosk in Whaler’s Village Kaanapali, Maui.

You can also visit their website to see more examples of their Maui portrait photography.

We just received our new Soma Airbag Designs Surfboard bags.  They’re 6′6″ and can fit 2 boards in each bag.

After close inspection, inflation, and testing, we think Soma has come up with the best board bag on the market.  What makes it so great is its durability and light weight as well as its compact size when not in use.  Often, when we travel inter-island, we have an oversized bag with a couple boards inside of it that have their own smaller bags or socks on.  When arriving at our surf destination, we have our boards out and a huge bag that wont fit anywhere.  With Soma we can deflate the bag and throw it in the closet.  Fantastic idea!

The bag has inflated rails, top and bottom.  It fits 2 boards easily and has room for fins, leashes, wax and other small items.  Another side benefit to the bag is that it works very well as a mattress if you plan on camping out or just don’t want to sleep in a nasty bed at some 3rd world hotel.  It’s very comfortable and even has a separator pad between the boards that can act as a blanket.

These board bags are relatively inexpensive and very sturdy.  We’ll be taking our bags to Bali from Hawaii and from California without worries.

Contact them today to order your next board bag at support@airbagdesigns.com, (877)320-7478 or go to their website and order now at AirBagDesigns.com

Natalie Brown Photography recently shared a photo shoot with us that is truly unique.  She was hired to secretly photograph an engagement on the beach.  As she told us the story, you could tell how it affected her just by the enthusiasm in her voice.  She went on to explain how she’s enjoyed shooting photos of hundreds of weddings and family portraits on the beach, but when someone comes up with a fun idea like this, Natalie experiences a whole new appreciation for her job.  She explained that she had a friend pretend to model for her up at a distance so that if she was caught by the bride, she wouldn’t suspect anything.

The bride had no idea that it was coming, and you can tell from her reaction.  We thought we’d share this with you because it’s nice to see photos with genuine emotion captured.  We also want to spur some creative thought and romance in our future visitors to Maui.

If you’re interested in doing a surprise engagement photo shoot in Maui, give Natalie a call or visit her site for Maui Engagement Photos.  She’s got it wired.

Though Governor Linda Lingle never expressly mentioned “Furlough Fridays” in her speech on Friday, she did address the issue of education.  Lingle made it clear that she understands that our system of education is broken and suggested that we concentrate more on the time children are IN classrooms rather than OUT of classrooms.

(QUICK NOTE: Furlough Fridays are days where education is taken away from children in order cut staffing expenses to help the State budget deficit.)

Though we agree that Hawaii education has MAJOR problems, Lingle’s statement, “We need to get more worked up about what happens when they are in school rather than when … they are not in school,” is like saying, “When you have cancer, don’t worry about the fact that your doctor will be around even less to cure you, worry about the cancer!” How exactly does one fix a problem when those closest to it are given less time to fix it?

With a culture that obviously struggles to develop its children to be competitive in our world, wouldn’t you think that keeping teachers employed full-time should remain a priority?  Yes, our deficit is a big problem, but cutting education is the shortest sighted solution one can propose.  In her speech on Friday, Lingle reiterated her proposals to fix our economic woes.  She discussed:

• Programs putting unemployed welfare recipients to work. This sounds great, but in our personal experience, a sizable portion of people on welfare in Hawaii aren’t interested in working.  The idea of compensating employers for hiring welfare recipients is also a good idea in theory, but if an employer NEEDS an employee wouldn’t they have to hire them anyway?  This also seems short-sighted considering that when the program stops, many will go back on welfare because their employer won’t be able to afford keeping them on.

• Tax Credits for construction and Renovation. Island growth is really not a long-term solution either.  We have enormously high occupancy rates and big problems with distribution of scarce resources like water, as well as devastating environmental issues to try and fix before we encourage more construction.

So what is the solution to our economic problems in Hawaii? We feel high-tech industrial growth, long term educational growth, and preparation of  economic down turns will do us better than any other solutions.  Lingle did mention a proposal to set aside 5% of funds when tax revenues are growing.  This is a good idea, but government track records in this area have shown that money set aside often becomes reallocated with time.

The implementation of Furlough Fridays is indicative of Hawaii’s prioritizing education below most other things.  Lingle insinuates that the problem lies IN the classroom and that the problem is quality.  We disagree.  The blame falls everywhere between the parents all the way to the top administrators in the school system, as well as on the heads of legislators.  If administration would let teachers spend more time teaching than testing, if parents took more of an interest in their children’s education and genuinely wanted their kids to be brighter than they are, if government could find better ways to cut from the budget and possibly take federal aid we might see a brighter future in Hawaii.

Are teachers to blame? Surely some teachers in Hawaii shouldn’t be teaching, but for the most part teachers are NOT the reason for our lagging behind most of the country (and the world) in educating our children properly.  The problem is that education is not a priority in Hawaii when it should be #1.  Our spiraling cycle of education continues to build on an already poorly educated culture.  Much of this is due to our citizens already being poorly educated and not seeing the value in it.

Not only would an emphasis in education be helpful to us economically in the long term, but socially we believe the islands would become healthier.  In that, we mean with more understanding of other cultures, higher levels of confidence and income, and a broader more developed economic share of the world’s production and innovation could alleviate some of the ignorance and racial tension that is so prevalent in Hawaii today.

This editorial is just one view point from one of our writers.  Quotation and information was found through the Maui News.  Mahalo for your reporting!