Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [34]
Today, Hawaii actively encourages and supports the lucrative film industry by maintaining state-of-the-art production facilities and providing tax incentives. Hundreds of feature films have been shot in the state, including box-office hits like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Godzilla, Pearl Harbor and Jurassic Park. Kaua’i is the most prolific island ‘set’ and has appeared in over 70 films, including 2008’s Tropic Thunder (Click here); avid fans can tour Kaua’i movie sites (Click here).
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Kaui Hart Hemmings’ first novel, The Descendants: A Novel (2007), has a dissolute, sickly-sweet Southern Gothic air, as the children of haole plantation owners and a Hawaiian princess lose their inheritance and their way in a crumbling paradise.
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Hawaii has hosted 23 major TV series since 1968. The most famous and perhaps least sentimental was Hawaii Five-O, an edgy cop drama featuring Honolulu’s gritty side; in the 1980s, Tom Selleck’s Magnum PI was almost campy by comparison. Currently O’ahu is being used as the location for – spoiler alert! – ABC’s hit series Lost, which like Gilligan’s Island (whose pilot was filmed on Kaua’i) is about a group of island castaways trying to get home. To find Lost locations, visit www.lostvirtualtour.com; and see the boxed text, Click here.
For a Hawaii filmography, and more on the industry, visit the Hawaii Film Office (www.hawaiifilmoffice.com).
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SPORTS
The dearth of professional sports teams in Hawaii has everything to do with cost and logistics and absolutely zero to do with the local love of sports, which is intense and abiding. For 30 years, the National Football League’s Pro Bowl played to sellout crowds at O’ahu’s Aloha Stadium, but February 2009 was the last; the NFL decided to move the game to Miami to lower costs and increase exposure.
Similarly, Hawaii has an on-again, off-again relationship with Major League Baseball, which in 2008 ended its minor-league Winter Baseball league on O’ahu. Minor-league pro ball had prospered in the 1990s, too – drawing major-league talent from Japan and America – only to fall prey to Hawaii’s inconvenient location.
So locals lose their voices rooting for University of Hawai’i sports (UH; http://hawaiiathletics.com). While women’s and men’s volleyball have long boasted powerhouse teams, and are closely followed, UH Warriors football is the only National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I program, and the Warriors regularly attract thousands of fans to Aloha Stadium.
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Too old to surf? In Surfing for Life (www.surfingforlife.com), documentary filmmaker David L Brown profiles 10 lifelong surfers, champions in their youth and still catching waves in their 70s, 80s and 90s.
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The Warriors have recently enjoyed banner years. In 2006, the team had its best year to date and won the year-end Hawaii Bowl (www.sheratonhawaiibowl.com). Then in 2007, they went undefeated in the regular season and became only the second WAC (Western Athletic Conference) team invited to play in the Bowl Championship Series, where they suffered a crushing loss to Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.
The two hottest sports locals love to play (and watch) are surfing and golf. O’ahu’s North Shore (Click here) is legendary and hosts the Triple Crown of Surfing Championship and the Quiksilver In Memory of Eddie Aikau Invitational in November and December. For more on surfing, see the boxed text, p81.
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ANCIENT EXTREME SPORTS
Never let it be said that ancient Hawaiians didn’t know how to play. Every ruler had to prove his prowess in sports – to demonstrate his chiefly mana (spiritual essence) – and the greater the danger, the better. Wave sliding, or surfing, was integral to society; then as now, when surf was up, everyone left the taro fields to grab the biggest waves. In boxing matches,