Hawaiian Reeves

Hawaiian is deeply sorry for the weeks of neglect. If he were a better person, this simply wouldn’t happen.

And yes, my friends, I have been properly punished. To begin with, Just My Luck had a terrible script. Truly terrible. Like, almost as bad as Simply Irresistible, which I’ll still watch on cable but almost abandoned in the theater. And then I had to see my mother. And then I got a wicked sunburn. And then, of course, because it is my job to amuse you, I sprained my ankle on the first day of hip hop class.

What? Hawaiian-style hip hop? Doesn’t that sound like an accident waiting to happen? Isn’t Hawaiian a big 30-year old white guy who’s guilty of watching So You Think You Can Dance and who could be accused of having a mild obsession with any and all dance movies, but who never, ever dances himself? Doesn’t this sound like the sort of trainwreck destined to haunt and humor onlookers for a lifetime? Well, yes, it does. And it was. And somewhere, right now, a 17-year old girl who dances like her mother is watching, is sitting in a campus dorm with other kids here for a summer program, telling a story that probably once again has the punchline “and believe it or not, he was completely horizontal in midair.”

So yes, I have been shown the error of my ways, and I really, truly promise not to fall off the wagon (or the dance floor) in quite the same way ever again. I may have said something similar once before, but this time I have scar tissue and shame to remind me of my trespass. Once things get a bit more visually appealing around here, I’ll be as a faithful to this blog as a chastised husband. (Which, I’m only guessing, means you’ll be getting action at least 2 or 3 times a week.)

In fact, just to keep myself honest, here are a few things that might surface on the waters of this page sometime soon: (more…)

At times, a movie comes along that touches Hawaiian in his special place, and such movies must be remembered.

And since exactly none of the movies at this year’s Academy Awards touched me anywhere at all, I thought I might as well share some of them with you. Five in all. We’ll pretend they make up their own category and possibly name it later. Suggestions are appreciated.

Before getting into it, I should give you a better idea of what these movies really are. These are not, for example, the safe choices one might list as favorites on a Friendster profile while hoping others don’t find you either weird or boring. (Mine: Trick, Houseboat, Giant, Sixteen Candles, Elizabeth, Clueless, Dangerous Liasons, and Best in Show) Nor are they the kind of movies I might love in secret but never admit to anyone who doesn’t already know me. (Again, in the spirit of sharing: The Parent Trap, The Cutting Edge, Flashdance, Center Stage, I Love Trouble, most Elvis movies including Clambake, Blue Hawaii, and It Happened at the World’s Fair, the John Wayne films with Maureen O’Hara, and When in Rome, a very special straight-to-video release starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson.)

No, these movies do not belong on either of these lists. These movies are like trying to explain my love for Curb Your Enthusiasm or Wesley Willis. (If you don’t know Wesley, Chickencow and I Whooped Batman’s Ass are two personal favorites.) My relationship with these movies could be as inexplicable as my love for Nicolette Sheridan, as deep as my affection for Project Runway, or as shameful as my true appreciation for any bad picture of Ashlee Simpson. Which, I suppose, means that each of these is, in its own way, a little glimpse into the inner workings of my own little Hawaiian-shaped soul.

So here they are the nominees for..(whatever we’re calling this) (more…)