Blogs List
Making the Scene
 Rick Chatenever |
That super feelingThu, May 8, 2008 @ 5:27PM It’s Robert Downey Jr. who puts on the suit, but it’s Gwyneth Paltrow who makes “Iron Man” fly. As Pepper Potts, she is so dewy, so big-screen gorgeous, so smart, so clever … and yet vulnerable, she makes Downey’s job that much easier. All he really has to do, like everyone watching this surprisingly enjoyable first Really Big Hit of the Summer, is fall in love with her. Not that Downey isn’t up to the other challenges of his role, like saving the world and such. The superhero in “Iron Man,” apparently originally inspired by Howard Hughes, is a brilliant inventor-entrepreneur in a jet-propelled suit of armor. In the hands of a less gifted actor, it would just be a case of clothes make the man. But Downey makes him fascinating … and a whole lot of fun. While not an obvious first choice to play the latest action hero in the Marvel Comics cosmos, the actor’s well-publicized personal battles with his
|
The Bald-Headed Truth
 Robert Collias |
Unger added to Rimington listTue, May 13, 2008 @ 6:30PM It was an unbelievable omission when Max Unger, the former Hawaii Preparatory Academy standout who is a rising senior at Oregon, was left off the 2008 Rimington Trophy watch list of 42 released last week. The award is given to the best center in the nation and Unger was first-team All-American (for Sports Illustrated) and first-team All-Pac-10 Conference last season. Anyway, the oversight has been corrected and the list is now 43 (including Unger). Click the link to check out a blog that explains it all pretty well.
|
Restating the Obvious
 Harry Eagar |
All the cute animals are dying!Sun, May 11, 2008 @ 11:00AM Here's another global warming crisis: starving koalas. Well, they're not actually starving. But they might starve if their food fills up with anti-nutrients, whatever those are. Does it strike you that global warming is highly selective? It's always the cute animals that are in danger, the polar bear, the koala, the Edith's checkerspot butterfly that are going to go extinct. Never the mosquito, sandfly, hagfish or aluminum siding salesman.
|
F.O.P (Fresh Off da Plane)
 Chris Hamilton |
"Maui Reviled"Thu, May 8, 2008 @ 2:27AM I had to happen eventually, I figure. I was at a recent public meeting when someone got up to testify and brought with him a little blue book. Just the sight of it immediately drew murmurs and then quite audible guffaws before this nice man, who has community ties and appears to have lived here for some time, began to actually quote from it -- in what was meant to be a good way. The gentleman was making an argument to keep Honoapiilani Highway close to the highway when it’s realigned mauka to avoid ocean erosion. The little blue book he held with highlighted passages, he said, praised the views of the ocean from the highway, calling such proximity to the water a rarity while driving in Hawaii. But it’s hard to imagine that most people in the room were really listening to him since they were pretty busy talking to each other about either his audacity or ignorance. The book was “Maui Revealed” or “Maui Reviled” as
|
Writer's Block
 Ilima Loomis |
Goin' somewhereThu, May 8, 2008 @ 5:09PM Mike Molina saw my story coming a mile away. "So, working on your annual travel story?" he asked when he picked up the line. Yup. Each year we get a copy of the mayor's and council members' travel records and do a roundup of where everyone went and what they spent. There's never been anything jaw-dropping in there -- no $10,000 "research" cruises, no outrageous hotel bills -- just the usual assortment of trips to lobby the Legislature and a smattering of Mainland conferences. So why do we keep doing it? Just to keep tabs, I guess. With nothing else to go on, it's those conferences people usually end up talking about. Some question whether they're an unnecessary waste of time and money, while others say they're a valuable way to keep in touch with how the wider world is addressing common problems of water, development and infrastructure. So I suppose that's the purpose of doing the story every year -- if people care enough to have an opinion ab
|
