HIFF is a WRAP!

The Hawaii International Film Festival was a wonderful experience all together. It was my very first time attending a film festival. Receiving the press badges on top of the whole thing was a great bonus as well. Not only did it gain free access to mostly everything, it also gave me a feeling of importance. Although, I wasn’t able to attend as many events as I would have liked too, due to my busy basketball schedule at the time, I still got a great idea of the wonderful atmosphere. Just being around so many different types of people from all over the world who had a common love for film was a magical feeling as well.

This past summer I worked on my very first low budget Indie film so naturally this made me curious to see the similar works of others. The director of the film I worked on just found out recently that the film got accepted into the Sundance Film Festival. So, I look forward to attending that next month in January. I feel as though the Hawaii Film Festival really prepared me for what to expect from a film festival.

And although I will not be given a Sundance press pass like I was given a HIFF press pass, I will still feel important because of all of my hard work I put in the film. Maybe one day, I will have to work my way back to Hawaii to attend the Hawaii Film Festival but next time hopefully I will be viewing some of work of my own! 

International Pop Star, Mira Craig

While attending Hawaii Pacific University, I have met many international students. The majority of them being from Norway. My international story is about the Norwegian music performer, Mira Craig. And well...she just happens to be my cousin as well! Hence, the same last name.

Mira's career and popularity has grown over the years! Not only is she a music performer but she was also a judge on Norway's hit show, the X-Factor! Recently, Mira has been relatively quiet in the entertainment business. Part of the reason for this is that she recently gave birth to her first born. And might I add, her baby is extremely precious! Although she has not been in the limelight recently, she is still hard at work continually working on new music for her fans. She is currently working on a fresh and new kind of sound and hoping that her fans will love what she puts out in the future. A month ago, she took a trip down to Las Vegas, Nevada to shoot a music video for a song off of her new album. The picture above was taken on the set of her music video shoot. To all of her loyal fans, stay tuned for some hot new music!

Glamhairous Extensions

Bracelets, necklaces, watches, earrings, and in Hawaii even flowers in your hair, are all common accessories for women. But more recently, hair extensions/weaves are becoming extremely popular among women. But not just any hair. Indian Hair to be specific. Indian Hair is in high demand which means getting your hands on some is not going to come cheap. After doing some research, I learned that the most top rated to purchase is 100% unprocessed Indian hair. But what exactly does this mean? There are other kinds of Indian hair that people like to sell. A lot of companies sell Indian hair that is mixed with other kinds of hair. However, the quality of 100% Indian hair is suppose to be the best. When you hear the term unprocessed or raw, this means that the hair has not been dyed and no chemicals have been used on the hair. The hair is literally fresh.

It can run someone up to $300 dollars for an Indian hair weave if you want the best quality. However, I've done all the hard work for everyone who is interested in buying hair or anyone who already does and is looking for cheaper places to buy from. Luckily, the company I found takes orders from all over the world and ships to them as well. The hair is 100% raw and unprocessed! They sell to major salons and celebrity stylist as well. The Los Angeles based company is called Glamhairous Extensions and their website is www.Glamhairousextensions.com

So check out the website if to get the best prices available!

Hanging Out in Hawaii with the Funniest Man Alive: Kevin Hart

On November 7, 2011, Kevin Hart, the world's hottest comedian landed on the island of Hawaii. He would soon perform for the very first time in Hawaii on the 12th. Many people were anticipating the sold out show at the Blaisdell Center. Luckily for everyone who was able to go, got to see his extremely new material that he performed for first time. The audience had a great reaction to his material with non-stop laughter. In the past year, Kevin's career has sky rocketed! Kevin Hart's new movie, Laugh at My Pain, recently broke records set by the great, Eddie Murphy. He has guest starred in numerous amounts of hit TV shows like, Modern Family and he has also appeared in many feature films. His latest movie, Think Like A Man is set to release on March 9, 2012.

During his time on the island, he went to a Luau to gain the full Hawaii experience. And I must say, I was quite embarrassed of the Luau. It was awfully set up and extremely commercial. The following day, I met up with Kevin on the beach and brought my roommate to give him surfing lessons. And sure enough, the funny man caught his first wave in no time. Due to APEC at the time, many of the activities that he had planned were being cancelled. Throughout his trip in Hawaii, I was quite surprised to see how big his fan base is in Hawaii. We could not walk down the street for more than two minutes with out being stopped by his fans. Many people are fortunate to only know the side of Kevin on stage but Kevin is quite the gentleman and is extremely nice to everyone. He is a very positive guy who enjoys making others laugh! If you have not seen any of his three comedy specials, I strongly suggest you check them out at your soonest convenience so that you aren't the only one who is missing out!

9th Wonder AFTER PARTY

An After Party at Next Door took place after the viewing of “The Wonder Year”. 9^th Wonder got on the 1’s and 2’s and rocked out for the club. It was a fun experience. Here is a video of me talking about the time I spent at the club! P.S. I was a little sick at the time so pardon the sniffles.

THE WONDER YEAR

A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to join her to watch, “The Wonder Year”. I had never heard of it and she basically told me it was a documentary about a music producer. I love music so naturally I became interested and curious. Before the movie started, the audience heard from both the director of the movie and the star of the documentary, 9^th Wonder himself. The film was the director’s thesis for graduate school. This added much more curiosity for me because I was really excited to see the quality in his project. The two gentlemen seemed nice, appreciative, and seemed so happy to be here in Hawaii for HIFF.  Back to the movie. I was very impressed with the documentary.  The director essentially, followed 9^th Wonder around for a year and the movie was divvied up into 12 sections with each section representing a different month. Each month was a different topic of the music producer’s life. I thought this was a very clever way to organize the way the movie was put together. Not only was it cleverly done, the film had great quality and amazing angles. It was also a plus too because the music the director used was from 9^th wonder himself. This was a cool feature. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who loves music. You get a cool look inside at how music producers make their music and a brief look into their lifestyles.

RumFire Waikiki

In kicking off of the Hawaii Film Festival, RumFire held the opening press conference for all of the press attending this years Festival. This blog however, is not about the highly anticipated film festival! RumFire took advantage of the opportunity of hosting the opening conference by taking that time to let everyone in attendance try some of their food off of their new social comfort food menu. They announced that they recently hired a new chef. With being one of my favorite things, I was first in line to try the new food. The chef had prepared spicy ahi poke and ho farms tomato medley. As you can tell from the pictures, the proportions were very small. To be honest, it was very hard to even get a good taste of what was in my mouth because before you know it, the food was down my throat. So after getting seconds and thirds, I didn’t really care for either the ahi or the tomato medley. The food was not bad but the spicy ahi poke did not taste any different from poke I could buy at foodland for less than half of RumFire’s price. It was just nothing special. As for the tomato medley, it was more bizarre than anything. And I am definitely not anything close to a picky eater. The texture of it was much like that of jello. It was as if I was eating tomato flavored jello and that did not exactly sit well with me. Like I mentioned before, I think the perfect word to describe it is BIZARRE! After looking at the new menu, there were other things that caught my eye, so I wouldn’t give up on RumFire’s food just yet! I plan on going back sometime in the near future.