Tag: Kauai

Classic Films

Donovan’s Reef

LizLocke1 Comment
Image Credit: Donovan’s Reef, 1963

Perhaps the most pedigreed of my Tiki Month picks, this week’s film by legendary director John Ford will have you feeling like you just spent a weekend in The Enchanted Tiki Room.

At Christmas.

Does Disney do an overlay for this attraction at the holidays? If not, it’s a missed opportunity. Donovan’s Reef (Disc/Download) proves Tiki and Christmas go together like Dole Whip and rum.

Starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Jack Warden as a trio of US Navy veterans who’ve emigrated to an island in French Polynesia, Donovan’s Reef gets its name from the bar owned by Wayne’s character. While it contains some nonsensical barroom brawls and unfortunate stereotyping, there’s also a thread of melodrama woven in through the character of Miss Dedham, a proper Boston woman who’s come to the island looking for her long-lost father. She’s in the dark about his philanthropic medical practice and her three half-siblings, and the complicated feeling of knowing your dad didn’t want to be a dad to you, but he did want to be a dad to these other kids (and a whole community of islanders), is a relatable sting for many folks even today. There’s a weight I didn’t expect to this “hangout movie”, even though I’d ultimately still describe it as a fun romp.

Although Donovan’s Reef is set on the fictional island of Haleakaloha, it was actually filmed on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. This seems like a great excuse to mix a cocktail I found in The Home Bar Guide to Tropical Cocktails by Tom Morgan and Kelly Reilly, the Kauai Island Jungle Sling.

Kauai Island Jungle Sling

1 oz White Rum

1 oz 12yr old Rum

¼ oz Yellow Chartreuse

¼ oz Pomegranate Liqueur

¼ oz Cointreau

½ oz Cherry Syrup

1 ½ oz Pineapple Juice

½ oz Lime Juice

Dash of Angostura Bitters

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with crushed ice. Shake to chill and combine, then pour entire contents into a tiki mug or tall glass. Garnish with fresh orchids (optional).

I might revisit this movie again over the holidays with a different cocktail (there are some cinnamon-flavored grogs and punches I’m excited to try out!), but the Kauai Island Jungle Sling is a great way to celebrate a mix of flavors coming together, just like the mix of nationalities in this movie. The church service seems extra-inclusive, as though all are welcome, no matter where they came from. What a lovely idea. Cheers!

Comedies

Six Days, Seven Nights

LizLocke2 Comments
Image credit: Six Days, Seven Nights, 1998

By the time this post goes live, I will (hopefully) be sitting on Waikiki Beach with a Mai Tai in my hand. Sadly, I can’t take all my readers with me, but I can tell you which tropical adventure romance you should watch with a tiki cocktail. Six Days, Seven Nights (Disc/Download) is certainly a product of the 1990s, but even twenty-five years on, it’s still a fun little cinema vacation.

Starring Anne Heche as a busy magazine editor whose boyfriend (David Schwimmer, still playing Ross Geller) surprises her with a Polynesian island vacation, and Harrison Ford as the sexy curmudgeon pilot who flies her into a lightning storm, Six Days, Seven Nights is your basic rom-com with nipples. Lots of nipples. All I can say is, poor Anne must have been very cold on this shoot, and/or the costume designer must have had an aversion to bras. I’d kind of forgotten that the nineties were full of thin spaghetti-strap nightgowns masquerading as dresses, but this movie brings it all back. Harrison Ford did his best to warm her up after they crashed on a deserted island, barbecuing peacocks and doing an extremely obvious From Here to Eternity kiss along the shoreline, but even in sweltering jungle heat, the high beams were on.

Eventually, all good island romances must face a great challenge, and this one comes at the hands of Danny Trejo and his band of murderous pirates. Anne and Harrison didn’t have a way to radio for help, and her flip phone was useless, but we can pretend they sent out a distress signal with this Morse Code-inspired tiki cocktail, 3 Dots and a Dash.

3 Dots and a Dash

1 ½ oz Rhum Agricole

½ oz Aged Rum

¼ oz Velvet Falernum

¼ oz Allspice Dram

½ oz Honey Syrup

½ oz Lime Juice

½ oz Orange Juice

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Maraschino cherries and pineapple leaf (garnish)

Add first eight ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake with crushed ice. Pour entire contents into a tiki mug or glass, and top with more crushed ice. Garnish with a three maraschino cherries and a pineapple leaf.

Although this code actually means V for Victory, I think it still applies here. After all, our heroic pilot and equally capable Dazzle magazine editor were victorious over the pirates, and the dull relationships they left back home. That certainly calls for a toast, preferably one with a little umbrella. Cheers!

Dramas

The Descendants

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the descendants
Image credit: The Descendants, 2011

Hawaii Month continues with a modern look at island culture, the 2011 Alexander Payne film The Descendants (DVD/Download). Shot on Oahu and Kauai, and starring George Clooney as a man trying to hold his family together, this film leaves you with a sense that you just saw Real Hawaii, and not the postcard version.

Based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, The Descendants weaves a tale about family drama past and present. Matt King is a descendant of Hawaii’s Royal Family, and just as he and his cousins prepare to sell off the last of their ancestral land for major profits, his estranged wife slips into a coma following a boating accident. Through it all, Clooney is a simmering cauldron in Hawaiian shirts, and I spend the movie waiting for him to blow. Nobody does a withering take-down like Clooney, and his skewering of his wife’s lover, played by Matthew Lillard, (*side note: HOW did Matthew Lillard land an Alexander Payne film??) is classic. Also, I’m not sure what to think about a woman who cheats on George Clooney with Matthew Lillard. While I buy a lot of the “real Hawaii” in this film, I don’t buy that.

As we all know by now (or maybe just those of us who read People magazine), George Clooney has gone from Hollywood actor to tequila mogul. He and his BFF Randy Gerber make one hell of a spirit, so I think it’s high time we feature it on Cinema Sips. While watching The Descendants, I recommend drinking an Añejo Old Fashioned*.

Añejo Old Fashioned

3 oz Casamigos Añejo tequila

1/8 oz agave nectar

4-5 dashes Mole bitters (I used Fee Bros. Aztec Chocolate bitters)

Orange peel

Combine liquid ingredients in a glass over ice and stir gently to chill. Strain into a glass with a large ice cube.  Run a flame over the peel of an orange to release the oils, and drop into the glass.

*Recipe adapted from the fabulous book, Tequila Cocktails.

Anejo Old Fashioned

While I don’t love this movie as much as Payne’s other films such as Sideways and Election, it definitely grows on me with repeat viewings. I notice the subtlety of Clooney’s performance, and the beautiful way in which the script celebrates old and new Hawaii. So many of the islands’ traditions have been lost in the face of progress, but the bond of family isn’t one of them. In The Descendants, we’re reminded of what ties us to a place, and to each other. Cheers!