HOLLYWOOD FILM STUDENTS STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS STAR PROSE
On Hobson street as students we sung melodies to the stars, trekking as twinkling lucky comets suspended bright as jewels of the night.
High above geogentric racial wars, we acknowledge the witness of those great bearers of light. Galaxies of pearl systems, strung in sky over the cliffs as gentle reminders we are immortal mortals of Te Whetu Marama.
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 4.1.13~
RARE CULTURAL VIEWS – MAORI TELEVISION STATION 2013 – NEW ZEALAND TV
Maori TV provides a special and rare view of a side to authentic New Zealand life.
Take a voyage to get an insight into New Zealand’s wealth of cultural life at the pic.
Featured image: The Kermadecs
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 22.12.12~
TRACKING @5,288,716 AUDIENCE PEAK…
Tracking @5,288,716 audience peak. On February 7th 2008, this website began in Hollywood, California, USA. For two years it was created in the US and in 2013 it will be two years even that the website has been published online in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Together we’ve attained the 5,288,716 viewing audience peak. It is a team effort of everyone who colllaborates, of people with content in the site and of you… the reading audience’s Wowsa! (more…)
MT ZION – BEHIND THE SCENES ON A MOVIE SET
Temuera Morrison and Stan Walker appear in Te Arepa Kahi‘s movie Mount Zion.
Here’s a behind the scenes clip of the making of Mt Zion in New Zealand. What a fun cast and crew.
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 22.11.12~
3D CHAORI ACTION MOVIE CINEMA – GETTING A $1 BILLION A YEAR EARNING, MAORI & CHINESE ACTION FUSION INDUSTRY MOVING
He was a Maori Prince, a Viking of The Sun. She, a Chinese Princess from the Ming Dynasty.
In a new horizon, in a mythical land on a new frontier, they were cast in an epic war to fight for their love.What the world needs to see is 3D mythological cinema of this nature in New Zealand.
3D Chaori Cinema (Asian-friendly Maori action movie cinema) is a $1 billion a year generating industry waiting to happen in NZ. In my mind’s eye I see it growing in New Zealand. It supports the already well established 3D cinema of NZ. It just makes movies a lot quicker for the growing Asian movie market of the world.
It needs a development fund to get started. Russell Crowe the first person in the world of Maori descent to win an Oscar and Hollywood’s Lucy Liu are giving a similar concept a go in the film, Man with Iron Fists. We need to move more into 3D with Chaori cinema texts in and from New Zealand. Cliff Curtis, a Maori actor has also been a success starring in Asian nations in an Asian action star mythological film.
We have enough trial models on display in aspects of this genre to really go for it and develop it further. Chaori cinema is another strand of cinema to be developed in New Zealand to sit alongside what Sir Peter Jackson, John Barnett and newcomers like James Cameron have already achieved from New Zealand.
It is a brand new cinema strand though, that can only make the overall package more attractive when perceiving New Zealand as a stand out filmmaking nation location. It makes sense to develop Chaori cinema and Maori cinema that is Asian-markets friendly, more.
It’s an authentic visual expression of New Zealand for the wider world’s markets.
[Photos: Spin Off and Business Insider online].
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific 8.10.12~
CHAORI 3D CINEMA – TINI MOLYNEUX’S VISION OF MAORI CINEMA’S EVOLVING INDUSTRY
To grow New Zealand’s filmmaking in groundbreaking news ways: “Ancient Maori legends combined with a big 3D budget vision have the potential to be relevant in the world.”
“Think, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon being a Maori legend told well,” is what Tini Molyneux told me about 12 years ago.” Today, I have to say, all of those years ago, Molyneux’s vision was right.
Food for thought for Iwi, China, Asia-Pacific to mull over concerning cool new films adding to NZ’s already cool movie genre of new films being made and produced.
In the films, I’d probably cast actors who didn’t know how to read or write well, yet their action skills were a forte. They’d shine in these groundbreaking films as whole people earning good incomes. eg: Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars story.
Seeing people who’d struggled with literacy “not intimidated” and acting in movies for tiger markets, with more golf time on their hands outside of their careers to play golf at St Andrews in Scotland in movie down time, would kinda rock too.
Summation: Chaori film production companies are a fantastic idea to grow NZ’s economy. Win-win-win. A billion dollar industry each year, just waiting to be developed in New Zealand. I like the idea as it the idea is about sustainable creation in new industry-building ideas from NZ.
What do you see in your Kiwi dream?
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 22.9.12~
MAORI WOMEN SAILORS RAPANUI BOUND – CELEBRATE NEW ZEALAND’S LONGSTANDING TRADITIONS OF SAILING NAVIGATION
Currently in New Zealand we are celebrating our fine tradition of Kiwi athletes. One’s that seem to be basking in the media spotlight are our sailors. Indeed, Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie, gave a good interview on a gold medal sailing performance. Kerikeri and Tauranga sailors, Peter Burling, Blair Tuke and Andrew Murdoch also have been inspiring a new generation of youth in NZ as well.
We have sailor Dean Barker whose Team New Zealand campaign for yachting’s America’s Cup is already generating buzz in the sailing world too. And of course, who can forget how adventurer and cultural hero, the late Sir Peter Blake captured the world’s attention and imaginaton when he was alive, alongwith sailor Sir Russell Coutts.
All of the athletes mentioned reflect New Zealanders love of water, oceans, sports and the human ability of Kiwis passion to navigate using the elements.
A news story that sums all of this up beautifully is the story of Maori women onboard a waka hourua (double-hulled canoe) boat that is heading to Rapanui (Easter Island). Te Karere news reporters write: “It’s widely assumed that only men sail on waka hourua, but three women will be joining in on the voyage of two double-hulled waka to Rapanui.” Humble, they reflect too the thousand year standing tradition of New Zealand’s founding mothers who navigated and sailed the same ocean waters as sailors, adventurers and merchant traders throughout the South Pacific’s rich traditition of Maori Polynesian Vikings history and cultural lore. Always capable, they were merhcant parents on the go.
The voyage will take 6-8 weeks on the high seas where the crew will sojourn at Rapanui before our adventurous sailors embark on their voyage home again.
The women are descended from the original Maori and Polynesia women sailors who first discovered Aotearoa New Zealand for us all.
Together we are a fun loving ocean sailing people in New Zealand. Congratulations to all of our fine sailors. Mauri Ora.
Scotty Morrison and Raiha Johns have the story.
Photo sources: Victoria University Wellington, Te Ara.Net. NZH, Stuff Website. Treml.Com. Music: Rod Stewart.
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 17.8.12~
IRELAND-MAORI KIWI CULTURE: BRONWEN CHRISTIANOS & WHIRIMAKO BLACK – SHOWCASE GREEN FIRE ISLANDS MUSIC AT LONDON OLYMPICS
The top cultural post today on the website (it’s early days) involves Ireland and Maori fusion culture: BRONWEN CHRISTIANOS & WHIRIMAKO BLACK – SHOWCASE GREEN FIRE ISLANDS MUSIC AT LONDON OLYMPICS.
Read about a special film project celebrating that unique blend, New Zealand is also well known for – in linking culture of meaning to Maori and Kiwi culture’s significance in the world.
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 30.7.12~
DR ELLA HENRY IS READY FOR HER HOLLYWOOD CLOSE UP
My most favorite person to ever sit with, if say, New Zealand was to play South Africa’s Springbok’s team in the rugby, would probaly be, Dr. Ella Henry. :)
For 80 minutes only, I would forgive Ella all of her one sins, for having the right attitude for that one game in that moment and that brief context of sport. She would just be the right person to sit with at rugby. Rugby league… Ella is just as full on supportive. Loud during sport!
Today, Ella is zooming us into our future (after years of good personal growth as a person).
Ella Henry has graduated with her doctorate in Maori Development – an arena where all New Zealand citizens will appreciate her vision in the field. The Ask Your Aunty talk show TV host, comic actor, breast cancer screening advocate, political commentator and good sort, looks swell wearing her doctorate cap hat. And in Maori Development too. So clever.
Of the hard earned honor, Henry humbly says:
"I was the first person in my family to go to university, let alone graduate. I was the first person in my family not to work at a factory. This is for them."
Well said: And a feisty Kiwi ka pai to you Dr Ella Henry. Congratulations. :)
As well as a PhD, Ella Henry has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Anthropology and a Masters of Commerce. Not a bad effort at all. Tumeke awesome. She inspires a pile of brainy books asap and reading websites like FT.Com and WSJ and Forbes key skill sets of their brightest stars, to enhance business accumen and creative business components gathering for mega-remixing Kiwi fierce entrepreneur styles. So proud of Dr Ella!
[Photo NZH. Hollywood tribute star: Dear Abby - vintage Hollywood culture - The Maori version. Photo - Blogger's own].
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 26.7.12~
KAPA HAKA HIGH SCHOOL COMPETITION – FIERCELY TALENTED WHANGAREI CITY MAORI YOUTH
Sexier than a Maori pixie-tinkerbell character, is Peata Melbourne reading the news in Te Reo Rangatira (the language of Chiefs). Surreal, yet real and reading the news in New Zealand.
Peata is from one of the longstanding entertaining families of Maoridom in New Zealand. Her family is cloaked in poetic humility of spirit.
On her news radar? The kapa haka Maori performing arts cultural theater competition for high school students in Whangarei City, Te Taitokerau Northland. Young people versant in the oldest artform of performing theater of NZ have congregated in Northland for this special event. Plenty of lively culture on display.
Ngai Tuhoe’s young journalist, Rapaera Tawhai, has the story in Ngapuhi Iwi kainga-land.
Love it! Haka up. :)
[Incidentally, Peata has the same wide eyed-spacing as super-models like Kate Moss. A freak of nature at birth, did she miss her calling? She has a Maori-made-for-fashion face. Sexy Tuhoe mama from the diverse Urewera peoples cultural hearth land. From a Hollywood silver screen casting perspective, Peata is all bright eyes, similar to Winona Ryder back in the day. Good genes].
Enough about Peata Melbourne’s fierce cuteness though and definitive art of Maori cool: Also on the Maori News radar today is the concept of Maori people being smoke-free shareholders in the NZX shark pool, buying into their own existing assets in New Zealand. Read that here. All good. :)
~Posted by Horiwodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 24.7.12~
WORLD VIEWS – ANDREW PAPAS, ORDER OF THE GARTER, G20 SUMMITS, MAUI MAORI MOVIES – 20.6.12
A big news day today around the world:
Who was reading? We’re reading from: United States, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Brazil, India, Germany, Russian Federation, United Kingdom Mexico and Taiwan.
World News:
Taiwan: Southern Taiwan is stormy. Formosa is hit by a power outage. Stocks: Taiwan Stocks: AU Optronics, Chimei, TPK Holding, Young Fast–Bloomberg’s picks. South Korea, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are to be overlooked by MSCI Inc. (MSCI) (MSCI) for upgrades in market classifications. They may take too much of the rarest tuna in the world, but Taiwan managed to get a Tier 1 clearance on human trafficking status. Well done.
Order of The Garter – Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip Mountbatten, son, grandson and posse. Photo BBC.
Mexico: Mexico will join 9 nine countries holding Trans Pacific Partnership talks. Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the US and Vietnam hope to create a free-trade bloc spanning the Asia-Pacific region that extends into aligning regulatory settings and removing tariffs and quotas–NZH.
United Kingdom: Argentina gets a slap from UK’s PM about democratic process on The Faulklands in Argentina. In Mexico – Chancellor George Osborne said: “But I think we have also got to look further afield – partly because Europe is weak – to new markets like Mexico, India and China.” Mexico’s state oil monopoly Pemex on Tuesday awarded four contracts to drill mature oil fields in the second round of bidding to open up the country’s nationalized oil industry to more private investment.–Reuters. Obama and Cameron are stars of the G20 Los Cabo summit. Forbes reports: “Shares of iShares MSCI United Kingdom Index Fund ETF (AMEX: EWU) crossed above their 200 day moving average of $16.50, changing hands as high as $16.68 per share.”
Russia: Vladimir Putin mulls an Olympics trip to UK. Hermitage Capitol’s anti-corruption lawyer scandal involving Sergei Magnitsky, has the US threatening to deny visas and seize assets of any Russians related to the case, as the US aims at “reducing human rights abuse” measures. Putin responded with ‘same-same.’–Reuters. Al Arabiya news reports: Russia, China have not committed to any plan to remove Assad from Syria.
Germany: SMH writes: If the stories coming out of Los Cabos are correct, the Germans have surrendered. Angela Merkel, it appears, has agreed that Europe’s bailout fund should be used to buy up Spanish bonds. This is precisely the show of ‘‘shock and awe’’ that the markets have been demanding, and the immediate response will undoubtedly be positive.”–whose paying for all this?!
India: LOS CABOS: India may not be called upon to inject USD 10 billion (Rs 55,000 crore) it has committed to the IMF for bailing out debt-wrecked Eurozone if the global economic situation improves. “The amount we contribute is entirely liquid, in the sense that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assures contributors that it will be available whenever needed. It will, therefore, continue to form part of our reserves,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement. –ETOI.
Andrew Papas is a young Kiwi singer on the rise.
Click on his pic to hear a star of potential.
Brazil: A nation of the future, Australia says. Brazil to defend Development Model in Rio+20. Bloomberg whines how Brazil has delayed issuing oil permits to foreign owned oil companies since 2007. Bernama reports frozen fuel prices, slow down PetroBas’ plans to mine worldwide. SeekingAlpha, whines toofor shareholders. Reuters puts the boot in with, Brazil struggles to cash in on carbon credits. And in news where Brazil is just not being seen as an oil rig: “The leaders of Brazil and China kicked in tens of billions of dollars to the International Monetary Fund to rescue downtrodden Spain and Greece.”
Australia: No surprises here: Australia’s population grows 1.4% in a year. Australian shares end 0.2% higher ahead of Fed Statement. Assange to Ecuador lands global headlines. Gillard is so there. After NewsCorp job losses, Aussie media beind the pay wall. Australian gov’t ‘fears’ Gina Reinhart’s media stake. (Um no, cos they drink together!). Cricket: David Hussey set to return to England one-day series. Earthquakes and social media Australia. Joel Madden is back in LA already. Karise Eden is officially a singer.
Canada: To join TPP talks. Stephen Harper is very polite at G20. Canada isn’t working hard enough to preserve environment, critics say. $93billion or 10% of GDP would maintainit nicely a year. Air Canada makes first biofuel flight.
New Zealand news: Our rubberband accounting reveals: Current account deficit widens to $2.8b as trade balance weakens. Australian banks fatter fees are not very lady-like. NZ’s net international debt position was $141.2 billion at March 31, a decline of $3.6 billion from three months earlier. Alright, clearly we’re on a diet, gearing up to dive more into the ocean. A land lust for NZ farmers land, worldwide heading towards 2050′s increasing food demands, see’s farmers under pressure to sell shares. In Airline CEO news: “world class strategic, commercial, leadership and stakeholder management capabilities proven across multiple markets” is on board. Peter Dunne under pressure with the pivotal vote on SOE energy assets sales.
In Maori News: for a good current events talk show, never go past Native Affairs.
My pick: Maui to feature on reo Maori film: “Iwi from around the country are uniting to create a feature film about the ancestor Maui. It’s an ambitious project undertaken by producer Maramena Roderick and creative director Peter Berger. There are eight iwi, eight directors and eight scriptwriters involved who will represent eight stories of Maui woven into one te reo Maori feature film. The project is the initiative of Te Paepae Ataata. Filming is scheduled to begin in the Spring of 2013.”–Te Karere Maori News.
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 20.6.12~
BIG BUDGET 3D MAORI ACTION FILMS BEING MADE IN NEW ZEALAND
So…
Big budget 3D films that are Maori produced, Maori directed, Maori written… when will they begin to happen in New Zealand, against the backdrop of New Zealand’s whenua (landscapes) exactly?
It is 2012.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 2.2.12~
DGA FILM SCHOOL – RANDAL KLEISER ON SET OF HONEY I BLEW UP THE KID
Film Trivia Time: In 1989, the film Honey I Shrunk the Kids focused on the Szalinski family’s experiments gone wrong. How they had to overcome these, was the movie’s comedic plot line of: “The scientist father of two teenage boys accidentally shrinks his and two other neighborhood teens to the size of insects. Now the teens must fight diminutive dangers as the father searches for them.”
The director was Joseph Eggleston Johnston III of Austin, Texas. Joe got his break with George Lucas storyboarding for him, watching him edit his work, before he eventually tried directing himself. Joe’s film credits include: October Sky, Captain America: The First Avenger and he is rumored to be tagged for Jurassic Park IV. Not bad for a guy who realized a cinematic vision of shrinking kids, in a movie. The Szalinki’s were a box office hit for America at the hands of Johnston.
Back by popular audience demand, in 1992, the Szalinski’s returned to the box office with Honey, I Blew Up The Kid. The plotline was a reversal of the former gag, being: “The Szalinski family is back, this time hilarious disaster strikes when an experiment causes their new toddler son to grow many stories tall.”
The director was Randal Kleiser (pictured above). Randall’s many film credits include: Grease, Flight of the Navigator, The Blue Lagoon, the surfing classic North Shore, and The Nina Foch Course for Filmmakers and Actors.
As a freshman at USC, Kleiser appeared in George Lucas‘ first student film, Freiheit.
The photo, that I snapped at The Directors Guild of America’s, displayed exhibit of Hollywood film production’s of importance to consider at the DGA Sunset Blvd Meet, 2011… shows Randal Kleiser at work.
My question is… are the wealthy and powerful… blowing up, or shrinking youth today?
Whose kids are being blown up and whose kids are being shrunk or made to disappear?
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 1.2.12~
MAORI BOY GENIUS, NGAA RAUUIRA IS A KIWI TEEN STUDYING AT YALE
We are the dream that we think, sense, imagine and attain for. If we see it, then we can be it.
It takes an entire village to raise a child
There’s an ancient Maori proverb that describes humility in attainment. It is a proverb that Maori live by in having respect for the landscape and natural surroundings of New Zealand. The wisdom of our ancients ensured that we were never limited by people in our aspirations of imagination, discipline and achievements. That proverb goes like this:
Whaia e koe ki te iti kahurangi; ki te tuohu koe, me maunga teitei
Seek the treasure you value most dearly: if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain
In Brainy Maoris in Film News: In the opening shots of documentary, Maori Boy Genius, 17-year-old Ngaa Rauuira is shown in the two worlds that have dominated his life. In one, he is getting ready for a kapa haka performance, having a tattoo drawn on to his skin. In the other, he is walking through the library at Yale University, sitting in class as a succession of ideas are thrown at him: separation, integration, ethnic homogeneity, partition.
Ngaa Rauuira has been a student at Yale University’s summer programmes twice. The first time he went, he was 15.
His story has been filmed in this inspiring documentary. It’s not so much a story about his achievements, as the story of how his whanau and community supported him and nurtured him, and have invested in him. More than once, the idea that Ngaa Rauuira might become prime minister of New Zealand is mentioned in the film, and when you talk to him, it’s easy to see why.
“I come from a culture where the application of what you learn is what defines you,” he says. “The piece of paper doesn’t make you great. It’s what you do with it.” Asked if he wants to be a lawyer, a politician or prime minister, he says “of course”.
Ngaa Rauuira is the eldest of six children. Since the age of seven, he has lived with his grandparents, learning traditional knowledge. His first language is te reo Maori. His entire schooling has been in te reo, although his teachers praise the way he straddles both the Maori and non-Maori worlds.”
The thing is, Maori don’t have to wait until Ngaa Rauuira grows up, we have more than capable leaders right now, leading with perceptive vision that Ngaa Rauuira needs for a strong New Zealand future, to help navigate his trajectory. Their job is to clear the clutter and put young New Zealanders like Ngaa Rauuira on the super highways of achievement.
His story provides good reflection and motivation for such leaders to keep on keeping on.
For more in this young leader-in-the-mix’s fun story, go here.
To watch the documentary trailer by the award winning Pietra Brettkelly jet here.
Kia kaha! :)
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific.
CLIFF CURTIS 25th MOST VOTED STAR 2011
In the center of our top 50 most voted stars this year is Mr Cliff Curtis.
He is as comfortable walking into a packed Hollywood restaurant (being instantly recognized by everyone) as he is walking barefoot with his kids on Ohope Beach.
He’s a skilled practitioner on a blockbuster action movie set, or, wielding a taiaha in the ancient martial arts traditions of Maori mau rakau on Mokoia Island, Rotorua.
He is every inch a true star of Aotearoa, New Zealand that is globally loved.
Cliff Curtis started out from humble beginnings. He was adopted by family members as a whangai child. Many times the beach fed him and his family. Not a bad life at all, despite the many hardships he had to endure. Curtis soon grew up to become New Zealand’s ballroom dancing champion. Cliff Curtis was dancing with the stars long before many of us ever were in Aotearoa New Zealand.
An avid theater actor schooled in Poneke Wellington, Cliff became a household movie star name, playing a man who pretended to be another man’s good mate. Instead, against an alcohol-fueled backdrop of domestic violence, the character Cliff played was raping (and killing) the other man’s child. Though this got Cliff recognized worldwide, it was a role that Cliff spent 15 years trying to shake.
The movie Once Were Warriors was judged at Cannes International film festival and it made a hard-bitten Hollywood veteran film judge, like Clint Eastwood, weep. Cliff went on to play many roles in his career that can all be studied here. Any Maori actor must study Cliff Curtis, a man who excelled at playing Mid-Eastern characters from Iraqis to Israelis and Colombians to Mexicans. Cliff Curtis is so talented.
The choices of roles he’s played demonstrate Cliff’s ability to shape shift. He is now deemed to be an actor of Hollywood that will grow into a Morgan Freeman styled character actor and Hollywood legend in time. Like good wine, Cliff Curtis is a humanitarian, global warrior activist actor we look forward to seeing more from as an artist.
Cliff’s latest two roles have seen him star in Colombiana with Hollywood’s 9th highest earning box office star of 2010, Zoe Saldanas. Cliff plays Zoe’s mentor, with Zoe cast in the role of a woman who lost her parents through the drug trade, as can be seen in the film Colombiana.
Other roles include starring opposite Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) for the second time in the film Crossing Over where Cliff and Harrison are cast in a film having to solve problems of tension and conflict that can arise when tackling immigration issues.
I like Cliff because he’s always a happy hori. When you’re Maori, that’s as good as it gets.
In Hollywood, he is.
As an actor, Cliff’s ‘hero’ has never been a person in the industry. His hero is Maui – the mythological character he grew up learning about as a New Zealand school kid all those years ago. Maui, the adventurer fished up the North Island, tamed the sun and withstood the heat of jealousiesof his stronger siblings. Cliff to me, is the original Hollywood Maui.
Because of his connection with Maori and Polynesian storytelling – when you watch Cliff on screen as an artist, he always takes with him the Maui character and reinterprets this adventurer onscreen, in many forms – no matter what ethnicity of character – Hollywood has cast him in.
If you want an Oscar nomination, it’s also known in Hollywood that Cliff is one of the main contenders to star alongside. He brings an element of authenticity to any film project. He adds the depth to Hollywood film texts. Curtis is of Ngati Hauiti and Te Arawa (Maori tribal) lineage. His beautiful wife is from Myanmar. I like their family a lot. :)
Cliff is the first Maori in the world to star in a blockbuster 3D film that has excelled in Asia and Asia-Pacific territories. He is the world’s 1st Hollywood Maori King, the 25th most voted star this year. Chur!
I like Cliff because not only is he an award winning producer these days, but he can be just so darn funny. He’s straight up and most times incredibly humble. A Kiwi we are all very proud of. Go Bro!
[Photo courtesy of Star Pulse]
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 3.12.11~
WE ARE A MAJESTIC WAKA PEOPLE IN BEAUTIFUL AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND
For those of you tuning in for the first time who have not yet visited beautiful Aotearoa New Zealand, or, who don’t know much about Kiwis yet–here’s a main fact about us.
We are a majestic waka nation of people. Check out these Maori lads and girls paddle action to experience another world of New Zealand culture.
We love it! :)
[Photo - Phone snap of The New Zealand Herald. Artsy waka footage at Auckland Viaduct of this noble display of Kiwi on show in 8mm film stock, courtesy of BSideMagazine. Press play to see]
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific.13.9.11~
THE STRENGTH OF WATER IS A THEME – HOKIANGA FILM FESTIVAL
Water is so vital to our survival. As humans we are made up of 64% water.
Water in New Zealand fuels the majority of electricity throughout the country. We can’t even have broadband computer access or watch TV, without water.
Here’s a film celebrating the strength of water, that Maori-Kiwis have utilized in Kiwiland for 1000 years. It features at the Hokianga film festival this year. And, the film is having its Hokianga premiere this week.
GRASSROOTS FILM-MAKING: The Strength of Water, shot in the Hokianga settlements of Panguru, Mitimiti and Pawarenga, is one of the movies showing at the Hokianga Film Festival this weekend.
“The keenly anticipated Hokianga Film Festival returns to Whirinaki’s Moria Marae this weekend, the three-day festival featuring a range of documentaries, full-length and short films, as well as wananga and korero.
The theme this year is the many forms of kaitiakitanga (guardianship). The festival begins with a powhiri at six o’clock tomorrow evening, followed by locally-made short films (Harakeke Shorts).
Films to be shown on Saturday and Sunday include The Strength of Water (a feature film shot in the Hokianga), The Insatiable Moon (a feature film starring Hokianga actor Rawiri Paratene), Operation 8 (documentary), The Dome, An Earth-building Project (by Paula Hohua), This Way of Life (feature film) and Te Ao Wera (documentary).
The festival wraps up with a hangi on Sunday afternoon.
Entry is by koha. Guests are asked to bring cakes, biscuits, fruit or soup for morning and afternoon teas, and something for the hangi. Mattresses and pillows will be provided but those staying overnight will need to take bedding.”
[Where there's a will to have a film festival for community, there's always a way. Too funny!]
News + Photo source – The Northland Age.
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Aotearoa New Zealand Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 29.7.11~
THE HORIWOOD TOP TEN – SUPER BOWL SUNDAY – 2.6.11
Transformers Chevrolet Super Bowl TVC was pretty cool this year. Press play above to see a big budget special FX sports TV spend.
Hollywood entertainment news and celebrity news favorites voted today on Horiwood.Com, round out our top ten news picks like so. Thanks team. Happy Super Bowl Sunday after-match madness then.
1. Merata Mita. New cinema verite filmmaking ideas – Once upon a Forbes US website
2. Kim Kardashian‘s silver body paint art of reality TV portraiture
3. Pink‘s do-it-yourself-photo-shoots humor
4. What Nicole Kidman thought of marriage to Tom Cruise
5. Kim Kardashian & The Horiwood Top Ten – Sat. 2.5.11
6. Political leaders making billions while in office
7. When Russell Brand was in high school
8. Ronald Reagan‘s Star – Hollywood Walk of Fame
9. Demi Moore Ashton Kutcher Justin Timberlake party for Super Bowl 2011
10. Born This Way – A President – 100 Years ago today – 1.5.11
~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 2.6.11~
ONCE UPON A HOLLYWOOD PALM TREE, YOU CHOSE SOME HORIWOOD.COM POSTS IN HOLLYWOOD IN THIS SECOND TO SHARE – 2.5.11
Sometimes filmmaking is about just turning a camera on and letting a City speak for itself–Horiwood 2011
Every day I wake up in Hollywood… is always a blessing. I’ve been thinking more about writing a movie. I just can’t seem to get over the freakiness of every day living here, to even rise above it each day and create a script beyond occasional blogging and the surreality of every day life.
Today I was woken up from my dream of maybe making a movie by two Jehovah witnesses knocking on the door. “Who do you think you are, the Jacksons before they started in show biz?,” I said. ‘Poppa Jackson’ did not find me funny, but his daughter, 23, laughed so hard, it was worth making the comment. They feel that Egypt news has made people scared and perhaps people need spiritual guidance in these last days end times.
After shutting the door, I go back to thinking about the dream about making a movie. In the dream, I feel like I live on a film set in a movie called Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree. I am surrounded by hookers, hustlers, talented undiscovered hip hop rappers busting rhymes way better than what you hear on the radio. All around me are people who “cant’s stop talkin bout” The Kardashians, trans-gendered ‘artists,’ Orthodox Jews, Persian Muslims, drug dealers, single gay people protesting with placards for an equal slice of wedding cake, a handful of Hollywood Hills dwelling sex addicts daily checking the stock market like a religion, or war veterans holding cups of tea in The Valley and signs that say “jobs not war.” Then there’s the coked out Hollywood industry people speeding their tits off talking their big mouthed trash (some real, some not). I’m surrounded by arrogant wannabe film directors (every sentence they say has the word ’power’ or ‘powerful’ in it), or gorgeous actors doubling as models or go-go dancers while hoping for that break and being put through the mill to get it. It’s not fair to see. In the dream, I am surrounded by control freak muscle culture in that Schwarzenneger kinda way, armies and armies of studio workers or spacey spiritual guru types transcending real issues, or very old Russians walking on canes each day up the street in pairs talking in Russian, or producers who lie and steal your TV show pilots literally too – without delivery on TV show investment funds, as they’d promised as their part of the deal. Such people set you back years. They are thieves of the young and not so-young’s creativity and time. Magically, using your pilot to do it with their new name as ‘producer’ now on it, they get jobs in “London.” Lol! All these reasons is why anyone who knows or lives in Hollywood, loves Los Angeles. It’s just L.A.
The comedic characters are the sweet, ‘normal’ people. Interludes of a sense of home. Like couples just starting families or people with kids. Their normality makes them stars in my dream about making a film. Sweet friends also act as angel heroes, slaying villains lies and false promises of smugness, daily. If you have sweet friends in your L.A dream, you’re a lucky one.
Oh, every now and again, in the dream, you bump into a celebrity. They’re always so thankful to meet a Kiwi. Sanity.
In the middle of all this, a Maori guy, wonders what he’s doing on this film set, wonders what the dream means other than being a walking living tourism billboard of New Zealand culture saying repeatedly like a record on repeat spin “visit paradise… oh and make sure you meet some real Maori-Kiwis while you’re there. We’re the best!” He is a caricature, created for people who want adventure, but sometimes are too scared to travel. It’s much easier to voyeur through someone else’s eyes. That’s the culture in this dream. A meeting with a Kiwi means that they probably will go to New Zealand in the dream on the movie set, of the dream.
Once Upon a Palm Tree‘s script reads like a heartbreak hotel baptism of fire, a fast paced story of fleeting love, dodging death’s sword, or guns (same thing), going with the roller coaster highs and lows along with my fellow recession-obsessed people. The script reveals lusts and twisted passions set against a back drop of George W. Bush outrage, Obama becoming the 1st US President of color in history, the plummeting tragedy of the global economic recession’s ‘introduction to’ American life and culture, the trainwrecks of that event as the wealthy had to get a new I-D, right up to Egypt’s current Mid-East unrest amidst stock market crashes and oil and steel’s value sky rocketing in a single week of political economic altering (or engineering) via Egypt’s billionaire puppet President Hosni Mubarak.
Hosni’s mug does appear briefly on a TV screen cut-a-way in the dream, straight after Anderson Cooper‘s and before Katie Couric‘s mugs. It’s a quick 1.2.3 montaged sequence, over in 10 seconds in the film of the dream. Katie’s mug gets a whole four seconds of silver screen time.
Against a backdrop of that kind of environment, Once Upon A Hollywood Palm Tree could also be the best of 1000 back-to-back 45 second vignettes strung together like a documentary film of meeting 1000 people. (Only the most entertaining one’s would make the cut – but the director’s cut would sell more copies than the actual film). Each vignette is a scene featuring a beginning, middle and end – with a rhetoric of “Hear a Promise, The Promise is revealed to be a Lie, Maori Guy’s French-word peppered, comical reactions to the Lies – often told in tee shirts slogans cut-a-aways” forming these vignette’s 1.2.3 beatnik narrative. The film in the dream has a lot of tee shirts in it helping the pace of the film move Cosmopolitan city-quick.
As the best vignettes of the film in the dream would make up 45 minutes of footage, creating work for 1000 ‘new face’ actors, I’d probably win a Robert Altman Award for creating more jobs than many politicians promises to create employment (or purpose) with that one film. The rest of the 45 minutes of the film in the dream would thread together ‘my’ real Hollywood story, between all of the bull sh*t I’ve heard from losers.
Already the movie is looking R rated, not remotely like a Flight of the Concords funny-lite TV series, or hobbit-similar movie at all. In the dream, I cast a 17 year-old to play ‘me.’ I want them to be Jewish with a yamulke on their head, but Maori actors are so few in Hollywood, where Jewish actors are hegemonically dominant within the Hollywood actors system, so in the dream it feels right to cast a Maori teen in the lead.
In the dream, I ponder if perhaps Once Upon A Hollywood Palm Tree can go straight into the trash can, or not, as I keep sub-consciously thinking about Kaitiaki – A trilogy, that introduces Maori action super heroes with special powers into the Hollywood movie landscape, as um, actually created and envisaged and imagined by real Maoris. That’s um, not Maori people, painted blue, projected in 3D. Lol!
In the dream, Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree would be my Clerks film like Kevin Smith‘s humble beginnings as a film director, with talent a little bit more apparent as a filmmaker than Ben Affleck‘s and Matt Damon‘s original Oscar winning start, for example. It would be my Bad Taste low budget film, in that Sir Peter Jackson humble beginnings, zero-budget filmmaking way. I see an ear falling off an old ladies head into some custard for a second, in my dream. At that moment, I decide…
Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree would rock! In the dream I imagine that it would have a cult following of edgy, tattoed, facially pierced people the world over. Because it would just be too freaking real! In the dream I ponder if there’s more noble things in the world to be told than wanting to be the next Q. Tarantino of this generation. One of a hundred. I do like the idea of the gritty back drop of such a film to tell some powerful truths. Just in the dream, the truths aren’t vividly clear as to what ones should shine against this backdrop. There are so many, but in the dream, five are chosen to reveal, wrapped in the life of the central character’s talent. The dream feels creative and good, so I just might think about it some more.
Top Photo caption – Palm tree of the week, Genesse & Waring. Here’s ten posts we’re sharing via social media in Hollywood as culture in this second. Woot!
1. Alecia Moore Humor – some times stars have to take their own darn pics!
2. Waitangi Day News as Hollywood Pop Culture – 2011. That’s a 1st!
3. Written in True Blood – Anna Paquin & friends for Rolling Stone
4. Burning poppies and Muslim actors via The UK!
5. How her fairy tale began… Nicole Kidman‘s Coming to America romance story
6. Dorothy Height‘s All-American legacy is fierce
7. Hone Tuwhare‘s No Ordinary Sun poem
8. LeBron James is kinda different
9. Walt Disney, Shirley Temple & filmmaker Taika Cohen
10. Megan Fox & Brian Austin Green – Golden Globes 2011
Taking a koro kip (Kiwi language for a ‘grandpa nap’), the dream continues. Once upon a Hollywood Palm Tree would have to be shot (that’s as in filmed, not as in Arizona tragedies with idiots and guns) in the spirit of Maori filmmaker Merata Mita, one of my mentors and the way she fashioned cinema verite art in a manner that only Maori people can with cameras, film footage and especially a talent with weaving sound layering for psychological, socio-political effect. She was quite a gem of cinema arthouse films that mattered with human rights awareness in the world. Merata was gifted and clever. Loved the world over by tribal-minded indigenous thinkers.
In the dream, Merata would have loved Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree and Kaitiaki – The Trilogy as well. She would have perhaps loved to have produced both of them. Both would have reflected different aspects of her own sense of humor and life story as a Maori who lived with Hollywood people as well. “We’re allowed to dream!” This was her gift to me, when she stepped out of my film student text book dreams and actually into my first student film.
She gave me that gift to believe that crazy moments can become real for aspiring Maori filmmakers. She told me, our stories are vitally important for the world, on my camera. I believed her. That was not in a dream. It happened because she made it happen, along with other caring people who made that film happen too. Making dreams come true on film is what Hollywood is all about as a creative filmmaking town. It’s about a dream and turning these into visible reality.
One thing’s for sure. There’s one Maori, who has more than paid their dues in Hollywood to make a film. Once Upon A Hollywood Palm Tree is that unique story about leveling with Hollywood. In the dream, I think that perhaps it’s time!
In the dream, when I think about Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree as a film, I think it’s quite remarkable that Horiwood.Com actually exists, like for ‘real.’ Lol! In the dream, Once Upon a Hollywood Palm Tree would have to have Bird Runningwater of Sundance do its film distribution strategy, otherwise it would be sunk, like tequilas and extra spicy spiked bloody Marys, down the hatch with Injun filmmakers at The Abbey on Sunday brunches, if it didn’t. :)
I wake up. No Jehovah witnesses at the door this time. No Jacksons either. It’s sunset.
I think I’ll go out and meet real people. Although all the colors of a Hollywood filmmakers pallet are right before your eyes to paint with each day (you just choose super hero skins to overlay your characters with in your films to look more clever), you can’t dream in Hollywood on surreal movie sets forever.
Photo caption – A Photograph as Art, plastered on a wall on Melrose Southside (between Stanley & Spaulding). Whether we live in Los Angeles, a South Pacific Polynesia Island or in Israel or the Middle East – we all share life and identity underneath a Palm Trees shade.
~^ Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 2.5.11~
WBHS HAKA FOR THE MAGIC CHAMPIONS NETBALL SPORTS TEAM 2012
In the school of Kiwi old-fashioned manners – here’s a tribute to The Magic- being the best netball team in the South Pacific, making world history for a New Zealand netball team in their hard-fought sports competition league.
A haka from Te Tai Tokerau, Northland going up as a tribute today – for our fierce Champions of sporting excellence, discipline, wise coaching and mean teamwork on court.
[Photo credit: Getty Images. Tight Tussle: Leana de Bruin of the Magic competes for the ball during the final between the Melbourne Vixens and the Waikato Bay of Plenty Magic].
~Posted by Horiwoodblog, Aoteroa New Zealand, Polynesia Asia-Pacific. 23.7.12~
July 23, 2012 | Categories: Aotearoa New Zealand, Aotearoa Television Service - Hollywood, Art, artist, Bay of Plenty, Children, Cross-Cultural Narratives, Culture, Discipline, Education, Friends of Starship, haka, Homage, iwi, Kool Kiwis, Leana de Bruin, Mana Taane a Aotearoa, Manners, Maori, Maori Film School, Maori Television Service - Hollywood, Netball, New Zealand, New Zealand Citizens, New Zealand Drama, Ngapuhi, Ngapuhi Iwi, Northland, Pakehas, Pop Art, Pop Cultural Commentary, So You Think You Can Dance, Song Writers, South Pacific, South Pacific Television Hollywood, Spirit, Sports, Sports Psychology, Te Awamutu, Te Tai Tokerau, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Teachers, Teamwork, Teenagers, The Magic, Whangarei Boys High School, Whangarei City, Whangarei Girls High School | Leave A Comment »