HPD antics

Today I watched a cop commit a completely unacceptable atrocity at the Aala Park intersection of King and Iwilei, unfortunately I didn't get it on video or get his license number, he needs to be busted big time for highly risking innocent lives.
His car was heading down Iwilei towards the park and stopped for a red light in the far right turn only lane with other cars in their two lanes to his left and heavy traffic passing on King. Suddenly he shoots into the intersection with a left turn straight into opposing traffic narrowly missing the closest cars as they barely got by but causing one truck to panic brake to a stop and dodge the grey unmarked squad car that he nearly T boned while other vehicles swerved all around in shock as the cop just kept plowing thru into North bound lanes on King. A marked patrol car followed on it's tail with lights quickly turned on but still causing more issues as drivers tried to recover. Both police cars then stopped at the N. end of the park's three way intersection and didn't seem to have any emergency to respond to, they merely cruised on when the light turned green. All that potential death for nothing.

HPD antics

Pali Road (2016)

Pali Road (2016)
With Michelle Chen, Sun Kang, Jackson Rathbone, and Henry Ian Cusick. Directed by Jonathan Lim. Written by Doc Pedrolie and Victoria Arch.

Lily is a young physician doing her residency at a hospital on Oahu. Her boyfriend Neil is a very nice teacher who wants to marry her; her ex-boyfriend Mitch is a slimy doctor she works for, who also seems to want to marry her. When Lily wakes up in the hospital after a bad car accident, she’s shocked to learn that she’s married to Mitch, she has a six-year-old son, and Neil doesn’t exist. Her parents, her best friend, and Mitch are supportive and understanding as she recovers from the crash, but they have no memory of Neil. According to everyone around her, this life in this enormous house with this family is the life she’s been living, but who’s Neil? Lily begins to doubt her own memories, and to question her sanity as real-world evidence of her relationship with Neil eludes her.

It’s a pretty good idea for a story, and the relationships established between the principal characters in early scenes makes it easy to root for Neil and to despise Mitch, whose every utterance sounds insincere and disingenuous. Mitch is that guy you knew in school who had all the teachers and parents fooled into thinking he was a golden boy, but whom none of the kids could stand because he was such a fraud. You almost don’t care how things work out in this film, as long as Mitch doesn’t end up with Lily.

A promising first act is followed by a slog of a second act, and most of it is the fault of director Jonathan Lim. The pacing is awful, the dialog is slow and drawn out, and the tension is cheapened by an overly dramatic, unnecessary score. Edits and visual effects are strange and distracting, and everything just takes too long to get where it’s going. Lily experiences some genuinely intriguing stuff as she struggles to find some connection between her memory and her reality, and the story elements are suspenseful enough without manipulative camera work, cheap effects, and an unexplainable police officer who, without any explanation, does things no officer except some stock character from a 1950s B-movie would ever do.

I hate to say this, because I would love it if everyone would see Pali Road and help it make tons of money so more films would be produced in my home state, but while the resolution is thoughtful and somewhat satisfying, the pivot on which it turns is so cheap that I never considered it as a possibility. That’s right: the explanation is predictable to the point of unpredictability, because who would think they could get away with it?

See it anyway, because Michelle Chen’s acting is pretty good, because the Hawaii scenery is exactly what you’d expect and then not exactly what you’d expect, and because it’s fun to see what Lily has to go through. Just go in with low expectations and comfortable shoes.

(opens today at Kahala, by the way. screened at HIFF last fall)

4/10 (IMDb rating)
41/100 (Criticker rating)

Pali Road (2016)

Hastert

What can be said of an insanely hypocritical creep who committed so many horrific offenses far beyond the unforgivable molestation of minors he's now admitted to and been sentenced, and get's off with a mere 15 month sentence when he, as the second in line to the Presidency, loudly proclaimed his very type should rot in prison?

Hastert

Very sad to be leaving Hawaii

I wasn't sure where else to put this. We've lived here for just three years, and I love it. Now we're moving away, unfortunately. I will really miss it, and not just because I'm moving to a small town in the middle of Arkansas!

Aloha and mahalo to everyone!

Suzanne

Very sad to be leaving Hawaii

KHVH ditches Coast To Coast

suddenly we lose the entire early half of the program, killing the local listening audience?

KHVH ditches Coast To Coast

Businesses closed!

From a blog post of mine the other day:

Quote:

Third, we took a pair of shorts with a drawstring problem to an alterations place [on Hekaha St. behind Cutter Ford]. Oops. The sign on the door of the shop said “We’re closing our doors as of March 31.” Fourth, we headed for the Ben Franklin store a couple of miles away [in Pearl Highlands] to look in their notions section to see if Mom could find some ribbon, bias tape, or something to replace the drawstring in that pair of shorts. Oops. The Ben Franklin store that had been in that shopping center for years closed and moved to an unknown location a couple of years ago. We gave up and came home.

Where DID that Ben Franklin store go?

Businesses closed!

Merle Haggard: RIP

Here's what George Strait (King George) said about Merle Haggard:

http://ift.tt/1qd8PaI

Merle Haggard: RIP

Traffic Info: Where?

Apologies if this is in the wrong area but here goes:

This afternoon, I was driving along Lanihuli Drive heading towards Punahou Street. I intended to make a left turn and drive along Punahou Street to Beretania. Well, as luck would have it, there was an accident and a fire truck was there, some cops, and an ambulance. Traffic going down Punahou was blocked and we were redirected. I eventually went down University and then along Beretania.

Later, I could see that traffic going up (mauka) Punahou was totally backed up, both lanes, all the way to King Street and no one was moving.

In short, a really awful traffic situation.

So my question is this: are you guys aware of any website or way that traffic related info is posted online in real time?

The event above happened around 3:30 pm; it's now around 10 pm. I checked the StarAdvertiser site and there's no info at all about what happened and they certainly did not post any info shortly after the accident.

I even tried Twitter but there was nothing. Granted, I'm not a savvy Twitter user so maybe it's there but I didn't see anything.

Bottom line, I'm surprised there isn't some app or site that has realtime info that would be useful for drivers in town or even on the island in general.

It seems like a no-brainer and it feels like I'm in the dark ages. With apps like Twitter, I would think posting this kind of info would be so easy to do and so many people would benefit from it.

Anyway, just wondering.

Thanks for any suggestions you might have.

Traffic Info: Where?