It’s one thing to be invited to an Oscar party to celebrate your film’s nominations and quite another to sit there and watch the awards go to other people. The thrill can go to "thud" pretty quickly.
Hawaii’s Patricia Hastie made the best of it, though, at a viewing party hosted by Fox Searchlight Pictures, which released "The Descendants." Hastie had an unusual breakout role in the film, playing the comatose wife of George Clooney’s character. She had no lines whatsoever and except for one brief scene never opened her eyes or moved a muscle.
But the film’s director, Alexander Payne, was so impressed with her performance when he shot here in 2010 that he listed Hastie as one of the featured actors in the credits.
"If anyone had ever told me I was going to be in an Alexander Payne film, I would have laughed," she said.
"If they ever said George Clooney would be kissing me, I would have laughed even harder. What an incredible, fortunate two years I have had. Win or lose, I won all the way."
Guests at the party, which was held at hip Los Angeles nightclub My House, watched the Academy Awards on large monitors, Hastie said. The mood was wrapped in anxiety because the film was up for five Oscars, including best picture.
"When they got the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, the place went wild," she said. "And there were some huge sighs when we didn’t get the awards we were expecting."
Any sadness was short-lived, as the viewing party became an after-Oscars celebration.
"Everyone went on and danced and had a blast the whole night long," Hastie said. "The losses didn’t taint the mood for long. Everybody just celebrated. We had a fantastic time."
Payne and fellow screenwriters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash stopped by with their Oscar statues, which had just been engraved with their names, Hastie said.
"To be able to hug someone with an Oscar is something," she said. "I hugged Jim Rash. I gave him a good ol’ hug."
But for Hastie, who has been trying to break into the Hollywood movie machine, her time on "The Descendants" produced a golden moment of her own a few days later.
She signed with an agent.
RATHER THAN a somber funeral, the family of the late Mel Kinney plan to celebrate his life — from the encounter that put his boyish face in the opening credits of the original "Hawaii Five-0," to his voyage aboard Hokule‘a in 1976, to his time as a set dresser on local film and television projects.
The memorial service will run from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Kaimana Beach in Waikiki, said his sister Leimana Damate.
It will start with the arrival of Kinney’s ashes aboard the Hokule‘a, which he crewed on when the sailing canoe made its first trip from Tahiti to Hawaii, Damate said. Just offshore, his ashes will be transferred to former teammates in a canoe he paddled in during several Molokai-to-Oahu races.
A big-wave surfer, Kinney died Feb. 14 after a heart attack he suffered several days earlier after surfing Sunset Beach. He was 57.
The services will conclude with Kinney’s friends taking him back to the Hokule‘a.
"All the surfers will paddle out, and the canoe clubs, and they will circle the Hokule‘a, and our father will put his ashes in the water where the rest of our family is already scattered," Damate said.
Once the group is ashore, any tears will be replaced by a party at Kapiolani Park.
"Mel was the most positive, upbeat person," Damate said. "This is to celebrate what he has done."
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
