"Tiny bubbles, in the wine. Make me happy, make me feel fine."

Next week, I will not attend the Austin Film Festival. I will not attend the Hamptons International Film Festival. I will not attend the Midwest Filmmakers Summit. And, I will not attend the Music on Film/Film on Music festival in Prague. These are film events I was eyeing over the next two weeks, but I won't be at any of them, because I will be on the jury for this year's Louis Vuitton Hawaii International Film Festival. In my section, my fellow jurors are Elvis Mitchell and Kal Penn.

I'm looking forward to a week in Hawaii, as a chance to see some new Asian and Asian-American films and meet filmmakers. I've never been to our 49th state, so I'm also just looking forward to a chance to see it. The festival runs October 19-29... and if you haven't been to the Web site, you should. The tech-savvy Hawaii FF staff has created a lot of useful tools including: a festival blog, MySpace page, and a great VOD package for local cable audiences.

Mahalo, y'all.