Director Christopher Nolan has served up some of the most compelling mainstream movies of our time, from the brilliant and unique “Memento,” to the under-appreciated “Insomnia,” to the acclaimed “Dark Knight,” easily the best Batman movie ever made. Now he’s helmed “Inception,” the most talked-about film of this summer, billed as a sort of “James Bond meets Matrix” thriller which, at first blush, seems a complex “dream within a dream” narrative worthy of Nolan’s time and talent.

There is much that should impress in Nolan’s film. A huge cast, including Leo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine, and Cillian Murphy. Epic sets and a global backdrop - Asia, Europe, the Americas. A complex idea - the theft of dreams, and the implications of the same. Creation. Perception. Dream architecture, for the purpose of…well, that would give away the story, wouldn’t it?

Here’s a quick overview. “Inception” refers to the ability to plant an idea and grow a dream inside someone’s head. Tom Cobb (DiCaprio) is a practicing “extractor,” a professional dream remover, who has dabbled with inception but has begged off diving deeper for a mysterious mix of reasons. He is hired by a corporate energy trader (Watanabe) to engage in espionage, of the most nefarious dreaming sort. Cobb assembles his “dream team” to help design the appropriate subconscious emotional strategy to influence their subject, the son and heir of a global energy company vying for dominance with Watanabe’s own. An initial kidnapping attempt goes awry (in dream space), and our team finds themselves up against a rival team of thieves, and “limbo,” so-called “unreconstructed dream space” where dreamers might be trapped for eternity.

If all of this sounds a bit complicated, it is. Even more strange, “Inception” is oddly un-engaging for a 2 and 1/2 hour story. The movie begs the viewer to give it sustained attention and a certain amount of patience and suspension of disbelief both. I found myself intrigued by the premise, but a bit exhausted trying to follow the twists and turns of the story.

By the time we arrived at the climactic (and very confusing) fifteen minute action scene, a multi-layered extended dream sequence that unfolded in strange juxtaposed herky jerky, I simply felt a bit bored. Nolan never gives us much time to get to know any of his story’s characters, so we feel little sympathy or support for any of them. Combine this with the detached nature of the action scenes in “dream time” - visually spectacular but emotionally empty - and a story that produces more head-scratching than anything else, and “Inception” felt like little more than a showcase for some nifty FX by film’s end.

Which is too bad, given Nolan’s skills as a storyteller, and the raw potential of “Inception’s” subject matter. Rather than a compelling story, we get little more than “yawnsville.” Wait for “Inception” on dvd, unless you are looking for some nap time.

As a big fan of director Ridley Scott, I have been looking forward to his summer 2010 release of “Robin Hood” with much anticipation.

What’s not to like? I thought.

All Hollywood summer action movie ingredients look to be cued up.

An epic cast: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, and Max Von Sudow among them.

A classic mythic character: Hollywood has done more than thirty versions of the famous English archer/outlaw, most recently a bare-bottomed Kevin Costner re-make, and, of course, Carey Elwes’ “Robin Hood: Men In Tights”.

Epic sets as backdrops.

Battle scenes galore.

And the kicker?

One of acoustic music’s favorite live musicians, Alan Doyle of Newfoundland party boy band “Great Big Sea,” playing one of Robin’s “merry men” in a key supporting role as Robin’s mando-sporting arrow-shooting bard. (Two thumbs up for Doyle, who performs admirably.)

Needless to say, I went into the theater sharpening my arrows.

Yes yes, most imperial film critics already have panned the Scott’s movie. Too long! Too convoluted! Too complicated! Too historically inaccurate! Too much a “prequel”! (Which it very much is - the film’s last scene features a text screen that reads “And so the legend begins.”)

Clearly, the critics didn’t receive the memo. Dudes, remember? Summer movie season. We want escapist entertainment. And Scott delivers, albeit unevenly.

Most critics, moreover, dismiss Scott’s film as a sort of “Gladiator in Jerkins” remake (Scott directing Crowe a few years back for Maximus Oscar glory).

I couldn’t disagree more.

In “Robin Hood,” Scott replaces the expansive desert setting of imperial Rome with the dirtier and more intimate landscape of the 12th century English medieval feudal countryside. True, we get a few gorgeous aerial shots of the forest, the coast (complete with epic French sea-borne invasion footage), and one incredible scene of Richard the Lionhearted’s naval convoy sailing up the Thames, but Scott wisely keeps us mostly in the woods, where Robin Hood belongs.

Instead of “Gladiator” or “Braveheart,” Scott’s film is more reminiscent of Shekar Kapur’s remarkable film “Elizabeth,” featuring Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the woman who transforms herself from naïve girl to powerful queen. One of the best actresses in the business, Blanchett’s is back in “Robin Hood,” and she is mesmerizing as (Maid) Marian Loxley, the earthy yet regal wife of absentee landlord Robert Loxley, who is off fighting the Crusades with King Richard.

Like much of 12th century England, the shire of Nottingham is beset by roving bands of teen hoods and the unjust taxation policies of the newly installed King John (think Joaquin Phoenix’s Commodus on extra estrogen.)

The way-too-serious Russell Crowe’s Robin Longstride, meanwhile, returns from the Crusades and delivers the dead Loxley’s sword to Marian disguised as Loxley himself. At her manor, he finds his equal in Marian, as well as uncovering information about his own past. (In a series of super-contrived flashbacks, we learn that Longstride’s father was a political radical whose dissent and subsequent execution set the stage for 1215 and the Magna Carta. No kidding.)

The smoldering sexual tension between Marian and Robin is refreshingly slow to develop, along with some good laughs with the merry men along the way. Alas, Crowe plays Robin too straight, leaving Blanchett to really carry the film, helped along by her aging father (played with aplomb by Max Von Sydow, who steals every scene he is in).

Back in London, meanwhile, political intrigue abounds. As with “Elizabeth,” a double agent wangles his way into the chancellor’s seat, even as he plots with the French to divide England and invade, helped along by callow King John’s hubristic alienation of the country’s noblemen. How Scott weaves all these elements together, I leave for you to discover.

Suffice to say, the cinematography, horseplay, and excitement made me want to smash my smart phone, take up my bow and quiver, and retire to the woods to eat, drink, dance, and make merry.

Now THAT’s pure summer entertainment.

Every May, I turn off my thinking brain and go to the movies.

Why?

May marks the beginning of Hollywood’s summer season - action blockbuster time.

And I had high hopes for “Iron Man 2,” based on advance reviews.

With a musical score spotlighting AC DC and the Clash, and an all-star cast featuring Robert Downey Jr., Mickey Rourke, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, and - be still my heart - Scarlett Johansson. ‘Nuf said.

I know what you’re thinking. Anyone can see from the film’s trailer that “Iron Man 2” deploys every Hollywood industry stereotype and clichéd trope in the book: machismo on ‘roids, fast cars, stunts out the yinger, CGI overkill, curvaceous coffee-table babes, gratuitous cartoon violence, U.S. imperial dogma (read: the world is drop-dead dangerous and the best defense is a good offense) disguised as escapism.

The whole silly enchilada.

But who cares?

It’s summer time at the movies.

That said, I want U.S. imperial summer action fare – as mindless as it is - to be GOOD, damn it.

And, early on in the film, there were signs of promise.

Scarlett Johansson, for instance. Did I mention her already?

Garry Shandling, while not as eye-candy appealing as the actress I just mentioned above, does a passable job as the villain, too.

And, to be clear, Robert Downey Jr. carries the film as best as he can. Downey is an actor who does tongue-in-cheek camera hamming better than anyone in Hollywood. He plays bezillionaire playboy Tony “Iron Man” Stark, America’s #1 nuclear deterrent, with witty irony and a feeling, in this film, that his self-absorbed snarky narcissism is always on the verge of being swallowed by his own mortality. “I’ve successfully privatized world peace,” he humorously boasts in front of a Senate Armed Forces subcommittee, and then, a few moments later, confronts death-by-body suit full in the face. Favorite visual moment? Iron Man as the “Change Obama” icon on a poster that Stark hangs in his sumptuous bar. Sometimes Hollywood gets it right.

But alas, “Iron Man 2” is beset with casting and narrative problems, and they all materialize after the first fifteen minutes (which features an action scene at Monaco Grand Prix that is absolutely riveting).

Problem #1: Mickey Rourke. Magnetic in the film “Wrestler,” Rourke plays Ivan Vanko (a.k.a “Whiplash”), a Russian with metallic teeth and a grudge against Stark for causing the death of Vanko’s father. “If you can make God bleed,” Vanko says, “you can get people to cease to believe in him.” So far, so good. After a gripping initial confrontation between Whiplash and Iron Man at Monaco, though, the film relegates Vanko to little more than a computer programmer for – sigh – CGI-powered droid ‘bots, which are about as interesting as Stark love interest Pepper Potts’ (Gwyneth Paltrow) on-the-phone biz-yak convos in this film (though her verbal jousting with Stark is passably fun.) Why, in God’s good name, would you cast Mickey Rourke as potentially the coolest bad guy since Heath Ledger’s Joker, and then stick him in a white room in front of a laptop for the bulk of the movie? Nyet nyet nyet.

Problem #2: Don Cheadle is cast as Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes in the sequel. Big mistake. They should’ve stuck with Terrence Howard (See the original “Iron Man”), who is much less earnest and much more fun than Cheadle, and looks reasonably convincing in the Iron Man suit. Cheadle just looks plain silly, unlike Downey, who has figured out how to ham it up a bit. (Note to the casting department – replace Don Cheadle with Samuel L. Jackson - who plays Nick Fury in what is almost a cameo appearance) for the three-quel).

Problem #3: Scarlett Johansson. OK, so she’s a babe who speaks four languages in the film and wears a black jump suit as “Black Widow.” But she’s all business, to the point where she doesn’t even crack a hint of a smile the entire film. A shame. And, by the time she does bust out the black latex as Black Widow, it is only to flatten an entire room full of – brace yourself - middle-aged and balding security guards. Say what? Now, if Black Widow had gone up against Whiplash, with help from Iron Man…well, you get the idea. Another wasted set of narrative opportunities.

I really hope they give “Iron Man 2” director Justin Theroux the opportunity to direct a third “Iron Man” installment, so the man can redeem himself.

Sure, this film will drag in gajillions of dollars at the box office.

But for me, it will always remain “Iron Man, Part Duh.”

He has been called “the crown prince of the New Folk Movement” by Rolling Stone magazine.

He has toured all over the world for more than two decades.

His songs have been recorded by a wide range of musical artists in a diverse variety of genres.

And, after years of dangling carrots in front of him, our own Mad River Valley folk music impresario Bruce Jones, visionary founder of the Valley Acoustic Showcase, has finally convinced John Gorka to come and play at the Valley Player’s theater on Sunday night, May 16.

How good a songwriter and performer is John Gorka?

“Listening to John Gorka sing, one can get goosebumps all over,” observes The New York Times. “There are many reasons – fresh lyrics, a stunning emotional baritone voice, his twisted humor – but to focus on one limits the experience.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Check him out at www.johngorka.com.

I’ve listened to John Gorka for years, and seen him perform at festivals and venues all over the country. I never grow tired of the experience.

I think of Gorka as the Stephen Wright of folk music. He is wickedly funny in the most understated of ways, and almost deadpan on stage, but when he opens his mouth to sing, his voice – by turns haunting, melancholic, and wryly witty – captures the whole universe of human emotions in keenly observed turns of phrase. His mojo is hard to describe, really – Gorka must be heard to be believed.

And his writing is truly unique. Perhaps his most famous ballad is an old tune called “I’m from New Jersey,” in which he sings of the promise and peril of being a denizen of the Garden State.

A sampling:

I’m from New Jersey / It’s like Ohio
Only more so / imagine that.
Girls from New Jersey have this great big hair/
They’re found in shopping malls / I will take you there.

What makes Gorka a gifted songwriter is his ability completely empathize with his subject. He sings on a wide range of topics: war, love, peace, lust, and the often-wrenching changes the world brings to the unsuspecting, as is the case with one of his most powerful tunes, called “Houses in the Fields” (which I’ve heard him play on both the guitar and the piano):

They’re growing houses in the fields between the towns/
And the Starlight Drive-In Movie is closing down/
The road has gone to the way it was before/
And spaces won’t be spaces anymore.

His newest CD, entitled “So Dark You See,” delivers more of his trademark wit and wisdom voiced with his remarkable delivery. Only Gorka would dare to put an old Robert Burns poem to music, deliver an old Utah Phillips classic cover called “I Think Of You,” and then turn around and throw down a moving meditation on growing up in “Ignorance and Privilege,” in which he sings of the sacrifices Depression Era parents made for their sometimes-unappreciative progeny.

And if this review doesn’t convince you to see Gorka live, Bruce Jones has invited local up-and-comer Nikki Matheson to open the evening. Matheson has just finished recording a beautiful new CD entitled “Invisible Angel,” a project she started eight years ago while living in Paris, and has just finished with Vermont uber-producer Colin McCaffrey. You can listen to her at www.nikkimatheson.com.)

Two fabulous performers in our Valley on one spring evening.

Don’t miss it.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

U.S. officials want to go to war by invading another country.

Only problem? They don’t have a compelling reason.

So - they make one up by manufacturing “intelligence” and passing it off to U.S. “news” outlets, who dutifully report it as fact.

Nah.

Only in the movies, right?

You’re in luck.

High octane director Paul Greenglass (United 93 and the Bourne trilogy) teams up with Hollywood hot shot Matt Damon in a new “ripped from yesterday’s headlines” thriller that takes aim at the still-unanswered questions surrounding the Iraqi government’s alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction back in 2002.

Greenglass bases “Green Zone” very loosely on author Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s provocative and under-appreciated book The Green Zone: Imperial Life In The Emerald City, which painted an eye-opening picture of the plush pleasures that marked life for the U.S. imperial “worker bees” working to “build a new and more democratic” Iraq. But, in the interest of providing “getting butts in seats” entertainment, Greenglass takes tremendous liberties, shifting away from a focus on how U.S. Imperial elites transformed a once-sovereign nation into a giant military playground to protect U.S. geostrategic energy interests, complete with a dozen “enduring” (read “permanent”) bases and the gargantuan Bagdhad-based U.S. embassy, the biggest the world has ever seen - and towards the eye-opening journey of one honest U.S. officer (Matt Damon) who discovers that (brace yourself) the U.S. government lied its way into Iraq. “I came to find weapons and save lives,” he exclaims at one point. “I didn’t find shit!”

That’s about the size of it.

Greenglass’ timing of “Green Zone’s” spring 2010 release might be near-perfect, given that this month marks the 8-year-anniversary of the U.S. government’s invasion and occupation of modern Mesopotamia, with its enormous supply of fossil fuel energy reserves and convenient enemy-de-jour, Saddam Hussein (once a U.S. ally fighting Iranian Islamic fundamentalists back in the 1980s.)

Except for one thing.

Iraq, in the words of unembedded Middle Eastern independent journalist Dar Jamail, has become America’s “forgotten war,” all but gone from the coverage of what passes for “news” in U.S. mainstream media outlets. And yet, here is a major director and Hollywood actor (known for his progressive politics) re-visiting Iraq and the occupation’s opening moments. This, for me, was perhaps the most interesting twist in screening Green Zone, almost as if Hollywood has relegated the Iraq war (still very much in play) to the silver screen, history, and cultural memory, even as Greenglass, in interviews, states his hope that his film will revive an interest in Iraq that has flagged in recent months.

And Greenglass’ fictionalized story, told in his trademark compellingly disorienting “shaky-cam” style of quick-cut edits, tight camera work, and whip pans (heck, remove Damon’s G.I. garb, and we might as well be watching Bourne) is old news to any movie watcher who was awake and paying attention, as a citizen of our once-republic, to the fierce debates that raged throughout the years of the Bush/Cheney regime.

Remember?

When the U.S. government justified its post-911 mission of “Operation Iraq Liberation (OIL)”(I mean, “Freedom”) on the allegation that Saddam Hussein’s government possessed “weapons of mass destruction,” despite U.N. weapons inspectors’ (Hans Blix, Scott Ritter etc.) repeated assertions that the WMD threat had been neutralized? WMD, incidentally, was the most-oft-repeated phrase in U.S. “news” media coverage in the year leading up to the Iraq invasion, and has so completely disappeared from U.S. public discourse since, that hearing Greenglass’ characters utter “weapons of mass destruction” with such scripted seriousness is a painful reminder of the past 8 years of lies and illusion.

Slightly more encouraging, perhaps, in Greenglass’ film - at least in the “should art mirror life” department - is the fictionalized presence of a Wall Street Journal reporter named Lawrie Dayne, who Miller confronts while trying to get to the very murky bottom of the mysterious circumstances surrounding the elusive WMD. “How do you come to write stuff that isn’t true?” Miller asks Dayne, who admits she printed high level intel handed to her without any independently verified research. While a minor subplot in Green Zone, Dayne’s presence in Greenglass’ film reinforces the fact that major U.S. newspapers and high level “news reporters” - notably the New York Times’ Judith Miller - beat the drums for a U.S. invasion of the REAL Iraq, resulting in a Times-sponsored mea culpa after the damage had been done. At least the New York Times came clean.

Fast forward to now. Despite much talk of western-style “democracy” and “freedom” taking root in Iraq, the country is a mess today. A staggeringly high estimated one million Iraqis have died since the U.S. invasion, with at least 2 million wounded and displaced. Beyond the human toll, daily life for most Iraqis is abysmal, compared with life under the Hussein regime.

Perhaps Greenglass’ Green Zone will push thoughtful Americans into a reconsideration of U.S. foreign policy, or help stimulate some cautionary thinking as the Obama administration widens the war in Afghanistan and saber-rattles in Iraq. Then again, Americans are so conditioned to use movies as an escape that whatever lessons Greenglass and Damon hope to impart are lost in a staccato symphony of bullets - Firefight 101, Greenglass can do it in his sleep - at film’s end.

Daisy Mayhem! Getting “Ranky Tanky” in the Mad River Valley

Concert Details:
Sunday, March 28 at 10:30 am.
The Big Picture Cafe and Theater
$20 families / $5 individuals

Arts writer Rob Williams talked with Rani Arbo about their new “Ranky Tanky” CD, being a musician and a Mom, and their upcoming Spring Hill School fund-raising concert at the Big Picture.

Q: So Daisy Mayhem has produced three wonderful CDs - why a kids project?

Kid projects are de rigeur here now - the band collectively has four, ages 12, 9, 6, and 3 1/2. And four months, if you count Ranky Tanky, which gestated about as long as the rest of them did. As parents, we’re all tuned in to family life. We’re musicians, artists, carpenters, writers, recording engineers - but everyone’s main channel is still parenting. We love playing together as a band, we love hanging out with our kids - so why not make a soundtrack for all that fun? This band’s danceable, uplifting music has always appealed to kids, so we knew we could do a decent job of it. We have just changed the themes a little. Less love and death and more animals.

Q. What does “Ranky Tanky” mean? Is it some sort of “kids only” code phrase?

It’s the catchphrase in the album’s title track, a song from the Georgia Sea Islands called “Ranky Tanky,” also known as “The Old Woman from Brewster.” It’s a traditional children’s game - which we teach the audience - that involves moving your elbows, knees, hips (whatever we call out) and singing, “ranky tanky!”

Q. How did you go about selecting which songs to bring to the recording?

The answer is as varied as the songs. Some we’d already been performing at grown up shows - including “Ranky Tanky” and Tom Petty’s “Wildflowers.” Others were remembered from our own childhoods, like “The Green Grass Grows All Around,” or “Kind Kangaroo” (a lullaby Scott’s grandmother used to sing for him). Others were covers of songs we love - not necessarily children’s tunes, but perfectly suited to them anyway - such as “Purple People Eater,” Cat Stevens’ “If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” Nat King Cole’s “Kee-mo, Ky-mo,” or the Meters’ “They All Ask’d for You.” Still others were songs we sang to our own children. “Morningtown Ride” was Anand’s son Jack’s favorite lullaby for a while; I sang Quinn to bed with “Bushel and a Peck.”

Q. As you were making this CD, were you inspired by any other kids’ musicians?

Glad you asked, because I left two important covers off the list above. We are everlastingly inspired by Billy Jonas, a North Carolina-based percussionist who uses recycled materials - like Scott’s Drumship Enterprise, but on a much larger scale. Billy is also a guitarist and a brilliant songwriter for kids. He writes to their quirkiness, curiosity, and deep intelligence, with songs that are catchy, funny, and smart. We covered his “Bear to the Left” on Ranky Tanky. We also found (via YouTube!) a song from an LA-based duo, Renee and Jeremy, called “It’s a Big World, Baby.” We recreated it as a lush, gorgeous lullaby. It’s the last song on the CD, and it’s a heartstring-puller, reminding us that our wee ones are only “little for a little while.” My 6-year-old son calls it “the baby song,” and doesn’t like it one bit.

Q. What’s your favorite song on the project, and why?

I have two. One is the first track, Cat Stevens’ “If you want to Sing Out, Sing Out,” which is getting lots of play on Sirius XM Kids’ Radio right now. The song was used in the movie “Harold and Maude” (and thereby has gained us an odd collection of 30-40 year old male fans). We decided to record it, learned it, arranged it, and recorded it all in one day, and it still feels like one of the freshest songs on the CD. Plus, the message is just loud and clear: Be who you are. Sing Out. Be free.

My other favorite is “Where did you get that Hat,” which dates to a broadside published in 1901. I first heard it on a compilation of field recordings by Anne and Frank Warner, sung by Edith Perrin in 1941. She puts great character into her delivery, and Andrew did the song tremendous justice - all 30 seconds of it - with just a ukulele and his big personality.

Q. Some kids music is awfully saccharine - can we adults expect to like what we hear on your new project?

No artificial sweeteners. I will admit, though, that there are some arguably cute sing-alongs on Ranky Tanky. And that we do mention at least 25 different animals and one purple alien in the course of 17 songs. And, yes, we are earnest about having a great time. In the studio, we collapsed with laughter at the end of many of the takes, and some of that laughter (and all of that energy) stayed on the CD. But despite our earnestness, our life-is-good sensibility and our positive, sing-out-be-free attitude, Ranky Tanky isn’t syrupy. Or maybe it’s maple syrupy, but not Karo. The humor, the grooves, the camaraderie and the spontaneity of this CD feel too much like a party for that.

Q. Did the band bring any different musical mojo or sensibility to this project, as a kids project, or did you follow the same sort of recording process as you have with your other 3 CDs?

We planned less and we judged less. We had fewer preconceived notions and more fun. Perhaps that’s because this is a kids’ CD; more likely, it’s because it is our most recent CD. It has taken us years to learn, forget, and re-learn this lesson: the less you expect of it, the more a situation (or a recording) can just be what it is, what it’s meant to be. Not a bad metaphor for life, especially with kids…

Q. Can we expect you to play any other songs from any other of your albums (like, maybe, “Joy Comes Back” or “Finland”- wink wink, nudge nudge) during your Mad River performance?

I will give you your own personal concert of Finland, I promise! But it barely makes sense to even me, and it’s a real brooder….I think the kids would be totally nonplussed. We may do Joy Comes Back. If you request it, we will.

1% for the Planet may be one of Mad River Valley, Vermont’s best-kept secrets. Housed on the top floor of downtown Waitsfield’s old high school building on Main Street, the organization (which recently relocated to Vermont from southern New England) “exists to build and support an alliance of businesses financially committed to creating a healthy planet,” according to CEO Terry Kellogg. 1% serves as a global broker of good will on the planet’s behalf, linking profitable and socially responsible businesses that donate 1% of their annual sales to environmentally-focused organizations with a growing network of conservation-minded nonprofits (more than 1500 are now on the 1% roster) always on the lookout for new financial resources to expand their good work. To date, 1% for the Planet has 1100 companies in 38 countries contributing $50 million through the 1% network – not too shabby.

And, on the artistic front, 1% for the Planet has gotten into the music promotion business, recently releasing what may be the most remarkable musical compilation of the new year: a collection of 41 songs donated by musicians from around the world who support the organization’s work.

How did this ground-breaking musical project come about?

“We realize the power artists have to inspire,” explains Kellogg. “Pop star Jack Johnson was our fiftieth member; when he traveled on his ‘In Between Dreams’ tour we watched the phone ring off the hook, town-by-town, as he traveled around the world playing and sharing his sustainability message. Music rallies artists, fans, companies and nonprofits together; fans listen to an artist’s music and are inspired to get involved themselves,” Kellogg concludes. “The music compilation is an easy way to make a difference for anyone who loves good music.”

Or as one featured 1% artist, Spring Standards, humorously put it: “We were pretty sure that a compilation of songs by really smart scientists would suck, so we musicians are doing what we can to help out, and hope everyone else does the same.”

So when you buy the 1% for the Planet music collection – all the financial proceeds go to support 1%’s work.

And here’s the kicker: the 1% collection – all 41 songs - costs a mere $10.00.
It is easily the biggest bargain, musically speaking, I’ve seen (and heard) in a long time.
And, in keeping with 1%’s commitment to sustainability, the music is available online, through iTunes, Amazon, and other digital streaming sites. Even cooler? 1% has made an online “widget” available to any organization interested in promoting the 1% project, so other organizations interested in supporting the 1% message can help get the word out easily and effectively.

And the best part of all is the music itself.

True confessions.

It took me and my kids two weeks of “in car” listening before we finally pushed ourselves past the first five tunes to get to the next thirty six.
The opening songs were that good.

Here’s a quick audio run down.

The 1% Project opens with the incomparably gifted songwriter Josh Ritter of New York City singing “Great Big Heart,” a beautiful stripped down acoustic six-string ballad that must be heard to be believed. On track 2, Madi Diaz (one of the dozens of artists on this collection whom I had never heard of before) follows up with a bouncy toe tapping pop number called “Nothing at All,” (my kids’ current fave), while “Prodigal Son,” the collection’s third track, features Aidan Hawken performing one of the most hooky and haunting sonically interesting songs I’ve heard in years. Folkie Mason Jennings gruffly sings “How Deep Is That River” on track 4, with an unexpected musical up-tempo change up midway through the tune, while Mad River’s very own Grace Potter performs a beautiful ballad entitled “Til The Morning Comes Around” – just Grace and her acoustic guitar – on track 5. I was completely hooked by the time I heard the immediately recognizable voice of the 1% project’s biggest musical name, Jackson Browne, performing a live version of “About My Imagination” on track 6.

And the project goes on like that for another 35 songs. Truly incredible. Just a few other highlights: Birdmonster’s roadhouse-worthy rocker “Yuma” (track 18), Chris Velan’s brilliantly written “Sandpaper Shoes” (track 25), and Lori McKenna’s achingly soulful “Mercy Now” (track 28) were all standouts for me. But I have to confess to liking just about every single song on this project, and the mixing and mastering of so many different tunes into a single ear-appealing sonic collection was equally impressive, from a production standpoint.

In short, if you are an acoustic music lover of blues, folk, traditional, or Americana music, you can’t go wrong dropping a mere $10 to buy an entire library of new artists for your collection, while supporting Vermont’s newest socially-conscious nonprofit in the process.

Find out everything more you need to know at http://music.onepercentfortheplanet.org/.

And enjoy the experience of listening to these gifted musicians sing to help keep the Earth in business.

Maybe it is something in the water (or oil?), but American imperial pop culture suddenly seems to have taken over by some strange apocalyptic vision. Novels like M.T. Anderson’s Feed and James Howard Kunstler’s World Made By Hand; television shows like CBS’ “Jericho,” ABC’s “Lost,” and Fox’s “24;” and recent films like The Road, based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the deeply bleak but strangely compelling writer Cormac McCarthy all construct stories of a civilization teetering on the brink, or already engulfed in flames.

“Art mirrors life,” as the old saying goes, and sometimes, art even anticipates life, creating fictitious futures that, if grounded in some prescient or prophetic vision, may help us real-life denizens of this thing we call “reality” wrap our heads and hearts around the emerging realization that our new 21st century is shaping up to be very little like the 20th.

“The Book Of Eli” is such a film. Set in the not-too-distant future, the movie stars Denzel Washington as the aptly-named Eli/Walker, a lone and mysterious figure who makes his way westward against a blasted wasteland that once was American consumer civilization in all of its materialistic glory. Charred cars, blackened human bodies, emaciated kitty cats, collapsed bridges, the remains of KFC wrappers and mp3 devices – all the tropes of life after “The Flash” – are immediately brought to bear in scenes that look and feel very much like The Road. This post-nuke world is one Thomas Hobbes recognized: life is nasty, brutish and short, powerful men dominate, women are relegated to servants, sous chefs, and sex objects, and children seem completely absent. Lucky them.

Eli/Walker is well-equipped to cope with the frightening obstacles that immediately block his path as the film opens - most menacingly, marauding gangs of deformed men who pillage, rape, and kill at will. Turns out, Walker is handy with knives, bows, and guns – and proves his bad-ass mettle by dispatching two posses of bad guys in the film’s opening scenes with little more than a few whispered words and some well-timed martial arts maneuvering. Things get a bit more complicated, however, when Walker finds himself in a frontier town run by a sinister baddie named Carnegie (played with a bit of a smile by Gary Oldman). Carnegie serves as the town’s “mayor” (for lack of a better term), and works his will by – surprise! – physically abusing women, wielding threats through his organized gang of thugs, and verbally abusing his underlings. Ho hum. This has all been done before, and even Denzel Washington’s cool persona doesn’t quite kick in enough to keep the viewer from stifling a few yawns.

But then, things get a bit more interesting. Turns out, Carnegie is looking for a special book (hint: the Bible) that he believes will give him the power to restore civilization to the burnt-out landscape (in a brief but funny scene, we learn that The DaVinci Code doesn’t make the cut – when his men bring him several copies, Carnegie orders them all burned.) Eli/Walker is in possession of some sort of a book, as it turns out (See hint above), and Carnegie, deciding that this is the book he seeks, sets out to wrest the text from Walker, by femme fatale or force, if necessary.

How events play out I leave for you to discover. Suffice to say, though, in the Age of the Image, it is refreshing to have so much post-apocalyptic attention paid to, yes, a BOOK. While the film leaves this typography-might-save-humanity theme grossly underexplored, to its detriment, there are a few interesting surprises that unfold before film’s end. And it is somehow comforting to think that books – those tangible cultural, historical and even sacred artifacts that connect us with generations and civilizations that have come before, now ignored in a world of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube - might offer us some sort of continuity as we collectively move into what will surely be interesting times ahead.

And the film’s ending is actually worth the wait. To say more would ruin the surprises.

Can I get an Amen, brothers and sisters?

The opening scene of director Jason Reitman’s new film “Up In The Air” features a soulful yet deeply ironic version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” – accompanied by aerial shots of Anywhere, USA from 10,000 feet up. The familiar tune, repackaged tongue in cheek, is quickly followed by a quick-cut montage of newly-fired anonymous company employees – the white collar workers of a troubled U.S. economy - unpacking their souls in front of the camera.

Their attentive listener is Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a professional pink slip dispenser and occasional motivational speaker whose chief raison d’etre is to remain in perpetual motion, forever between places, time zones, and relationships. “To know me is to fly with me,” explains Bingham, who delivers “how big is your backpack” advice to rapt if road-weary conference attendees who quietly gather in random hotel conference rooms, when he is not deftly downsizing unfortunate white collar types in rapid-fire solipsistic sojourns to Dallas, Omaha, Miami, Chicago, and other cities from coast to coast. “I tell people how to avoid commitment,” he confides to the audience at one point.

“The Road” is Ryan’s home, and he much prefers a nomadic existence of permanent weightlessness as a so-called “transition specialist” - 270 days in flight - to the realities of living on the ground. Light on his feet, Bingham has made his peace with life “up in the air,” including a new-found occasional romantic rendezvous with a woman named Alex, a fellow “elite status” traveler, with whom Bingham enjoys witty verbal banter and casual sex. “Just think of me as yourself,” Alex explains to Bingham via mobile phone, “only with a vagina.”

All is well with Ryan Bingham and his quest to attain his goal of 10 million travel miles, until his world is rocked by a young and confident new consultant named Natalie Keener who convinces company management to embrace a “glocal” policy of “virtual downsizing” via tele-screen. Suddenly, Bingham’s bedouin-like suitcase-savvy happy-traveler world is turned upside down, but he sees an opportunity to educate Keener in the hows and whys of “making limbo tolerable” for newly-canned corporate
unfortunates. “I stereotype,” he explains to Keener in one of a dozen airports in the film. “It’s faster.”

Director Reitman has a knack for channeling the American cultural zeitgeist. His last film, “Thank You For Smoking,” arrived in theaters just as American public opinion turned on the tobacco companies in earnest. In a 21st century America marked by severe recession (we can’t use the “d” word - yet), massive job layoffs, and an uncertain future, “Up In The Air” explores difficult territory, especially when we hear the voices of those employees cast adrift by the impersonal vagaries of corporate misfortune (apparently Reitman captured interviews with the real-life downsized as fodder for the film.) And the arch-eyed, cynical, and slightly-off-kilter George Clooney, in his guise as Ryan Bingham of the Empty Backpack, is a near-perfect divining stick for channeling the mojo that infuses our post-modern Facebook-surfing, cellphone sporting civilization of yak yak, marked by euphemistic buzz phrases and a culture grounded in nothing but placeless-ness and shallow expressions of good will. “This is America, this is what we were promised,” one character confides to him toward the film’s end. “Oh, really?” Reitman seems to be asking.

And yet, oddly, Reitman manages some nods to our essential humanity here - in the drunken Cyndi Lauper karaoke, the perfunctory pillow talk via text messages, and his sophisticated if subtle sense that the transitory nature of “practicing protocol” might ultimately lead to something more lasting. “You have set up a life of permanent self-banishment,” Keener snarls at Bingham in one tense moment. Perhaps, and it is Bingham’s insistence on face-to-face firing over virtual axe-dropping that represents the last relational thread connecting him to his fellow man.

And in the real world of the U.S. Empire, with the airline industry in the throes of semi-permanent bankruptcy, job losses at 20 percent nationally, the federal government at the mercy of the Big Banksters, and the specter of Peak Oil knocking on the door, “exploring our options,” as Keener so happily phrases it, and turning to our neighbors and friends for deliberate community building on the ground, may be our best collective step forward, a more realistic 21st century alternative to life “up in the air.”