Hello dear readers -

I’m off to China through June 17.

Feel free to follow our China adventures at our CHINA MOJO blog.

Thanks for your support, friendship and interest.

Late May.

Must be summer time, or close to it, here in Vermont.

Unchain the season of the mindless action movie blockbuster!

And what better way to usher it in than with “X Men”?

Here’s what some of our local REEL REVIEW consultants had to say about the latest X-Men film:

“The film is not going to prime the pump for date night,” notes Jed Kalkstein, “but X Men can’t be beat for a night with the lads.”

“X Men’s predictable cycle of heart-pumping action scenes made it feel like an interval workout from a seated position,” explains Terry Kellogg.

Translation? Two thumbs up.

And yes, Aussie uber man Hugh Jackman is back as James Logan/Wolverine, in the latest installment of the lavish and hugely profitable cartoon franchise.

How did James Logan become the tortured spike-sporting keen smelling anti-hero we know and love? The film purports to answer this question,

Gone are all of Wolverine’s mutant sidekicks from the first films. Instead, the focus of the story is Logan almost exclusively - we see Wolverine grow up in a culture of endless war, recruited by a mysterious character named Stryker to join an elite government killing team staffed by bad-ass dudes with special powers. We also meet Wolverine’s brother Victor/Saber Tooth, played by a menacing but surprisingly engaging Liev Schreiber, who gets all o the film’s few toss-away one liners. “You never call, you never write,” he says to his long lost brother just before they mix it up.

Back up a minute: After six years of retirement as a Rocky Mountain lumberjack (by day) bedding a bodacious schoolteacher (by night), Logan is dragged back into the fray by Stryker, complete with dog tags stamped “Wolverine,” as “weapon X,” tricked out with a bonded ademantium-reinforced skeleton. The excruciatingly painful process goes awry, but Logan is saved by the kindness of an old farming couple. (Once again, farmers save the day.)

From here, things get much more exciting, if confusing, and I’ll save the twists and turns for you, dear viewer, to discover. Suffice to say, this is a big, sprawling messy film - rough around the edges. The action scenes are sloppily shot, the narrative arc shoddily constructed, the special effects poorly assembled, the acting compellingly mediocre. Very few funny one liners, either - a staple of summer action blockbusters. And I really missed Patrick Stewart (wait until the very end) and Ian McKellan - their absence left a void that no one really filled here.

Worse, maybe, is the complete absence of any of the interesting ethical questions - how does any society handle individuals who differ from the rest of us? - that made the other X Men films marginally relevant to real life. Passing trash talk about “preemption” and “our country needs you” rhetoric doesn’t even ring, let alone ring true. And watching Logan and his bad boy broher tear down the neighborhood is fun, but grows old after a while.

The X Men franchise has had a good run - but it will take learning from this film’s shortcomings to revitalize the genre if and when they make the next one.

Most likely when.

Here’s the trailer for “State of Play.”

(Video disabled by request.)

First, a confession and a digression.

I confess that I hated the ending to this film, an utterly unsatisfying conclusion that gives the phrase “cop out” a new and pathetic yardstick. If I weren’t committed to nonviolent secession, I’d suggest that the scriptwriter be water boarded by the same U.S. government officials who seem to continually advocate the practice for the “evil doers” here in what we call “real life.”

That said (and I now digress), you know a new Hollywood movie exploring the unfolding train wreck that is 21st century U.S. mainstream journalism (against a backdrop of government and corporate corruption, no less!) may turn out to be reasonably engaging when said film’s opening sequence features a tune by Newfoundland party boy band “Great Big Sea” - and not just any tune, but their iconic “Paddy Murphy,” one of the best drinking songs ever penned and performed.

No surprise, perhaps, as GBS front man Alan Doyle and actor Russell Crowe are, in fact, drinking buddies. And Crowe is the front man in “State of Play,” acting as Cal McAffrey, a “Washington Globe” newsman as disheveled and unkempt as the 21st century news business itself. McAffrey represents Hollywood’s mythologizing of the prototypical “courageous and enterprising journalist” – think Woodward and Bernstein meet Edward R. Murrow without the tie and smokes. McAffrey seems principled, meticulous, and driven, working out of a tiny office cubicle surrounded by faded newspaper articles – code for the anachronistic print-driven media and a dying (so the pundits moan) 21th century industry. Oh, and he also has a sign on his desk that reads “Never trust an editor.”

McAffrey’s desperate publisher, Cameron Lynne, (a sneeringly capable Helen Mirren) has newspapers to peddle, and new headlines in the form of a breaking story involving the murder of senator’s “aide” Sonia Baker that may be the next salacious (and saleworthy) crisis de jour. Senator Stephen Collins (a wooden Ben Affleck) is the politician in question. Turns out, he’s an old friend of Crowe’s investigating the “Defense” Department’s outsourcing practices to private corporations doing business in Iraq and Afghanistan. (This would never happen in real life, of course.). The mysterious death of Collins’ assistant, and his very public emotional reaction to the news, raises immediate red flags for those paying close attention, including an enterprising young “Capital Hill” blogger named Della Frye (actress Rachel McAdams, and true to stereotypical form, she is young, perky and easily excited.) The crusty McAffrey does not think highly of Internet-driven journalism, we soon learn. “Was Collins sleeping with Baker?” Frye asks McAffrey early on in the investigation. “I’d have to read a couple of blogs before I form an opinion,” McAffrey snaps in response.

Collins, his staffers, and his estranged wife fire up damage control by making a public statement and engaging in desperate acts of P.R. (“padding, platitudes, and fluff,” McAffrey grumbles at one point). McAffrey, meanwhile, is on the case, doing what good investigative journalists are supposed to do: asking questions, following leads, making calls – “All the President’s Men” stuff. His conclusion? Corporate conspiracy. His skeptical publisher buys him some time – and suddenly McAffrey and Frye are working together on the murder. “This is a real story,” McAffrey says to her before they part ways. “It doesn’t require an opinion.”

Got it?

The film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, gives us plenty of twists and turns, just enough “through the newsroom looking glass” shots of suspense, and a much-needed “conflict of interest” critique involving war profiteering, mercenaries-for-hire, and private defense contractors, a story not enough real U.S. daily newspapers of record have found the time and wherewithal to cover. (A second digression - read independent journalist Jeremy Scahill’s book on “defense” contractor Blackwater-turned-Xe if you are looking for a primer.) “State of Play” also raises larger questions about the state of 21st century U.S. journalism’s ability to serve as a “watchdog,” given what is at stake.

And what is at stake?

In the film, our actors of conscience speak of $30-40 billion annually – the so-called “Muslim Terror Gold Rush” involving the for-profit privatization of Homeland Security in the name of prosecuting the
“war on terror” – the war, remember, that Mr. Cheney told us would not end in our lifetimes.

In real life?

Well, I guess we’ll have to wait for the New York Times to tell us, eh?

Or seek out the dozens of independent researchers (and yes, many of them are well-researched bloggers with, brace yourself: facts) who are already telling this story, the gist of which involves the life and death of the U.S. republic itself.

But sadly, this gets lost with the film’s surprise ending.

I left the theater with my head in my hands.

Got Twitter? - Round Barn Chef Charlie Menard Hosts the Very First “Tweet Up” in Mad River Valley’s History

Ashton’s doing it.

Oprah’s doing it.

Britney’s doing it.

And more and more Vermonters are doing it.

The “it” in question is “Twitter,” of course, a new, popular and free Web 2.0 micro-blogging application that allows its users to build networks of “followers” who email each other 140 character messages about a whole range of topics of their choosing, ranging from the now-cliched “I had pancakes for breakfast – yum!” variety to breaking news about swine flu (“Hamthrax,” in one Twitter-led joke) and the latest local and national events (Seven Days journalist Shay Totten “tweeted” the entire legislative gay marriage hearing a few months ago, allowing his followers easy access to up-to-the-minute debates as they unfolded).

Critics are quick to call Twitter an epistemological train wreck, the latest example of a culture that has lost its mind to simplistic and silly trivialities. But Twitter users will tell you that the application is simply another fun and creative way to communicate, something the human animal never tires of doing.

One devoted Twitter user is Round Barn chef Charlie Menard (http://twitter.com/roundbarnfarm), who has organized the Mad River Valley’s very first “Tweet Up,” a fun foodie-driven event organized entirely through Twitter, to be held at the Round Barn on Wednesday, May 27 from 5-8 p.m.

“My interest in Twitter at first was pure curiosity,” explains Menard. “Once I started to find people with similar interests and to follow their tweets, I began to realize the power of community building that Twitter and social networking in general has.”

A “tweet” is simply a 140 character message send through Twitter. Popular “tweets” are “re-tweeted” by other Twitter users in their networks, amplifying the power of the message - in some cases, exponentially.

But of what value is Twitter to a Vermont chef?

“The Food community on Twitter is fantastic in general, and the Vermont “foody” presence is really amazing,” Menard explains. “You can get all sorts of news by following foodies—restaurant reviews, what a chef has just prepared for tonight’s special, what produce is coming out of gardens across the state, and of course the latest minute-by-minute news from events like the James Beard Awards.”

So what exactly is the purpose of a “Tweet Up”?

“The Tweet up is a mixer of sorts, an opportunity for our community to build and strengthen ties to our online neighbors, and a chance to meet the Tweeps behind the Tweets,” says Menard. “I know that there are some people that believe the future of Vermont is in its food. If we’re going to achieve that potential, we need to be a competitive presence in people’s lives and we also need to find a way to keep our young people in Vermont. I am truly inspired by the online community and I think that embracing the possibilities it offers will help us move forward.”

Find out more about Twitter at www.twitter.com.