Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics. This is the last in the series as they Rutland travelers have now…

Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics. This is a story about how the power and beauty of an eco-village…

Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics. If, as most of us know, “Boots on the Ground” is the measure…

Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics. I sat with Ricardo Perez, DDS and orthodontist for beers at Manne’s, a…

Before we get to a sampling of the many unique things to do in Greater Playa, let’s have simple orientation to the city Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series…

Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years. This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics.  Approaching Thanksgiving of 2020, when I was a month out from retirement, after 45…

A bucket list victory Submitted Kölsch is a Danish electronic dance musician and DJ from Copenhagen. Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years.  This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont…

Editor’s note: Bruce Bouchard, former executive director of The Paramount Theatre, and his partner Maureen McKenna Padula have traveled from Rutland to the Riviera Maya for the past three years.  This series covers adventures, food, and testimonials from Vermont to the tropics.  While researching and preparing for our fourth consecutive winter journey to our beloved Playa…

By Bruce Bouchard ‘Die Beste aller Welten’ — ‘The Best of All Worlds’: feature, narrative fiction, Germany, 2017. For those of you who remember and had the nerve for the breakout indie drug-nightmare film, ‘Trainspotting,’ which launched the careers of director Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor, we are straight up in that world in this…

By Bruce Bouchard For four years, I was a screener for the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. A number of these films are now available on streaming platforms. It is my hope that film lovers will find the time, dig in and enjoy some of these treasures. This stunning documentary film, “Man Made,” will make some audience…

By Bruce Bouchard “Fail State” is a high-end, seriously endowed, uber-professional product that could easily be on Prime Time. It has had a prior life at 10 film festivals, a sleek piece of brilliant, carefully and thoroughly researched documentary filmmaking — this film is first-rate and is a gut punch.  The subject is the corrupt…

By Bruce Bouchard I was greatly looking forward to David Fincher’s “Mank” and was resoundingly disappointed. Fincher’s trademark tension (of which he is a master) was totally missing here, birthing cinematic lethargy throughout.  Black and white was a strong period choice, but from the opening credits to an unearned and forced climax, he is hellbent…