documentary film series begins with 'King Corn'

So, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis have just graduated from college—Yale, no less—and are heading out on the quintessential cross-country road trip. What could possibly break their youthful sense of invincibility and limitless potential? Reversing the motto “if you can’t beat them, join them,” Cheney and Ellis move from Boston to Iowa to grow an acre of subsidized corn from genetically modified seeds and attempt to trace it in the American diet. Their findings, as documented in “King Corn,” showing in Exeter on Friday, raise troubling questions about farming and feeding in America.

The Muddy River Smokehouse is leaving its restaurant location in Eliot, Maine, after eight years, to become the Roundabout Diner and Lounge in the former Bickfords building off the Portsmouth traffic circle. Their barbeque and catering will continue to be offered at the 1950s style retro diner featuring American classics.