Starting this week, Elizabeth Tai, a rabid consumer of television and film in various languages, meets readers in an occasional column called Popculture Vulture, where she praises or rages at the latest showbiz affairs.

IT’S the kind of story Hollywood didn’t need in recession-strapped times: X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the blockbuster that was supposed to start the wave of 2009 summer movies, was leaked online on March 31 – a month before its world premiere. (It hits screens in Malaysia on April 29.)