Movie lovers with a firm grasp of recent(-ish) film history can show off their smarts when Bettendorf venue The Tangled Wood hosts 2000s Movies Trivia Night, a May 18 event in which area cinephiles are invited to trade their knowledge for cash prizes while answering questions on cinematic works in the decade of Erin Brockovich, There Will Be Blood, The Dark Knight, and Up.
This feature lists all headlines with links to the articles by date/time published online by Quad Cities-area media outlets and the state-politics sections of the Des Moines Register and the State Journal-Register.
The life and accomplishments of Quad Cities namesake will be showcased in Bettendorf Public Library's latest virtual presentation in its popular “Community Connections” series, with local historian Gena Schantz, in the May 20 program George Davenport & the Founding of the Quad Cities, tracing Davenport's many careers and examining how he adapted his talents to serve and foster the development of the communities that surrounded him.
Delivered as part of the Davenport Public Library's virtual 3rd Thursday at Hoover's Presidential Library & Museum programming, the May 20 Zoom webinar Iowa's Communal Utopias will find Peter Hoehnle delivering a sweeping overview of different attempts by Iowans to create their own form of utopia featuring the Iowa Pioneer Phalanx, Salburia, the Icarian Communities, the Clydesdale Colony, Communia, and, principally, the Amana Colonies
One of the most horrific periods of modern history will be explored through unique and specific avenues when Davenport's German American Heritage Center hosts the virtual program Fashioning Women in the Third Reich, in which award-winning historian Irene Guenther, on May 23, will look at the rise of fascism through the fascinating prism of couture.
Governor JB Pritzker has vetoed only a tiny handful of bills since assuming office in 2019 and has taken a mostly hands-off approach to this year’s spring legislative session. But that may soon change.
The state legislators negotiating the new, massive energy-reform bill were said to have made real progress at their Tuesday working group-meeting last week.
The inspector general’s report on the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs LaSalle Veterans’ Home is a maddening story of incompetence and chaos at every level.
The state’s fiscal news of late has been a whole lot better than just about anyone expected. March’s base general-funds revenue grew by $422 million versus a year ago, mainly because of stronger-than-expected receipts of personal and corporate income taxes and sales taxes. That follows a growth of $330 million in February’s receipts. The revenue surge has been so rosy that some have openly wondered whether Governor JB Pritzker was telling the truth last year when he warned voters that failing to approve a graduated-income tax, which would’ve eventually produced $3+ billion a year in new revenues, would result in budget-cuts or higher taxes.
Illinois Senate Majority Leader Kimberly Lightford really has her work cut out for her if she wants to forge a compromise on an elected Chicago school board.
Described by Broadway World as “a musical so jam-packed with hits that it's almost overwhelming,” the toe-tapping, soul-lifting revue Beehive: The '60s Musical enjoys a late-spring/early-summer run at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, this infectiously entertaining salute to female pop, rock, and soul singers lauded by DC Metro Theater Arts as “a big-hearted, well-accomplished, utterly tuneful joy.”
Some of the most memorable and beloved tunes from the worlds of theatre and movies will receive delightful virtual interpretations from May 21 through May 23, with the Coralville Center for the Performing Arts presenting the original musical revue The Show Must Go Online, a student-performed collection of hits from students of the venue's theatre program Young Footliters.
Reviews by Jeff Ashcraft, Patricia Baugh-Riechers, Audra Beals, Pamela Briggs, Dee Canfield, Kim Eastland, Emily Heninger, Heather Herkelman, Paula Jolly, Victoria Navarro, Mark Ruebling, Mike Schulz, Joy Thompson, Oz Torres, Brent Tubbs, Jill (Pearson) Walsh, and Thom White.
Area theatre is back, and a beloved series is serving up some good ol’ Midwestern wholesomeness in The Church Basement Ladies in You Smell Barn at the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse. This musical comedy was simply the perfect way for the venue to reopen in the wake of last year’s COVID-19 restrictions, and my husband and I had the privilege of attending Friday’s opening-night performance. It was fabulous.
Accompanied by an entire repertoire of jazz standards and iconic pop hits, a 2005 graduate of Rock Island High School returns to the Quad Cities when the Matt Barber Trio plays a live concert event at Davenport's Grape Life Wine Store & Lounge on May 28, an evening that will find Barber and his longtime touring musicians performing classics from the five albums he has recorded since 2007.
Once again, thanks to Bandcamp’s region-based search, I've happened upon an inexplicable pocket of highly technical metal nestled somewhere along the riverbanks of the Mississippi, this time courtesy of Davenport-based shredder Austin Korth. If the material he has here is any indicator, his self-proclaimed quest to "play and record as much music as possible" (as per his Bandcamp bio) shows plenty of promise for idiosyncratic Quad Cities home recording.
Whoa! Before discovering this gem on Bandcamp, I had no idea that living legend Mike Watt, the bassist and co-guiding force of seminal independent punk progenitors Minutemen and a whole host of other great projects from the '80s and beyond, had a duo with an Iowa-based musician – Iowa City’s jack-of-all-trades songwriter/singer/multi-instrumentalist Samuel Locke Ward (a.k.a. SLW). As you might expect from anything in Watt’s orbit, it rips.
Perhaps you’ll be surprised to learn that William Campbell, the composer of the film’s spectral, gorgeous soundtrack resides right here in lovely Davenport, Iowa – and that this isn’t even his first film to receive an Academy Award nomination, the first being 2018's Lifeboat. Quad Cities representing!
The rate at which prolific musicians in the Bandcamp era can churn out new material on a short notice will never cease to amaze me. The idea of an “album cycle” in which an artist drops one album a year, or even less frequently, and spends the time between proper releases promoting and performing based around one album’s material still exists in the upper echelons of the music industry.
While there are certainly more noxious performance traits than an obvious, incessant need to be loved, Billy Crystal expends so much energy strong-arming us for adoration and sympathy in this sentimental dramedy that I occasionally found it hard to even look at him. At least Tiffany Haddish is on hand to occasionally make the guy look good – and by “good,” I really mean “less insufferable.”
It turns out that the preview goosing us with the promise of Incredibles-esque fun isn't at all necessary, because TMvtM proves so clever, so exciting, and so consistently riotous that it already feels like a computer-animated comedy classic. It's literally been years since I've laughed so hard at a movie, and I didn't even need a crowd of equally delighted cineplex patrons to keep me roaring – though I sure wouldn't have minded one.
Honestly, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But while heading toward the cineplex auditorium housing the non-rom-com Together Together, I found myself walking about 15 feet behind a couple whose conversation practically brought me to (happy) tears.
One of the most popular recent series for binge-watching will be explored, and critiqued, in a special virtual presentation on May 20 with the Figge Art Museum's hosting of Why Did “Bridgerton” Erase Haiti?, Dr. Marlene L. Daut's webinar discussion of her article of the same title that examines the black aristocracy present in Haiti during the English Regency era, and how the Caribbean is often ignored by historical costume dramas such as Netflix's Bridgerton.
On May 20, Figge Art Museum members are invited to hop on a computer and travel south in the virtual tour Across America: Crystal Bridges – an online visit to Bentonville, Arkansas' Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art where participants will learn about their art, sculptures, architecture, and Frank Lloyd Wright House that was moved to this location all the way from New Jersey.
One of the largest and most moving exhibitions yet to be housed in Bettendorf's Beréskin Gallery & Art Academy, the exhibit Wells of Inspiration (on display through May 27) will boast photographs by Willie Herath and portraits by students connected by the water crisis in Africa and the humanitarian efforts of Moline nonprofit Wells 4 Wellness.
As home to one of the largest collections of Haitian art in the United States, the Figge Art Museum is set to celebrate its vast assemblage of beautiful, evocative, fascinating pieces in Haitian Masterworks, an arresting exhibition, on display through May 30, that focuses on prevalent themes in Haitian art including spirituality, transformation, the natural world, everyday life, and Haitian history.
In the 11th installment of the venue's latest group exhibition, the artistic talents of 42 students from area colleges and universities will be on display in the Figge Art Museum's College Invitational (through June 6), a showcase of techniques and mediums including drawing, painting, collage, printmaking, clay, digital illustration, silkscreen, mixed media installation, and found materials.
"We're the River Cities' Reader, and we've kept the Quad Cities' only independently owned newspaper alive and free since 1993.
So please help the Reader keep going with your one-time, monthly, or annual support. With your financial support the Reader can continue providing uncensored, non-scripted, and independent journalism alongside the Quad Cities' area's most comprehensive cultural coverage." - Todd McGreevy, Publisher
You'll get a rundown of What's Happenin' along with your keys to the Quad Cities' culture.
With your one-time, monthly, or annual contribution, the Reader can continue providing uncensored, non-scripted, and independent journalism alongside the Quad Cities area's most comprehensive cultural coverage.
