07 Oct 2025

Mo' Poe: Ballet Quad Cities Reunites with Edgar Allan in “More Twisted Tales of Poe,” October 17 and 18 at the Spotlight Theatre

By Mike Schulz

Even in the world of dance, it's not surprising when a successful original inspires a sequel, and on October 17 and 18, a Halloween-themed one comes to Moline's Spotlight Theatre in the form of Ballet Quad Cities' More Twisted Tales of Poe.

04 Oct 2025

Lord of the Ring: “The Smashing Machine,” “Anemone,” and “Good Boy”

By Mike Schulz

In recent years, it was starting to look as though Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was no longer capable of genuine screen rapport with anyone. Turns out he very much is. Maybe he just needed a true kindred spirit to share some with.

29 Sep 2025

Revolutionaries' War: “One Battle After Another,” “The Strangers: Chapter 2,” “Dead of Winter,” and “Eleanor the Great”

By Mike Schulz

What do you get when you give $130-175 million to a filmmaker who, after nearly 30 years in the business, has never helmed a blockbuster, or even a movie that grossed more than $41 million domestic? If you're Warner Bros., which granted a nine-figure budget to Paul Thomas Anderson, you probably get all sorts of happy, because the writer/director's new screwball epic One Battle After Another is going through the roof in every imaginable way. Better still, it deserves to.

22 Sep 2025

Past Tension, Present Tense: “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey,” “Him,” “The Senior,” and “The History of Sound”

By Mike Schulz

Director Kogonada's and screenwriter Seth Reiss' self-help session in the guise of cinema gives you no reason to believe in it, and despite their geniality, we consequently can't believe in Margot Robbie and Colin Farrell, either.

21 Sep 2025

“Haus of Ruckus Live!”, September 27

By Mike Schulz

After four years, nearly a dozen full-length productions, random special events, and a few Random Access Morons, the Haus of Ruckus team of Tee Green and Calvin Vo is bidding us adieu – for the time being – with Haus of Ruckus Live!, a one-night-only presentation in which the comic duo and their cohorts will perform live for the first time. Again.

13 Sep 2025

Finishing Touches: “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale,” “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues,” and “The Long Walk”

By Mike Schulz

Little of actual import happens in either Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale or Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, two sequels – and theoretically climactic ones – to culturally beloved properties that happened to debut on the same day. (Had they arrived one week earlier, the films could've shared an opening weekend, and made an unofficial three-fer, with The Conjuring: Last Rites.) It's doubtful, though, that their fan bases will complain much.

07 Sep 2025

Warren Baity: “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” “Highest 2 Lowest,” and “Twinless”

By Mike Schulz

Now that the series' third, purportedly final sequel is upon us, am I going to miss Ed and Lorraine Warren, the blissfully married paranormal investigators who've been shepherding the Conjuring movies – and who've been warmly played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga – since the horror franchise debuted in 2013? Yes and no, I guess.

02 Sep 2025

Thorns in Their Sides: “The Roses,” “Caught Stealing,” “The Toxic Avenger,” and “The Thursday Murder Club”

By Mike Schulz

If you're a fan of the 1989 marital slapstick The War of the Roses, which has to rank among the nastiest and funniest black comedies ever released by a major Hollywood studio, the opening minutes of director Jay Roach's and screenwriter Tony McNamara's re-imagining The Roses are both enormously satisfying and preemptively disappointing.

25 Aug 2025

Honey Funny Runny Money: "Honey Don't!," "Eden," "Relay," and "It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley"

By Mike Schulz

As a way of acknowledging the brief time they'll likely stay in theaters, here are brief ruminations on four all-but-abandoned late-August titles, in escalating order from not-awful to actually-pretty-great.

18 Aug 2025

Bob and Peril and Dread and Malice: “Nobody 2,” “Americana," and "Shin Godzilla"

By Mike Schulz

Because I'm predisposed to love Bob Odenkirk in anything, it says something about the man's unique charisma that I even managed to like him in Nobody 2, a comedic action thriller that falls apart in nearly every conceivable way.

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