19 Mar 2014

Hail to the Queen: "Queen of the Blues" Shemekia Copeland, March 28 at St. Ambrose University

By Mike Schulz

Shemekia CopelandAs the daughter of the late, Grammy Award-winning blues guitarist Johnny Copeland, and herself the winner of six Blues Music Awards, it would be safe to describe 34-year-old vocalist Shemekia Copeland as blues-music royalty. In 2012, during a performance at the Chicago Blues Festival, she even became royalty (of a sort), when Copeland was presented with Koko Taylor's tiara and officially proclaimed "Queen of the Blues" by the City of Chicago.

So when you see the track listings for Copeland's most recent CD - 2012's 33 1/3 - and notice that they include covers of Randy Weeks' country hit "Can't Let Go," Bob Dylan's folk hit "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight," and Sam Cooke's R&B hit "Ain't That Good News," you might think the album was designed as the singer's chance to, at least momentarily, escape the blues. Copeland, however, would respectfully disagree.

"I never want to get away from the blues," she says during our recent phone interview promoting her March 28 performance at St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center. "That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm a blues singer and proud. Extremely proud. But I just feel that blues is ... . Blues is the root of everything. I mean, what is country but blues with a twang? What is rock 'n' roll but blues with loud guitars?

18 Mar 2014

What's Happenin': Thursday, March 20, through Wednesday, April 2

By Mike Schulz

Jen ChapinMusic

An Evening with Jen Chapin

The Redstone Room

Friday, March 28, 7 p.m.

 

The final resident in Quad City Arts' 2013-14 Visiting Artist series is Jen Chapin, who graduated from Brown University with a degree in international relations; taught full-time in the Brooklyn school system; continues to lead educational workshops for college, community, and church groups; and will educate hundreds of area students before performing her public concert at the Redstone Room on March 28. Oh, and you know the phrase "Those who can't do, teach"? It's such a load.

16 Mar 2014

Stale Magnolias: "Tyler Perry's The Single Moms Club" and "Need for Speed"

By Mike Schulz

Nia Long, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Zulay Henao, and Cocoa Brown in Tyler Perry's The Single Moms ClubTYLER PERRY'S THE SINGLE MOMS CLUB

In Tyler Perry's new movie, a quintet of women with seemingly nothing in common beyond their single-parent status decide to ... .

I'm sorry. Can we stop for a moment? Tyler Perry has another new movie?! Is the yuletide corpse of A Madea Christmas even cold yet?

09 Mar 2014

Get Her to the Greeks: "300: Rise of an Empire," "Mr. Peabody & Sherman," and "Titans of the Ice Age 3D"

By Mike Schulz

Eva Green in 300: Rise of an Empire300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE

No movie that opens with Gerard Butler being beheaded, even off-screen, can be all that bad, and so maybe I shouldn't be surprised by the not-so-bad-ness of director Noam Murro's 300: Rise of an Empire. I still am, considering how little fun I had at Zack Snyder's smash-hit predecessor from 2007, yet personally speaking, it's not hard to identify what makes this CGI-heavy bloodbath an overall better time - a much better time - than 300. But we'll get to her momentarily.

04 Mar 2014

What's Happenin': Spring 2014

By Mike Schulz

Whitey MorganMusic

Rock Island Brewing Company

March through May

 

This spring, the Rock Island Brewing Company is going to be a little bit country, a little bit rock 'n' roll ... and yet, despite my continued pleas to management, Donny & Marie are still not on the docket. (Those of you under 40 may want to ask an elder to explain that joke.)

04 Mar 2014

What's Happenin' - All-Quiz Edition!: Thursday, March 6, through Wednesday, March 19

By Mike Schulz

Amadeus TrioMusic

Amadeus Trio

Augustana College

Saturday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.

 

On March 15, the latest guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artists series will present their public concert at Augustana College's Wallenberg Hall, and all I can say to that is: Rock me, Amadeus! Or rather: Chamber-music me, Amadeus! (With apologies to Falco for rescinding the plug.)

03 Mar 2014

The End of the Oscar Racists. Er ... Races.: Notes on the 2014 Academy Awards Telecast

By Mike Schulz

producer/director Steve McQueen and team members from Best Picture 12 Years a SlaveLast night, at the tail end of her opening monologue, Academy Awards emcee Ellen DeGeneres took a moment to acknowledge the year's tight race for Best Picture, and stated that "anything can happen" regarding the evening's biggest prize. "Possibility number one: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture," she said. "Possibility number two: You're all racists."

Which, it turned out, was a possibility voters were not willing to face.

01 Mar 2014

Airport '14: "Non-Stop" and "Son of God"

By Mike Schulz

Liam Neeson in Non-StopNON-STOP

Every Academy Awards season, the idea of adding a Best Casting category appears to gain some traction among film journalists and professionals. (This past autumn saw the limited release of a documentary - Tom Donahue's Casting by - devoted to the subject, and Woody Allen, whom one would've thought indifferent to the Oscars at best, even wrote an open letter to the Hollywood Reporter in support of a casting trophy.) I'm personally fine with restricting the ceremony to the two dozen categories we do have, but if such recognition were to be included, voters could do worse than to consider Amanda Mackey and Cathy Sandrich Galfond - casting directors for the enjoyably ludicrous Non-Stop - for the prize. To be sure, it doesn't take much wit to suggest that Liam Neeson play a grieving alcoholic with a bad temper and a gun. But casting, as two beleaguered flight attendants, 12 Years a Slave's abused slave Patsey opposite Downton Abbey's rigid Lady Mary? Now that's witty.

23 Feb 2014

Are You Not Entertained?!: "Pompeii," "3 Days to Kill," and "Winter's Tale"

By Mike Schulz

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Kit Harington in PompeiiPOMPEII

About a half-hour into Paul W.S. Anderson's Pompeii, the film's protagonist - a gladiator-turned-slave amusingly named Milo - hears the unfamiliar sound of the nearby Mount Vesuvius preparing to erupt. "It is the mountain," says Milo's comrade Atticus. "It grumbles from time to time." So do movie reviewers, and this latest 3D action spectacle by the director of Mortal Kombat, Death Race, and a trio of Resident Evil flicks would, at first glance, appear to be exactly the sort of thing I'd personally grumble about: a predictably corny, derivative, overscaled costume party with loads of generic violence and nothing in the way of subtlety or emotional nuance.

Yet while it's easy to name the movie's most direct influences, Gladiator and Titanic chief among them, what I didn't at all expect was for this swords-and-sandals outing to be so thoroughly, cheerfully indebted to 1970s disaster epics in the vein of The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure; Pompeii, to its cheeky credit, is kind of like 1974's Earthquake with the ancient Roman city cast in the role of Los Angeles.

19 Feb 2014

Voting Like a Voter: Predicting, and Preferring, the 2014 Academy Award Winners

By Mike Schulz

Michael Fassbender and Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years a SlaveWhen it comes to the films and individuals that win Academy Awards, it's easy to get defensive, and even a little pissy, about voters' collective choices. "How could those people ever vote for ______," you find yourself asking, "when ______ is so obviously better? Don't they have any integrity at all?!"

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