FINAL DESTINATION 5
Because the quality has been noticeably, if not altogether damagingly, dipping with each new installment, there was reason to expect Final Destination 5 to be the horror series' most tired and underwhelming entry to date. Yet like some long-running TV series that suddenly finds new life after years of going through the motions, this fifth in the popular Death-has-been-cheated-and-he's-pissed franchise is a terrific return to sick-joke form, the most enticingly queasy and legitimately funny Final Destination since the second outing in 2003.
THE CHANGE-UP
Theatre
Quad City Music Guild's new production of The Music Man - the Meredith Willson classic running August 5 through 14 - stars husband and wife Christopher and Erika Thomas as romantic leads Harold Hill and Marian Paroo. And just to be clear: Yes, the couple knows how close to nauseatingly adorable it is for them to be playing these roles opposite one another.
As befits a musical based on the biblical book of Genesis, Children of Eden starts In the Beginning. Yet in discussing the Timber Lake Playhouse's current presentation of the show, it seems more appropriate to start at the end, because the curtain call - arriving more than two-and-a-half hours after the opener - appears to be one of the few sequences in which the performers understand exactly what's expected of them.
COWBOYS & ALIENS
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
THE TREE OF LIFE
Music
There may be some of you who hear the title King Lear and, knowing only of the play's reputation as the mack daddy of all Shakespeare tragedies, immediately presume that any evening production of the piece will last well into the next morning. Allow me, then, to quell your fears: Saturday's Genesius Guild staging of the Bard's opus began promptly at eight o'clock, and after the night's presentation had concluded, I was back in my car by 10:55.
