KICK-ASS

Considering that its climax finds 46-year-old actor Mark Strong beating the holy hell out of 13-year-old Chloë Grace Moretz - who was 11 during filming - I didn't hate the comic-book adaptation Kick-Ass the way I thought I would. I actually hated it in a completely different way.

For many, LeClaire resident Danielle Colby-Cushman is best known as a co-star of the History Channel's hit reality series American Pickers, and the office manager for the city's collectibles shop Antique Archeology.

Yet for some, she's perhaps better-known as the director/founder of, and a featured artist in, the area's only practicing burlesque troupe, for which Colby-Cushman performs comedy routines, dances, and (yes) removes her apparel under the stage name Dannie Diesel.

And for those who have either not heard of this unique company of entertainers - performing at Davenport's Capitol Theatre on April 24 - or are unsure of what it is they do, Colby-Cushman offers an example, taken from troupe member Birdie Belleville's 2009 striptease debut.

CLASH OF THE TITANS

For pure, unadulterated pop kitsch, it's hard to top 1981's Clash of the Titans, in which a blow-dried Harry Hamlin, as Perseus, waged war against the Greek gods while a glowering Laurence Olivier, as Zeus, gnashed his teeth from high atop Mount Olympus. And while I'm not suggesting that director Louis Leterrier's remake of this legendary swords-and-sandals extravaganza actually does top it, the not-so-guilty delight of his new version is that it stays remarkably faithful to the original's spirit; it, too, seems content merely to serve up a tasty helping of cinematic junk food - trash wrapped in cheese. With its blend of legitimately spectacular encounters and (I hope) intentionally retrograde visuals, this Clash of the Titans never pretends that it's anything other than a silly, instantly disposable good time, and consequently, can be easily enjoyed on its own, happily unpretentious terms.

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE

Early in director Steve Pink's new comedy, miserable fortysomethings Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Lou (Rob Corddry) decide to cheer themselves up with a weekend retreat to the beloved ski lodge of their youth, taking Adam's similarly downbeat nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) along for the trek. In the 24 years since the friends' last visit, the lodge has turned into a weathered dump. But their old room still has a jacuzzi, and after a debaucherous night of liquor, cocaine, and bubbling hot water, the four men awaken, and gradually discover that they've been magically transported to 1986. Gazing at the agent of this disruption with the space/time continuum, Nick says, "It's like some kind of ... hot tub time machine." And then, with the slowest of head movements and the deadest of deadpans, Nick turns and stares down the camera, as if to say, "Are you freaking kidding with this?"