THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS

Romantic dramas for adults have been so infrequent this millennium that it sometimes seems they appear only when studios feel the need for another generally laughable Nicholas Sparks adaptation, which makes it hard, in The Light Between Oceans, to know whether to swoon or chortle when – honest to God – a woman accepts a marriage proposal by saying, “Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes!” (I was sure that line had been put out to pasture after the demise of vaudeville.) Yet writer/director Derek Cianfrance is nothing if not sincere, occasionally to his detriment, and his take on novelist M.L. Stedman’s period romance is serious-minded, thematically resonant, and, at times, emotionally devastating in ways that the Sparks oeuvre almost never is. It’s the film’s second-half plot contrivances, and the unfortunate arm-twisting that accompanies them, that routinely bring Sparks to mind.

MUSIC

Thursday, September 1 – Savage Master. Louisville-based rockers in concert, with an opening set by Angelust. Rock Island Brewing Company (1815 Second Avenue, Rock Island). 8 p.m. $10. For information, call (309)793-1999 or visit RIBCO.com.

Friday, September 2 – Trippin’ Billies. Concert with the Dave Matthews Band tribute musicians, with an opening set by Jason Carl. Rock Island Brewing Company (1815 Second Avenue, Rock Island). 8 p.m. For information, call (309)793-1999 or visit RIBCO.com.

Friday, September 3, and Sunday, September 4 – Labor Day Benefit Fest. Fundraiser for Center for Worker’s Justice in Eastern Iowa, with sets by Endorsed, Staghorn, Dowsing, and more than a dozen additional bands. Rozz-Tox (2108 Third Avenue, Rock Island). $6-12. For information, call (309)200-0978 or visit RozzTox.com.

Saturday, September 3, and Sunday, September 4 – The Travoltas. Annual outdoor Labor Day-weekend concerts with the disco and pop musicians. Rock Island Brewing Company (1815 Second Avenue, Rock Island). 8 p.m. For information, call (309)793-1999 or visit RIBCO.com.

HELL OR HIGH WATER

Jeff Bridges has given so many fantastically lived-in, and just plain fantastic, screen performances over nearly a half-century that picking out his best is a true fool’s errand. Yet if pressed for his most entertaining one, I’d be tempted to go with Bridges’ drunken sharpshooter Rooster Cogburn in 2010’s True Grit, which would make his portrayal of Hell or High Water’s Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton – more sober than Rooster but equally funny, marble-mouthed, and moving – a close second.

BEN-HUR

The first words heard in the new remake of Ben-Hur are delivered in voice-over by – wouldn’t ya know it? – Morgan Freeman, meaning that the quality of director Timur Bekmambetov’s biblically themed epic is up in the air from the start. Will this be another Shawshank Redemption? A Million Dollar Baby? A March of the Penguins? A War of the Worlds? A Love Guru? A Hillary Clinton DNC bio-video?

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the movie, like Freeman’s vocal-track record, is similarly all over the place – sometimes lugubrious and laughable, sometimes powerful and exhilarating, sometimes merely blah. It’s hardly a threat to the legacy of 1959’s Ben-Hur and its record-setting 11 Oscar wins. But on the rare occasions that Bekmambetov’s unnecessary outing works, it works thunderously well, and either way we’re spared the monolithic orating of Charlton Heston, which is a plus right there.