THE SECRET LIFE OF PETS

Considering it doesn’t demonstrate any real ambition outside of providing 90 minutes of goofy, disposable family fun, the act of criticizing The Secret Life of Pets is almost literally like kicking a puppy. But while its pluses mirror those of many 21st Century efforts of its kind – sensational animation, a zippy pace, famous comedians voicing animals, yadda yadda – it’s hard not to see directors Yarrow Cheney’s and Chris Renaud’s outing as a bit of a blown opportunity, given that it keeps hinting at a potential greatness it seems forever uninterested in pursuing.

In an appropriate touch for the raucous stage party that is Rock of Ages, its opening-night performance came with cake – a large sheet cake celebrating Artistic Director Jim Beaudry’s 100th production at the Timber Lake Playhouse. It was presented, to his surprise, at the tail end of Beaudry’s pre-show announcements, and the touching tribute by Executive Director Dan Danielowski elicited for its recipient a deserved standing ovation. But there was an added fillip of comedy when Beaudry revealed, to much laughter, that the cake’s photo decoration of him performing in West Side Story was actually from a West Side Story Beaudry did in New York, not Mt. Carroll, making the evening’s prelude funny, thrilling, endearing, and just a little bit awkward – not unlike June 30’s Rock of Ages itself.

THE SHALLOWS

Unless you’re in the ocean and one is heading directly toward you, dorsal fins, thanks to Jaws, are inherently funny/scary. So is director Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows, in which Blake Lively finds herself tormented by a shark for close to an hour and a half. I’ll offer further plot synopsis, but that’s pretty much it. It’s Blake Lively, and a shark, and about 90 minutes – and happily, the star, the fish, and the film’s length are all just what you want and need them to be.

Music

Anthony D’Amato

Redstone Room

Thursday, June 30, 7:30 p.m.

In singer/songwriter Anthony D’Amato’s Web-site biography, we learn that when the Americana musician was on his way to an introductory meeting with famed record producer Mike Mogis, he accidentally overturned and totaled his rental car. Near the end of his tour for 2014’s Mogis-produced album The Shipwreck from the Shore, D’Amato broke his finger, and played the final two shows hopped up on Advil. In the video for “Golden Gloves” from his June 17 release Cold Snap, we find D’Amato getting repeatedly punched in the face by passers-by wearing boxing gloves.

I’m not suggesting that Anthony D’Amato is accident- or fistfight-prone. But when you see the acclaimed artist’s June 30 concert at Davenport’s Redstone Room, you may want to think about sitting in the back. You know, just in case.