INSIDE JOB

You might not think that director Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, the newly (and deservedly) Oscar-nominated documentary about 2008's global economic meltdown, would offer much in the way of participatory, audience-goosing entertainment. After all, this isn't exactly a Michael Moore doc we're dealing with here. Employing dozens of lucid, well-reasoned interviews with financial experts and reams of statistics and graphs, Ferguson's strong, angry, yet level-headed explanation of our current financial crisis is the polar opposite, in temperament and tone, of a Fahrenheit 9/11 or Capitalism: A Love Story. But while the experience of the impeccably photographed, sharply edited Inside Job is a mostly dead-serious one, damn but my audience appeared to have a good time at it - or, perhaps it's more appropriate to say, a cathartic time.

[Author's note: In the 11 days since this article was first published, a number of generally reliable pre-Oscar-nomination indicators have seen the light, including the nominees for several guild awards and the British Academy of Film & Television Awards (BAFTA), and the overall mood of the rooms during the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes ceremonies. Consequently, with less than 40 hours to go before the Academy Awards nominations are announced, I've changed my official predictions in a number of categories. Let's see if I turn out to be smarter or stupider in the wake of my last-minute changes! My new picks, along with some commentary, will follow the originally published predictions.]

No novelty with a newly expanded field of 10 nominees for the big prize. No ex-spouses dueling for the Best Director trophy. No nutty, left-field Best Picture contenders along the lines of Star Trek and Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Hangover. Where's the fun in reading predictions about this year's field of Oscar nominees?

Why, in the possibility of Mike falling flat on his precognostic face, that's where!

Dance

Max Pollak & RumbaTap

Galvin Fine Arts Center

Saturday, January 29, 7:30 p.m.

Described by the New York Times as "wittily phrased," "groundbreaking," and "essentially a full-bodied experience," the Reader's What's Happenin' pages are ... .

Fine. Those Times quotes aren't in reference to the What's Happenin' pages. I can't get anything past you, can I?

But they are in reference to the latest area guests in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist series: the gifted hoofers and musicians of Max Pollak & RumbaTap. Appearing at St. Ambrose University's Galvin Fine Arts Center on January 29, this acclaimed ensemble will wow crowds with its unique, exhilarating blend of Latin and jazz rhythms, and will do so, in part, with the aid of an instrument that we all have immediate access to: the human body.