A doc can get away with an unexciting, even bland presentation so long as the story it tells captures and holds your interest, and directors Mila Aung-Thwin's and Daniel Cross' 2014 documentary Atanasoff: Father of the Computer kept me interested, and quite invested, through the whole of its too-short 45 minutes.

With the professional company's annual, yet all-new, presentation of Love Stories – being staged at Davenport's Outing Club on February 10 and 11 – audiences for the 2023 edition will be treated to a little bit of everything: classical dance, modern dance, lyrical dance; Bach, Debussy, Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet. But while the performances come with either a served dinner or desserts available for purchase, Artistic Director Courtney Lyon has has another food reference for what patrons can expect: “It's kind of like a buffet,” she says. “You get to try to a lot of different things.”

While the announcement itself provided a bunch of welcome confirmations and surprises, as well as the obligatory less-welcome ones, the most gratifying thing about the roughly 20-minute presentation of Oscar nominees was our again being able to hear in-the-moment gasps, whoops, and even, for one category, laughs with the lists of names and titles. Especially titles. But we'll get to that.

Blockbuster sequels to 13- and 36-year-old films nominated for Best Picture with no correlating nods for directing, acting, or writing, An independent release cited for directing, acting, and writing nods with no corresponding Best Picture acknowledgment. The most nods of the year – 11 in all – awarded to a foreign-language remake that debuted on Netflix. Welcome, folks, to my official, inevitably misguided attempts at predicting the January 24 Oscar nominations!