FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS

Modern romantic comedies are in such generally dismal shape that I feel ungrateful for wishing that Friends with Benefits were better than it actually is. But while it's impossible to fully dislike any movie that finds a nitwit shrieking "John Mayer is our generation's Sheryl Crow!" or features a couple making a solemn vow on the Bible app of the woman's iPad, I left director Will Gluck's latest thinking that the film had just missed its mark. And that, after two frequently hysterical features in a row (2009's Fired Up!, Gluck's directorial debut, and last year's Easy A), its helmer had just missed his trifecta. Damn it.

Music

Corrosion of Conformity

Rock Island Brewing Company

Friday, July 29, 8 p.m.

On July 29, the Rock Island Brewing Company will host a special concert with the acclaimed heavy-metal band Corrosion of Conformity. Which, ironically, is also our office's name for "weekly Reader staff meeting."

When attending a detective spoof with the title Red Herring, you probably shouldn't expect its storyline(s) to hold together in a way that makes much sense, and Michael Hollinger's farcical noir seems particularly all-over-the-map; somehow, in 130 minutes, the play's author squeezes in adultery, bigamy, murder, treason, neutron-bomb testing, the McCarthy hearings, a show-tune-loving Soviet, and a top-secret microfilm stashed in a block of Velveeta.

I had an utterly fantastic time at Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of The Drowsy Chaperone, director Bob Williams' high-spirited and hysterical presentation of the long-running Broadway hit. Yet I'm embarrassed to say that I may have inadvertently missed 10 of its most entertaining minutes, because I made what was, in retrospect, a terrible mistake: I left the auditorium during intermission.