25 Oct 2005

Shakes-peerless: The Prenzie Players' "Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will"

By Mike Schulz

In the Prenzie Players' hugely entertaining production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: Or, What You Will, there's an encounter so heart-stoppingly strong that it might be the single most effective stage moment I've witnessed all year.

25 Oct 2005

Closing Out of Town

By Mike Schulz

Citing "the cost of film rentals and insurance" and "really low" attendance, Mike Reid, director of the Open Cities Film Society, announced that the organization was discontinuing its New York City Film Series at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, nine weeks and eight films ahead of schedule.

25 Oct 2005

"North Country" - For the Easily Outraged: Also, "Domino"

By Mike Schulz

Frances McDormand and Charlize Theron in North CountryNORTH COUNTRY

At a serious, well-intentioned "issue movie," you will periodically hear from a sect of the audience whom I refer to as the tsk-ers. Tsk-ers are especially vocal at works in which the leading figure - always righteous and noble, and prone to suffering in silence - finds him- or (generally) herself experiencing painful hardships in the cause of Doing the Right Thing, while their families, friends, and the world at large all turn against them.

18 Oct 2005

St. Ambrose University's "Urinetown": So Funny I Almost...

By Mike Schulz
Since St. Ambrose University's production of Urinetown at the Galvin Fine Arts Center has already closed, there's probably not much point in a review. So consider this a thank-you note instead. I had more fun at the school's production of this 2001 musical comedy than I have at nearly any other entertainment I've been to over the past few months. The show was terrifically staged and, almost across the board, vibrantly performed, but most inspiring of all, the audience was truly alive to it; Urinetown smashes the understood conventions of musical theatre to smithereens, and the Friday night crowd appeared positively delighted that it did. The show was a risk, and one that paid off big time.
18 Oct 2005

Almost Heinous: "Elizabethtown" and "Two for the Money"

By Mike Schulz

Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom in ElizabethtownELIZABETHTOWN

After a reportedly disastrous screening at the Toronto Film Festival in September, Cameron Crowe trimmed some 18 minutes from his latest project, Elizabethtown, before its national release on October 14. Of course, I never saw Crowe's Toronto cut, so I can't venture a guess as to what scenes wound up getting the boot. But having seen the finished project, I'm thinking that the loss of those 18 minutes was in no way satisfactory - to be honest, I'm not sure which scenes Crowe should have left in. For Elizabethtown is, in almost every respect, shockingly weak, so tonally incorrect and irrationally pleased with itself that it left me a little dazed. How could Crowe, who has made such wonderfully humane, marvelously detailed comedies, have gone so far afield?

11 Oct 2005

Richmond Hill Plants a Not-Bad "Seed"

By Mike Schulz
The Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's production of Maxwell Anderson's The Bad Seed is entertaining stuff, yet you might not believe more than a few words of it. The sincerity that director Jalayne Riewerts gives the piece is admirable, but also a little misguided, because the show often aims for penetrating insight and forgets why audiences love The Bad Seed in the first place - not for its psychology, but because of the inherent fun in watching an eight-year-old sociopath get away with murder.
11 Oct 2005

You Wanna See Something Really Scary ... ?

By Mike Schulz
A nighttime walk through a haunted house? Scary. A nighttime walk through an unfamiliar forest or abandoned, ramshackle building? Scary. A nighttime walk through a haunted house set in an unfamiliar forest or abandoned, ramshackle building? Freakin' terrifying.
11 Oct 2005

Acting Trumps Presentation, and Here's the "Proof": Also, "In Her Shoes," "The Greatest Game Ever Played," and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit"

By Mike Schulz

Gwyneth Paltrow and Jake Gyllenhaal in ProofPROOF

Most cinephiles detest filmed versions of plays, with their awkward exposition, stagy dialogue, and functional, assembly-line characters who serve their purpose within the author's conceit and exit just in time for another character to show up and do the same; oftentimes, you can all but see the proscenium arch hovering overhead.

04 Oct 2005

Laughing All the Way to the Blood Bank

By Mike Schulz
Local author and Davenport native Michael McCarty, who will be a guest lecturer at Rock Island's Midwest Writing Center this Saturday, has spent more than a decade conducting interviews with some of the biggest names in fantasy and horror.
04 Oct 2005

By Georges!

By Mike Schulz
For some musicians, the idea of performing in a tribute band full-time, and in full costume, no less, would be a depressing proposition. Why devote time, talent, and energy to the presentation of someone else's hits? Michael Fulop and Marty Scott, though, wouldn't have it any other way, and if you had the chance to portray George Harrison for adoring Beatles fans on a nightly basis, you might feel the same way.

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