For the third year in a row, the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities bring their considerable talents outdoors in the company's latest incarnation of Ballet on the Lawn – a trio of August 28 performances at Davenport's Outing Club that will deliver, as artistic director Courtney Lyon states, “mostly all-new pieces. Which is surprising to me, because at first I thought, 'Oh, we'll kind of ease into the season … !' But somehow, we decided to instead do new pieces, or pieces that haven't been on stage for a long time, so they're all new to the dancers.”

As a movie lover/reviewer who's been at this a lo-o-ong time, it should go without saying that I almost never see a film anymore that I'd consider calling my new all-time favorite. But every now and then, I do see films that I'm pretty certain will be somebody's new all-time favorite, and director David Leitch's comedy thriller Bullet Train absolutely feels like one of those titles.

In his first outing as a feature-film writer/director/star, B.J. Novak does a lot of very smart things in Vengeance; while I've enjoyed a bunch of movies this summer, none of them has been the low-key, completely unanticipated surprise that this comedic thriller proves to be.

For the first time since the organization's inception more than 60 years ago, the traditional end-of-summer comedy presented by Genesius Guild is not being written by Guild founder Don Wooten. Running July 30 through August 7, the company's latest comedic revamp of Aristophanes' The Frogs is instead being written, and directed, by T. Green and Calvin Vo. And if you're aware of the pair's accomplishments both on and off the Guild stage in Rock Island's Lincoln Park, you'll likely agree that the hiring choice is truly inspired.