One of the few professional perks to the pandemic hitting when it did was that I had an excellent excuse to avoid reviewing several spring-of-2020 titles I was quietly dreading, among them the computer-animated Scoob!, an update on the numerous Scooby-Doo series I didn't enjoy even as a kid. As if to punish me for my relief, however, director Tony Cervone's movie opened this past weekend at both local cineplexes and both area drive-ins, all but forcing me to finally cave and watch the damn thing. So I did. It was actually pretty good. I suppose I had that coming.

While there are certainly more noxious performance traits than an obvious, incessant need to be loved, Billy Crystal expends so much energy strong-arming us for adoration and sympathy in this sentimental dramedy that I occasionally found it hard to even look at him. At least Tiffany Haddish is on hand to occasionally make the guy look good – and by “good,” I really mean “less insufferable.”

Returning to Davenport's Figge Art Museum for a unique live performance held in conjunction with a hugely popular exhibit, the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities deliver original choreography with wide-ranging themes in For America, a May 6 celebration of dance and art specifically inspired by works in the museum's For America: 200 Years of Painting from the National Academy of Design.

Honestly, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. But while heading toward the cineplex auditorium housing the non-rom-com Together Together, I found myself walking about 15 feet behind a couple whose conversation practically brought me to (happy) tears.