How is it that Tom Hanks portrayed Mister Rogers only last year and has already landed in the role of someone just as upstanding, decent, and effectively communicative with children?

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is vital as a recorded piece of American-theatre history, and absolutely indispensable as a Chadwick Boseman farewell. Like Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, Boseman won't win an Academy Award next spring because he died. He'll win because he was likely going to win regardless.

You kind of have to feel bad these days for David Fincher fanatics who genuflect at the brutal, testosterone-fueled altars of Seven and Fight Club and, to a lesser degree, Zodiac. They finally get their first new Fincher feature since 2014's Gone Girl, and it turns out that in order to even slightly enjoy the director's Mank (which premiered on Netflix this past Friday), they're required to have a pretty healthy working knowledge of Citizen Kane.

A timeless holiday classic is set to get an immersive and unforgettable makeover at Davenport's Outing Club from December 4 through 13, with the professional talents of Ballet Quad Cities delivering their brand-new yuletide offering The Nutcracker in a Round – a series of holiday dance vignettes that employ Tchaikovsky's legendary The Nutcracker as inspiration, but pay tribute to that ballet in never-before seen, or heard, ways.