This year’s Academy Awards air on the evening of February 26, a night likely be dominated by a certain musical that’s set in Hollywood. Earlier in the day, though, you can enjoy a completely different batch of tunes from California talents with the Quad City Arts Visiting Artists of Quinteto Latino, who perform at Davenport’s First Presbyterian Church that Sunday at 4 p.m. Based in the San Francisco area, this five-person ensemble is dedicated to showcasing the energetic rhythms of Latin American music through works both traditional and modern, and will no doubt deliver an electrifying performance in the hours before the inevitable love thrown toward La La Land. Which, if memory serves, translates into English as The The Land. (That faraway sound you hear is my collegiate Spanish professor cursing my name.)

In its blatant attempt to revive a scare-flick “franchise” that couldn’t even produce a second sequel, director F. Javier Gutiérrez’s Rings probably won’t make 2002’s The Ring and its 2005 follow-up relevant again, but the results are better than I expected – by which I mean the first 10 minutes are actually pretty good.

Murderers is author Jeffrey Hatcher’s blanket title for his trio of monologues suggesting Twilight Zone episodes written by O. Henry, and in its current presentation at Moline’s new Black Box Theatre, our first sight is of monologuists Brent Tubbs, Nancy Teerlinck, and Lora Adams standing in a row, each in turn stating, “I am a murderer.” So give director Adams’ production honesty points right off the bat, because for 100 minutes on January 28, these three actors positively killed.

Nominees for the 89th Annual Academy Awards were announced this morning.

Well, that’s not exactly true.

It turns out they weren’t announced so much as revealed, because for the first time since the yearly nominations became an early-morning PR event several decades ago, contenders weren’t recognized in front of a gathered crowd of journalists and publicists. Instead, the news was delivered in a slick, 20-minute online presentation that also featured reminiscences from former Oscar nominees and winners such as Brie Larson, Glenn Close, and Terrence Howard, with Gabourey Sidibe wisely suggesting that when this morning's nominees eventually attend the ceremony, they should be sure to sneak in a flask. (That’s good advice for those watching from home, too.)