We have a real innovator, fearless journalist, and talented filmmaker now living and producing content right here in the Quad Cities. His documentary films have been watched by tens of millions of people worldwide. He has over one hundred thousand followers on multiple social-media and content platforms. He's been interviewed by the New York Times, Vanity Fair and Esquire magazines. I'm talking about Jason Bermas, who is featured on the cover of this September edition. In light of the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 travesty and the subsequent accelerated plunge America took into a police state, we would be remiss if we did not re-visit one of the creators of Loose Change and Fabled Enemies, the 9/11 documentary films first released from 2005 through 2009.

Some interviews just write themselves. That rarity occurs when the interviewee is powerful and knowledgeable, relevant, compassionate, accomplished, fun, and most of all, a complete original. Hmmm … you mean someone like Jason Bermas, the independent journalist and documentary filmmaker? Exactly! 

Please see the companion piece to this article, Have Our Freedoms Fallen Faster Than the Third Tower on 9/11? by Reader publisher Todd McGreevy. And, please see the Reader's coverage of Loose Change from 2006, The Secret Histories of 9/11. 

Lauded by TV Guide as “passionate” and by Awards Daily as “groundbreaking,” the documentary hit Kiss the Ground serves as the latest presentation in River Action's annual QC Environmental Film Series, the movie's September 12 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum sure to demonstrate why the New York Times raved that the work “inspires a rare feeling of hope.”

On September 19, the German American Heritage Center's series of virtual Sunday-afternoon programs gets musical when the Davenport venue hosts the online program Gender & Activism in German Hip Hop, a fascinating and insightful look at current European trends presented by doctoral candidate Amy Makota.

Described by the New York Times as “a girls'-night-out retro rebellion” and praised by DC Metro Theater Arts for its “knowingly cheeky attitude” and “witty, often rapid-fire lyrics,” the Disney-princess musical-comedy spoof Disenchanted! enjoys a September 15 through November 6 run at Rock Island's Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, with this new stage work, according to Chicago Critic, full of “fun music and even funnier characters [that] will have you laughing all the way to the palace.”

An iconic rock legend and 2015 inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joan Jett – accompanied by her longtime band the Blackhearts – brings her national tour to Davenport's Adler Theatre on September 19, the multi-platinum-selling “Queen of Rock 'n' Roll” revered for such seminal hits as “Bad Reputation,” “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” and the chart-topping smash “I Love Rock 'n' Roll.”

A chart-topping country-music superstar who released his debut EP a mere six years ago, Kane Brown brings his acclaimed “The Worldwide Beautiful Tour” to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on September 18, with the 27-year-old singer/songwriter the first artist to have simultaneous number-one hits on all five main Billboard country charts.

Boasting a half-dozen of the most gifted jazz musicians from the Chicago aea, the Karli Bunn Sextet serves as the latest featured guests in Polyrhythms' Third Sunday Jazz Series, with the group's September 19 concert at Davenport's Redstone Room showcasing the remarkable skills of saxophone player Bunn and several alumni from Northern Illinois University.

An introduction to the martial-arts master and eventual world-saver who debuted, in comic-book form, in the 1970s, Destin Daniel Cretton's MCU outing is prototypical origin-story world-building to its teeth, but not entirely unenjoyable.