Despite the movie topping the summer-of-2015 box-office charts and grossing some 1.67 billion worldwide, it appears that many of Jurassic World's salient details completely left my brain the moment I completed my review. I realized this after returning to said article in preparation for my Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom critique, and discovering that many of elements I was planning to diss this time around were elements I already knocked three years ago: the slavishness to Spielberg, the presentational sameness, the lack of genuine scares, the tired cliché of the first character killed off being a person of color. In fairness, the new film kills off a black guy and a white guy simultaneously, which I guess is this series' idea of progress, but still … . What was left to bitch about?

Quite a bit, actually. But in a not-unhappy surprise, very little of it matters, because while Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom may be stupider than its predecessor, it's also a lot more fun.

With his most recent release Big Bad Luv described by PopMatters.com as an album that “can hold its own next to any of the great Americana-tinged rock 'n' roll records of the past,” singer/songwriter and acoustic guitarist John Moreland and his full band perform a July 3 concert at Maquoketa's Codfish Hollow Barn, the Moeller Nights event showcasing an artist Farce the Music decreed “gloriously and joyfully heartbreaking.”

Described by Glide magazine as “a self-assured powerhouse” who “will knock your socks off with her smart, unpretentious rock and roll,” the Nashville-based Ruby Boots performs as the headliner in a June 29 Moeller Nights concert, demonstrating why LouderSound.net lauded her “artfully scruffed alt-country songwriting” and “powerful, versatile, wide-open voice.”

An iconic group of chart-topping, multi-platinum-selling rockers from England serve as headliners for the District of Rock Island's annual, outdoor Rock the District concert on June 29, with the late-June heat given extra sizzle by the post-grunge musicians of Bush led by founder, lead vocalist, and rhythm guitarist Gavin Rossdale.

Winners of two Grammy Awards, five Academy of Country Music Awards, and six Country Music Association Awards, the chart-topping Sugarland duo plays a June 29 TaxSlayer Center concert on the musicians' “Still the Same Tour,” treating fans to beloved hits – including “Baby Girl,” “All I Want to Do,” and “It Happens” – from more than a decade of recording and sold-out amphitheater events.

The familiar sounds of “Peggy Sue,” “Maybe Baby,” “Oh Boy,” “Everyday,” and many other iconic '50s-rock hits will fill the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse on June 28 and 29, with the Rock Island venue presenting two performances of the exhilarating touring production That'll Be the Day: A Tribute to Buddy Holly & the Crickets with headliner Todd Meredith, the star of Circa '21's 2008 musical Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story.

Every summer, the Quad Cities is blessed with an extensive live-theatre scene, and the months are crowded with show after show. Many of them are epic or extravagant productions such as Mame, The Marriage of Figaro, Beauty & the Beast, The Bridges of Madison Country, The Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ Superstar … and those are just examples from the first half of June.

But then there are the smaller, more intimate ones. Presentations of works that you’ve maybe never heard of. Things that sound interesting but are overshadowed by bigger, more well-known titles. Shows such as the Black Box Theatre’s musical offering Baby – which may well prove to be the sweetest, most heartfelt, and most authentic musical you’ll see all season long.

Life is tricky with Trixie, considering she’s a toddler who communicates only in gestures and gibberish. Such is the premise of the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse’s absolutely delightful children’s show Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical.

According to a recent Capitol Fax/We Ask America poll, Democrat JB Pritzker leads Republican Governor Bruce Rauner by nine points, 36-27, with 26 percent choosing an unnamed third-party candidate and 11 percent undecided. In other words, slightly more people said they preferred third party and/or were undecided than supported the frontrunner Pritzker.