From its first minutes, this slapstick by directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein is the complete opposite of a disappointment – a cleverly plotted, utterly riotous comic adventure with no agenda beyond delivering a great time, which it does with almost disarming confidence and skill. I don't want to review the film so much as send it a thank-you note.

The latest guest musician and educator in Quad City Arts' Visiting Artist Series, the noted pianist, composer, recording artist, and former Black Hawk College instructor Corey Kendrick will meet with area students and also perform locally in a pair of concerts on March 6 and 9, treating audiences to the talents that led Downbeat Magazine to call Kendrick a “very accomplished, highly gifted jazz pianist,” and IDigJazz.com to deem him “a dynamic interpreter of standards.”

Described by NoDepression.com as an artist who “will charm the pants off you, even when he's bummed,” the alt-country rocker Cary Branan performs a March 6 Moeller Nights concert in support of his most recent album Adios, which inspired Pitchfork.com to write, “Branan's latest set of countrified rock tunes may be his best to date,” finding “the right balance between audacity and subtlety, between humor and heartbreak.”

Performing what Acoustic Guitar magazine described as an “exhilarating all-acoustic swirl” of bluegrass, hip-hop, and gypsy jazz, the North Carolina-based Jon Stickley Trio plays Davenport's Redstone Room on March 2, sharing invigorating tunes that finds their inspiration in musicians as diverse as Green Day, Duran Duran, the Grateful Dead, and Nirvana.

Continuing this season's presentation of thrilling works that debuted across the Atlantic, conductor Mark Russell Smith leads the Quad City Symphony Orchestra in the ensemble's Masterworks V: Postcards from Germany & Austria, a program boasting legendary composers and a special solo by violinist and QCSO Concertmaster Naha Greenholtz.

The relentless universe-building of the Marvel Studios output, with its seemingly endless introductions to (cinematically) new heroes and villains, can be exhausting, so I hardly want to make matters more complicated. Yet after seeing writer/director Ryan Coogler's enthralling, imaginative, fantastically enjoyable Black Panther, I'd be totally on-board with nearly a dozen spin-off series for debuting characters – even characters who expire before the end credits roll. I mean, hey, if Saw's serial killer and that Insidious medium can keep coming back for more … .

Presented at Moline's Black Box Theatre in the style of a radio play complete with live music, sound effects, and actors with scripts in hand, three new episodes of the locally produced podcast All You Care to Eat will be performed by the area troupe Comedy Thingy on February 24 and taped in front of a live “studio” audience.

Serving as the latest stop on the musician's “Hits Deep Tour,” Moline's TaxSlayer Center hosts a February 24 concert with the Grammy-winning, chart-topping TobyMac, whose 13-album discography has made him one of the best-selling artists in contemporary-Christian and hip-hop history.