Appearing as the headliner in the River Music Experience's and Great Sounds Promotions' annual Smooth Jazz Fall Festival, chart-topping saxophonist Darius will share his talents that are comparable to those of the all-time greats, with JazzReview.com calling him “right up there with the Najees, the Gerald Albrights, and the Art Porters – he's that good.”

When director Catherine Bodenbender took center stage at the show's precise curtain time, she reminded the audience to silence their phones and provided a few additional tidbits of information. And then – like a stage manager would typically do behind the scenes – she yelled, “Actors: Places!”, and the cast marched out from their backstage dressing area and took their seats behind the audience. I thought: “This is gonna be cool.”

Reginald Hudlin's period/courtroom/race drama – the pleasant start to my latest quadruple feature – is actually inspired by a 1941 case in the career of Thurgood Marshall, who, of course, later became the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court. In other words, it's kind of like an origin story for the hard-living, harder-fighting lawyer, and the movie's great surprise is that it's closer in spirit to an enjoyable comic-book yarn than the prototypical Oscar Bait its subject matter would seem to dictate.

Yes, it's long. Yes, it's slow. Yes, it's so relentlessly downbeat that its only real laugh comes from a man pouring whiskey on the floor for his dog to lick. But I found Blade Runner 2049 overwhelming in the best possible way – a sci-fi dazzler of such intricate plotting, grand themes, visual wonder, and technical and performance-based pleasures that even though I was wiped out by the finale, I felt instantly ready to watch it again. Fun, of course, is always in the eye of the beholder, and while I don't know what it says about my personally beheld eye, Villeneuve's staggering achievement was about as much fun as I've yet had at the movies this year.

Not to alarm anyone, but I think there may be a typo in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's program for The Diviners, because it credits Mike Skiles for the show's “Set Construction.” I'm pretty sure that's meant to say “No-Set Construction,” given that there's literally no set for director Jalayne Riewerts' production – just Richmond Hill's traditional theatre-in-the-round space decorated by occasional props. That's not at all meant as a put-down. This touching, graceful take on playwright Jim Leonard Jr.'s period drama succeeds primarily because of its bare-bones, Our Town-esque simplicity, and those qualities, happily, are mirrored in the engaged, heartfelt portrayals by Riewerts' cast.

Arriving just in time for Halloween, the professional dancers of Ballet Quad Cities will stage choreographer Deanna Carter's adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic horror novel, with the notorious count portrayed by international dance star Domingo Rubio 10 years after he first danced Dracula for the Rock Island-based company.

Artworks by a pair of Iowans will soon be on display in Illinois, as Rock Island's Quad City Arts Center hosts exhibitions of photography by Bettendorf native Mike Leinhauser and mixed-media collages by Kathy Svec of Ames.

With albums including Dark Days, Bright Nights, Deliverance, and The Charm – all of which placed in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 charts – country rapper Bubba Sparxxx will share with RIBCO crowds hits from his 16-year repertoire, including the 2005 smash “Ms. New Booty” that sold more than 500,000 copies nationwide.