20 Jan 2025

The Pair's Rent Trap: “One of Them Days,” “Wolf Man,” “Nickel Boys,” “The Room Next Door,” and “Hard Truths”

By Mike Schulz

This ticking-clock slapstick is an inarguably slight, inconsequential thing. But it routinely delivers enormous pleasure, as well as continued evidence that Keke Palmer would be a massive big-screen star if Hollywood was still in the business of making funny, fast-paced, inherently meaningless comedies that left you feeling great. Whatever happened to those? Weren't they, like, the only movies we all collectively agreed were awesome?

15 Jan 2025

Predicting the 2025 Academy Award Nominations

By Mike Schulz

With nothing but emotional support and well wishes, from here in the Midwest, to the Hollywood community and the many thousands in their vicinity, the boldface names and titles below are my predicted nominees, with non-boldface denoting runners-up and predictions in order of probability.

14 Jan 2025

“Farming While Black,” January 26

By Reader Staff

A lauded selection at 2024 events including the DC Environmental Film Festival, the New York African Film Festival, and SXSW EDU, director Mark Decena's Farming While Black serves as the second presentation in this year's QC Environmental Film Series hosted by River Action, its January 26 presentation at Davenport's Figge Art Museum treating patrons to what Civil Eats deemed "a unique and enthralling perspective on an often overlooked aspect of the American dream.”

13 Jan 2025

Monkey in the Muddle: “Better Man,” “The Last Showgirl,” and “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”

By Mike Schulz

A largely pro forma musical bio-pic on the British pop sensation Robbie Williams, Better Man is only director Michael Gracey's second non-documentary feature, the first being 2017's word-of-mouth hit The Greatest Showman. And about 40 minutes into his new film, you're finally treated to evidence of what a powerfully great showman Gracey can be.

07 Jan 2025

“Food Inc. 2,” January 19

By Reader Staff

A lauded 2024 documentary sequel that, according to The Guardian, "will make you think twice about what you put in your supermarket basket," directors Robert Kenner's and Melissa Robledo's Food, Inc. 2 serves as the first presentation in 2025 QC Environmental Film Series hosted by River Action, its January 19 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum treating attendees to what RogerEbert.com's Glenn Kenny deemed "an engaging and watchable activist documentary that does make way for optimism."

01 Jan 2025

Tennis, Everyone?: Reminiscences on the 2024 Movie Year

By Mike Schulz

If you're a film fan and merely looked at domestic box-office revenue, it would be easy to get depressed about the state of movies – or, maybe more accurately, the state of current moviegoing habits.

30 Dec 2024

Matte Dylan: “A Complete Unknown,” “Nosferatu,” “The Fire Inside,” and “Babygirl”

By Mike Schulz

Whatever you think of director James Mangold's new musical bio-pic, you can't accuse it of false advertising.

21 Dec 2024

Father of the Pride: “Mufasa: The Lion King,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” “The Six Triple Eight,” and “Juror #2”

By Mike Schulz

If Mufasa: The Lion King is a marginal improvement on its very bad 2019 predecessor – director Jon Favreau's deeply unnecessary, frequently shot-for-shot remake that substituted photorealism for traditional animation – it's only because, unlike last time, we don't enter the film knowing precisely what we're gonna get. Except, of course, we do.

16 Dec 2024

Kraven/Other Options: “Kraven the Hunter,” “Nightbitch,” “Maria,” “Queer,” and “Flow”

By Mike Schulz

Having sat through, and stayed awake for, Madame Web, Morbius, and three Venoms, I'd be among the first to cheer the death of Sony's Spider-Man(-free) Universe series. But I'm not sure that Kraven the Hunter should be the thing that kills it.

14 Dec 2024

Animal Instinct: Iowa City Author Rachel Yoder Explores Perils and Joys of Motherhood at Davenport Screening

By Jonathan Turner

Just nine years after earning her second Master of Fine Arts degree, writer and University of Iowa instructor Rachel Yoder sold her first novel, and then the film rights, a year before it was even published.

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