A special cinematic event in the Bettendorf Public Library's popular “Community Connections” series, the February 18 screening of Becoming Harriet Beecher Stowe by local filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle will explore how the author and abolitionist's life-changing experiences contributed to her best-selling book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and how the historical icon's anti-slavery sentiments expressed themselves in what would become America’s most influential novel.

Your overall enjoyment of Sam Levinson's Netflix release will likely depend on whether you view its only two characters as charismatic, damaged souls whose epic meltdowns both mask and reveal their deep love for another, or as helplessly, and hopelessly, gabby, self-centered whiners who just need to put a lid on it already. Levinson's film isn't hard to sit through, and it boasts outstanding individual moments, but it's frequently a pain.

Has late-middle-age paunch ever looked better on an actor than it does on Denzel Washington?

In a special cinematic offering presented as part of Fathom Events' Black History Month celebration, one of the most adored figures in science-fiction history shares her true-life tale of reaching for the stars in Woman in Motion: Nichelle Nichols, Star Trek, & the Remaking of NASA, an exhilarating new documentary tribute – screening at Rave Cinemas Davenport 53rd + IMAX on February 2 – featuring Star Trek's iconic Lt. Uhura, Nichelle Nichols.

This past weekend, our area's two debuting cineplex options were Our Friend, which is primarily about a young woman dying of cancer, and Heaven, which is peripherally about a young woman dying of cancer. It probably goes without asking, but no matter how much some of us may relish trekking to the movies these days, what kind of masochist would voluntarily make a double-feature out of such an ostensibly depressing two-fer?

This kind! So let's dive in, shall we?

Kicking off Fathom Events' seventh-annual TCM Big Screen Classics series in high style, Rave Cinemas Davenport 53rd 18 + IMAX will, on January 24 and 27, present screenings of the iconic Humphrey Bogart noir The Maltese Falcon, the legendary screen mystery celebrating its 80th anniversary, and an inclusion on the American Film Institute's list of “100 Greatest American Films of All Time.”

One Night in Miami … , Regina King's debut as a feature-film director, boasts a premise that sounds like the beginning of a joke: “Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, and Jim Brown walk into a motel room … .” Yet while King's adaptation of screenwriter Kemp Powers' stage play is no joke, it is funny, as well as tender, and powerful, and absolutely riveting.

I want to put 2020 behind us as much as you all likely do. So in lieu of a lengthy intro to my annual Movies of the Year article, this time with downbeat commentary on delayed releases and shuttered cineplexes and the potential demise of the traditional film experience and everything else we don't want to reflect on, what say we just skip to the good stuff?

Over the past two weeks, barring review-writing and performing general upkeep on the Reader Web site, I've been on vacation. And I did what many of my fellow stay-cationers likely did during the holidays this year: I watched movies. Lots of movies. A few of them at an actual movie theater.

How is it that Tom Hanks portrayed Mister Rogers only last year and has already landed in the role of someone just as upstanding, decent, and effectively communicative with children?

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