Is it possible that, over the past three years, Marvel Studios has been experimenting with a release strategy designed to get audiences excited for every other MCU movie?

On May 15, patrons of Davenport's Figge Art Museum are invited to the venue's John Deere Auditorium for the definitive documentary about George Nakashima's famed furniture design and woodworking practice in George Nakashima, Woodworker, the film's screening followed by a discussion and Q&A with the director – and George's nephew – John Nakashima.

Due to the nature of his role, Ben Affleck is never allowed to laugh here. With Jon Bernthal gleefully egging him on, though, you can sense how deeply the actor must want to. Heaven knows my audience, myself included, was laughing.

A special night of brilliant music and blistering horror transpires at Davenport's Capitol Theatre on May 8 with the venue hosting Frizzi to Fucli 2025: "Zombie," the Composer's Cut, an event that finds Zombie composer, orchestrator, and conductor Fabio Frizzi headlining a thrilling, soundtracked screening of the genre classic – Lucio Fulci's first-ever horror film – as performed by gifted live musicians.

There's no point in burying the lede on this. Even though it's only April, I can't imagine seeing a more dazzling, thrilling, thunderously satisfying 2025 release than Ryan Coogler's Sinners.

A psychological thriller and cult classic that earned the Directing Award at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival, the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay, and the Gotham Open Palm Award, Oscar nominee Darren Aronofsky's feature debut Pi enjoys a special April 30 showing at Rock Island's Rozz-Tox.

With the short works presented as the first in a pair of events in the organization's "Let's Have a Conversation" end-of-life series, Davenport's CASI (Center for Active Seniors) will host screenings of two acclaimed documentaries on April 27: directors Jessica Nutzig Zitter's and Kevin Gordon's Caregiver: A Love Story, and director James Keach's Taking Care, the latter featuring famed film and TV actor/writer Seth Rogen.

Technically virtuosic and undeniably gripping, Warfare seems to raise the bar in terms of realistic depictions of wartime atrocities, and that bar was already set awfully high. But while the movie isn't fun, nor is it meant to be, I also didn't find it satisfying … though the notion persists that it isn't meant to be that, either.

An Academy Award-winning musical romance that also earned the Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award, writer/director John Carney's modern classic Once enjoys a special April 24 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, the laurels for this critical smash and audience favorite including being ranked third on Entertainment Weekly's 2008 list of the "25 Best Romantic Movies of the Past 25 Years."

In his role as Steve, the miner (as opposed to minor) character at the heart of A Minecraft Movie, Jack Black is almost ferally over the top.

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