With the Boston Globe deeming the film "as pure and plaintive as a mountain ballad" and the Los Angeles Times raving "it makes history sing," writer/director John Sayles' Oscar-nominated 1987 drama Matewan enjoys a special November 13 screening at Rock Island's Rozz-Tox, this celebrated work's local presentation co-hosted by Iowa General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World.

In director Edward Berger's Conclave, both the narrative and the principal characters are hiding secrets that shouldn't be spoiled to those who haven't seen the movie and didn't read novelist Robert Harris' 2016 source material. But one secret about the film absolutely can, and should, be revealed in advance: This thing is an almost ridiculous amount of fun.

Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a work that "makes an exquisite case for the impossibility of caging the heart," the award-winning Austrian drama Great Freedom enjoys a November 7 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, director/co-writer Sebastian Meise's moving film also praised by The Hollywood Reporter as "a contemplative psychological study of the effects of incarceration, and beyond that, an unconventional love story, tender but unsentimental."

First M. Night Shymalan makes his chanteuse daughter a significant part of his thriller Trap, then Todd Phillips floods his Joker followup with songs, and now this. Is no genre safe from the global Swift-ification?

In the spirit of the five-word pitches each of this quintet requires, here are similarly succinct (if 295-words-longer) takes on what resulted, discussed in order of attendance.

On October 24, a Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America nominee – and the director of 1993's Oscar-winning smash The Fugitive will be of guest of The Last Picture House in the Davenport venue's An Evening with Andrew Davis, a special evening for movie fans featuring a signing of Davis' first novel (co-written by Davenport author Jeff Biggers), a screening of Davis' 1989 thriller The Package, and a Q&A with the filmmaker afterward.

In celebration of the musical cult classic's 49th anniversary, the iconic entertainment The Rocky Horror Picture Show will enjoy a special screening at Davenport's Rhythm City Casino Resort Event Center on October 20, the event boasting a live shadow cast, audience participation, a costume contest, and the eagerly awaited guest host Nell Campbell, the Rocky Horror co-star who appeared opposite Meat Loaf as Eddie's eccentric love interest Columbia.

With only four weeks left until the upcoming election, the Azubuike African American Council for The Arts is proud to mark its 10th anniversary with a timely and crucial screening of the award-winning documentary One Person, One Vote?, a lauded work by renowned filmmaker Maximina Juson that enjoys a Davenport screening at the Last Picture House on October 20.

If you thought the title and genre were initially baiting and galling to die-hard Joker acolytes, just wait'll you get a load of Folie à Deux itself, which is like a big, extended middle finger to everyone who adored the original movie – as well, perhaps, as a giant eff-you to Warner Bros. for making it, the motion-picture academy for awarding it, and the global marketplace for turning it into a billion-dollar smash.

Upon leaving our screening of The Wild Robot, I asked my favorite 10-year-old what she thought of the film, and she answered that it was one of the best movies she'd seen in her life. If I ever choose or am forced to retire from weekly reviewing, I hope this smart kid becomes my replacement, because as family-friendly adventures go, writer/director Chris Sanders' animated outing is one of the best I've seen in my life, too.

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