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.

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."

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.

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.