Launched in 2023 by the Azubuike African American Council for the Arts and taking place in various area locales June 5 through 8, the third-annual Pulling Focus African American Film Festival of the Quad Cities has been designed as a celebration of local film and culture that focuses on enriching the lives of Quad Cities residents, presenting unique film-watching experiences framed through the lens of African American and Black Diasporic voices.

A watershed moment in the history of LGBTQ rights will be explored in a June 10 Gay Pride Month event at the Rock Island Public Library's Watts-Midtown Branch, with the venue hosting a screening of the American Experience episode Stonewall Uprising: The Year That Changed Everything, a Peabody Award-winning work that the Philadelphia Inquirer deemed “an important documentary – and a passionate and compassionate reconstruction.”

You'll rarely hear me complain about a film, especially an umpteenth followup in an apparently endless franchise, being too modestly scaled or too short. However, in the case of this latest installment in the KKU, I do feel obligated to ask: Really? This is it? This whole, paltry, badly shot thing exists simply to get Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio on-screen together – and even then only barely, and not until almost a full hour has passed?

If Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning really is as final as its title implies, I can perhaps forgive the film for including so very many flashback images from the franchise's previous seven installments, including images that are regurgitated two or three times over. But if this is indeed the series' end – I mean, y'know … we'll see … – I'm still not sure I can forgive director/co-writer Christopher McQuarrie's latest for being so dully protracted and humorless, or for the decision to transform super-operative Hunt, and by extension Tom Cruise, into a veritable messiah.

A charming coming-of-age dramedy also designed to expose hypocrisy and snobbery in the Irish private-school system, writer/director John Butler's 2016 release Handsome Devil enjoys a June 5 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum, this presentation in the Free Film at the Figge series held in celebration of Gay Pride Month, and lauded by Filmink as "a warm blanket of a film that manages to tackle sexuality and homophobia with a surprisingly light, but not ineffectual, tone."

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Going to the cineplex or staying in and streaming this weekend? Every Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m. you can listen to Mike Schulz dish on recent movie releases & talk smack about Hollywood celebs on Planet 93.9 FM with the fabulous Dave & Darren in the Morning team of Dave Levora and Darren Pitra. The morning crew previews upcoming releases, too.

Or you can check the Reader Web site and listen to their latest conversation by the warm glow of your electronic device. Never miss a pithy comment from these three scintillating pundits again.

Thursday, June 5: Discussion of Karate Kid: Legends, Bring Her Back, and Mountainhead; previews of Ballerina, The Phoenician Scheme, and Dangerous Animals: and Dave's list of the best-ever poster taglines for shark thrillers. Dangerous Animals' might just take the cake.

Now playing at area theaters.

Not only did I have a ball – one far less lethal than the ball employed for directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein's funniest demise – but I was reminded why the FDs constitute my all-time-favorite fright-flick franchise that doesn't feature H.R. Giger xenomorphs.

In this horror comedy, at least a dozen wannabe killers dress as a small town's costumed mascot Frendo, and while it would be nice to report that this circus freak resembles Javier Bardem's Anton Chiguhr, he's really just a low-rent Pennywise. It would be nicer to report that the movie was even the least bit scary, yet given the genre and my personal expectations, I happily settled for funny.

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