WAR HORSE
A grandly scaled adventure about a boy who gets a horse, then loses the horse, then joins the British infantry to find the horse, War Horse is the sort of triumphant, lump-in-the-throat epic that director Steven Spielberg should be able to pull off in his sleep. Consequently, the highest compliment I can pay the movie is that its helmer, at all times, appears to be fully awake here. There's palpable filmmaking energy in nearly every shot, and several passages in this World War I family drama are so thrilling and painful and spectacularly well-choreographed that they rank among the finest in Spielberg's career.
I find it easy to like Scott Community College's production of The War of the Worlds, an adaptation of H.G. Wells' tale of alien invasion, presented here in the radio-drama style of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre. The performance may not be the best you'll see in the Quad Cities, but the show features so much heart - such simple pleasure in performing - that it's refreshing to sit and watch the show's young men and women play on stage.
"Most of our students work jobs when they're not at school," says Scott Community College (SCC) theatre instructor Steve Flanigin. "So when you say, 'We're going to do a play - who'd be interested?', you have to see who's available before you decide what play you can do. Because if they have to go to a job when we normally rehearse - Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, from three to five - then they can't do the show.
SUPER 8
FANTASTIC MR. FOX
