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Friday - March 29, 2024
Quad Cities USA - Guide to Davenport & Bettendorf Iowa and Rock Island & Moline Illinois
 

The Devil Went Down to Connecticut (Review: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It)

June 17th, 2021
The Devil Went Down to Connecticut (Review: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It)

“The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” is streaming on HBO Max Much like life, franchises find a way. Sooner or later, they realize they can’t keep doing the same thing over and over, and they need to evolve. The Fast and the Furious began as a charmingly low rent ripoff of Point Break. With F9 being released a few weeks from now, we’ll see a series that took enormous chances and transformed into something entirely different. We’ve arrived at a point, not unlike the late 1960s, where studios don’t fully know what audiences want and are scared to death about it. Back then,... Read More

Gods Among Us (Review: Zack Snyder’s Justice League)

March 26th, 2021
Gods Among Us (Review: Zack Snyder’s Justice League)

Zack Snyder’s Justice League is streaming on HBO Max Second chances don’t come around too often. That’s just as true in the movie business as it is anywhere else.* For filmmaker Zack Snyder, his 2017 film Justice League seemed to be firmly in the rear view mirror. Can you blame him? The Marvel Cinematic Universe had producer Kevin Feige coordinating everything. The MCU made money — lots of it. Warner Bros. very quickly realized that a) they owned the rights to the DC comics characters and b) they also loved money. In short order, they rushed to create the competing DC Extended Universe.... Read More

Details, Details (Review: The Little Things)

February 22nd, 2021
Details, Details (Review: The Little Things)

The Little Things is streaming on HBOMax Hey, you! You, the person who just dropped a few hundred bucks on screenwriting software and who bought a veritable library of books on how to write a winning script. You, the person who was struck by a (potentially misguided) bolt of motivation to roll up your sleeves and bang out a screenplay about a serial killer. Maybe…don’t? Look, don’t get me wrong, pretty much as long as there have been movies, there have been movies about disturbing maniacs who prey on the innocent. Fritz Lang’s M had to do with a child murderer in Berlin, and it was... Read More

Age of Wonder

December 29th, 2020
Age of Wonder

Wonder Woman 1984 is Streaming on HBO Max To one degree or another, superheroes are all about symbolism. Despite having been originally designed as characters for children, they have become our modern mythology. When used correctly, they can simultaneously deliver surface-level thrills while also having something legitimate to say. If Batman is about dealing with trauma and Superman is about the desire to help, then Wonder Woman is ultimately about hope.* Hope with a clear-eyed and flinty view of things as they are and not as we’d like them to be. Consider that, while she has the Lasso of Truth,... Read More

Primer on TV Entertainment and Streaming

March 15th, 2020
Primer on TV Entertainment and Streaming

This week has brought an unprecedented number of cancellations for sporting events, concerts, conferences and a growing list of other forms of entertainment and gatherings. Employees are being sent home to work remotely, schools are being closed to students, more are staying home to watch kids and others are self-quarantining to avoid or recover from Coronavirus (COVID-19). With so many forced to stay home for these reasons, or just to avoid contagion, it seemed time to start a new column on Home Entertainment Trends. Most people are familiar with standard TV programming broadcast over the airwaves... Read More