Saturday in the Arts is a comprehensive, in-depth feature on a topic, trend or personality impacting the Quad-Cities, posted every Saturday morning on QuadCities.com.   The day before the state of Illinois entered Phase 4 of reopening, affecting his longtime acting home of Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse, Moline’s Tom Walljasper was filming scenes as a farmer in small-town Iowa. A full-time actor, Walljasper had not acted since “Kinky Boots” closed at Circa in March, and both he and his wife Shelley were cast in small parts for a TV pilot, “Complete Bull,” filmed in June and July (with... Read More

Scott Beck and Bryan Woods are teaming up with Sam Raimi for an untitled science-fiction project, Variety reported today. The filmmakers, who grew up in Bettendorf, worked with Raimi on the Quibi series “50 States of Fright.” Beck and Woods handled the Iowa segment. The original script is being kept secret, as per usual with Beck and Woods. After more than two decades of working their way up and making countless films of their own in the Quad-Cities and elsewhere, the duo shot to fame as the screenwriters of “A Quiet Place.” Last year they continued their success with their... Read More

Ey, ey, EYYYYY… a Quad-Cities favorite actor and star of the major motion picture, “Haunt,” is going to be haunting the Midwest Monster Fest! Fest organizer Jeff O’Neil announced today: Midwest Monster Fest 2020 is proud to welcome Quad City Native Justin Marxen!Justin is best known for his role as Clown in the 2019 film Haunt written and directed by Quad City Natives Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (writers of A Quiet Place) and produced by Eli Roth. He also played Jack in the 2010 film Dead Awake. Justin has been in over 40 films and he has also produced, written and directed... Read More

The nominations are thundering in for local filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle and their latest feature, “Sons And Daughters of Thunder!” Kelly has received another nomination from the Iowa Motion Picture Association, this time for “Best Direction–Long Form” on the film. According to Tammy’s facebook, “I am so pleased for him in receiving this recognition for his hard work on this narrative film project. Congratulations again, honey! I’m beaming!” In addition, “Sons And Daughters Of Thunder” has been nominated by the Iowa Motion... Read More

And here you have them, the TOP TEN stories of the year, 2019. There were obviously a lot of big stories this year, but, these are the ten that we picked to have the biggest impact and resonance. Why did we pick these stories? A couple of them involved incredible achievements by local groups of people, achievements that are rarely accomplished by groups on the local level. Some of those involved achievements by groups of kids, which make them even more impressive, and also leave the possibility for even greater resonance later on down the line as those children grow and mature and work towards... Read More

Yesterday, we counted down the top stories of the year from 30-21, today we get into the next ten, 20-11, and it’s, for the most part, a pretty upbeat mix of stories of local successes, on the individual and group level. For the criteria on how we picked the stories, check out my column on the countdown. And, without any further ado, here’s today’s part of the top 30 of 2019 . . .   20.) Raccoon Motel Switches To Devon’s Complaint Department, Ending The Moeller Reign Of Downtown Davenport: Over the past few years, Sean Moeller was the ubiquitous king of downtown Davenport, and beyond... Read More

We’re looking back on a great year of entertainment, sports and features here at QuadCities.com, and QC Scene is here to display some of the images of the year, featuring the places, people and events that made the year great! Here’s part one of our look back in pictures:  Read More

Many famous directors have gotten their start in music videos or had them on their resume, and Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the local masterminds behind such hits as “A Quiet Place” and “Haunt” are no different. Back in 2012, the duo filmed a video for Vanaprasta’s song “Self Indulgent Feeling,” which features several local landmarks and actors, including Ragged Records and area actors Justin Marxen, Shane Simmons, Travis Shepherd and Scott Morschhauser. Check it out here:  Read More

Two of the more ambitious and promising projects Scott Beck and Bryan Woods embarked upon before hitting it big with “A Quiet Place” and “Haunt” were “Nightlight” and “Spread.” “Spread” was a proposed series for MTV which involved a deadly virus overtaking the world in apocalyptic fashion. It featured local actor Justin Marxen, who also starred in a number of their earlier films and stars in the new “Haunt.” You can check out a couple of the promos for “Spread” here:   “Nightlight” was a found footage... Read More

This weekend, “Haunt,” the major studio directorial debut of former Quad-Citians Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, and starring local actor Justin Marxen, debuts on screens and digital platforms worldwide! And today, you can enjoy a look behind the scenes of the film, courtesy of these photos by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods! On their Instagram, Beck and Woods wrote, “Two years ago, we were filming @hauntmovie with this amazing crew. Enjoy a brief peek behind the scenes of making the movie!” We hope you have fun with the pictures, and we hope you enjoy checking out “Haunt”... Read More