28 Days Haunted, featuring local ghost hunter Aaron Thompson and his team, who were formerly featured on QuadCities.com, is in the top five among all Netflix shows this week! The show’s creator posted the following on social media: 73.4 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S. 17 million in the UK. 223 million globally. Not counting shared passwords. And our new show #28DaysHaunted has charted in the Top 10 in the US & UK, and Top 20 globally. That seems like a lot of eyeballs. Fingers crossed for continued success but this is a nice start.    Read More

28 Days Haunted, featuring local ghost hunter Aaron Thompson and his team, who were formerly featured on QuadCities.com, is in the top five among all Netflix shows this week! The show’s creator posted the following on social media: 73.4 million Netflix subscribers in the U.S. 17 million in the UK. 223 million globally. Not counting shared passwords. And our new show #28DaysHaunted has charted in the Top 10 in the US & UK, and Top 20 globally. That seems like a lot of eyeballs. Fingers crossed for continued success but this is a nice start.    Read More

There’s a common phrase used in social justice circles: Pass the mic. Pass the mic means, metaphorically, to let others talk, and it’s usually used in regard to people of color. It’s a reminder that we need to listen to those people of color because their experience is different from ours if we’re white. While, yes, we certainly may share many commonalities, particularly in regard to economic situations if we’re among the same economic strata, there is also an intrinsic bias many in society hold based upon appearance, notably skin color, and regardless of commonalities... Read More

Art is a powerful tool. It can make us laugh. It can make us cry. It can make us think. It can be used to fictionalize harsh real-life circumstances in order to enhance our acceptance and understanding of actual reality. That’s the power behind the Netflix short (and Oscar nominee and front runner) Two Distant Strangers. Sharply written by Travon Free and directed by Free and Martin Desmond Roe, this 32 minute masterpiece centers around Carter James (an nuanced and solid Joey Bada$$), a clean cut black dude reliving the same day of waking up next to his new fling (an absurdly authentic Zaria... Read More

“Stowaway” is streaming on Netflix Life is fragile. It’s easy to forget that on an average day. Last Thursday, for example, many of us were at work, spending time with kids, looking at cat pictures online, trying to get a COVID-19 vaccine, and wondering if it’s too late to order a pizza. For many of us, last Thursday was the last day of our lives. If regular life on our planet carries with it a certain sense of risk, then a life lived in the stars is insanely, ludicrously dangerous. I have a great deal of respect for people who choose to assume risk in order to protect others or... Read More

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” the bio-pic about Fred Hampton, head of the Black Panthers in Illinois in the sixties, comes to us from a dynamic team. Director Shaka King (“Newlyweeds”) had met Ryan Coogler (“Black Panther”) in 2013 at Sundance.  Coogler (“Black Panther”) approached Warner Brothers with 50% of the film’s financing in hand to back the picture, directed by Shaka King (“Newlyweeds”) from a story by the Lucas Brothers. They already had the cast in mind and Shaka King had connected with screenwriter Will Berson, who had been researching Hampton for some time.... Read More

My kid Liam is around six months into his thirteenth year. He’s kind, smart, funny, and I can already see that he’ll go much further in life than I ever will. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Also, since he’s taking his first coltish steps in being a teenager, he has Opinions. Many, many opinions about many, many subjects. Which is also how it’s supposed to be. For example, here’s me camped out in my chair, watching George Clooney’s newest film, The Midnight Sky. Maybe 45 minutes into it, Liam comes in and announces he’s done with school. He asks what I’m watching and what I... Read More

Hillbilly Elegy is streaming on Netflix There’s a story many of us tell ourselves about poverty.* Poor people are poor due to their own actions or inactions. They just want a handout from the government. They’re lazy. They’re not very intelligent or motivated, and when they do utilize a kind of low cunning, it’s to figure out ways to game the system and screw over virtuous taxpayers like “us.” I remember being told that story when I was very young. We had a house in Rockville, Maryland, and while my mother stayed indoors to protect the fragile health that would eventually fail her,... Read More

Saturday In The Arts is a weekly look at a personality, place, trend or topic of interest to the Quad-Cities. It runs every Saturday morning on your site for fun, free, local entertainment and features, QuadCities.com. Wealth and power don’t guarantee happiness. We’ve seen that over and over throughout history – from Greek tragedy to Shakespearean rulers, through the many curses and deaths of the Kennedy family (the closest America has to a royal family). The new fourth season of “The Crown” – the stunning, sumptuous dramatic series on Netflix – leans heavily into foreboding, dread,... Read More

The Trial of the Chicago 7 is streaming on Netflix There’s a long and semi-proud tradition in Hollywood of the courtroom movie. Some of them, such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Verdict, and 12 Angry Men stand the test of time.* They have something particular to say about the law, about justice, and how we either uphold our ideals or abandon them altogether. Here’s the thing about making a courtroom movie…they’re hard. The first problem before you is the script. Ever read legal transcripts? If not, they’re a very effective substitution for valium. Your first challenge is to hack through... Read More