The 70-minute teen comedy/drama “Yes, God, Yes” is a sweet, slight and mostly satisfying film that deftly, gently tackles enormous, weighty subjects – sexuality, morality, religion, personal autonomy and responsibility, and the vast, disgusting hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. The 2019 film was written and directed by Karen Maine (who co-wrote the 2014 abortion-themed “Obvious Child”) and stars Natalia Dyer (of “Stranger Things” fame), based on Maine’s 2017 short film of the same name also starring Dyer as a shy, sympathetic, and secret rebel. The awkward, totally identifiable... Read More

Enola Holmes is streaming on Netflix Perhaps the best part of a movie, for me, is the first couple of seconds. By that point, I have a broad idea of the premise. I’ve poured myself a drink. My brain is prepared. When the first production company logo appears onscreen, we’re in a Schrodinger’s Movie scenario. Anything is possible, and even if the premise is ill-advised, there’s a chance of getting something amazing.* Add to that the excitement you get from hearing a strong concept. A secret organization protects Earth from alien threats? Sold. A rag-tag group of scientists opens a business... Read More

What year is it? There are scores of protests over racial injustice and civil rights. There’s rioting and police brutality. A global pandemic kills tens of thousands of Americans. A bitter presidential election featuring a former vice president. Debates over law and order and the limits of free speech. Of course, you could be talking about this year, with its collision of cataclysmic crises. But that also summarized 1968, which also featured the shocking assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy, which fed into the massive violence in Chicago during the August Democratic... 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. I know it’s faintly ridiculous to watch so much film and TV on my iPhone, but life in pandemic-plagued 2020 has glued me to the really small screen to an unprecedented degree. It’s pretty much my lone companion before falling asleep every night, and due to the seemingly inexhaustible smorgasbord of content on Netflix (my go-to app), I’ve been binge-watching a lot. It’s provided... Read More

Are Netflix executives reading our minds? There’s been an eerie pattern throughout the pandemic, in regard to the most popular programming emerging on the streaming platform. In an uncanny way, it’s mirrored the attitudes and zeitgeist of society at that time, especially over the past year during the time of covid. Certainly, some of it can be chalked up to unconscious needs and preferences being manifested in viewing choices — of people being attracted to certain programs at certain times and them becoming popular because the vast majority of us are feeling a certain thing at... Read More

The Devil All the Time is streaming on Netflix I’ve been to the South, but I’ve never been to The South. To clarify, years ago my wife and I took a week off for a road trip. We were on the East Coast then, and with the exception of a couple of trips to Florida, I had never spent any appreciable time further South than Maryland. I was intensely curious about what I would find. Honestly, I loved it. In particular, I fell deeply in love with Charleston, the elegantly crumbling South Carolina city. The food? Incredible. The sights? Marvelous. The people? Delightful.* In particular was a couple... 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. I might as well face it – I’m addicted to my smartphone. I know I’m not the only one. Is there a support group, a 12-step program, a bleach I can take? Steve Jobs must be doing a jig in his Palo Alto grave. (It’s hard to believe the tech genius and Apple co-creator has been gone nine years already this Monday, Oct. 5. Jobs died at 56 from pancreatic cancer.) The first iPhone... Read More

Cuties is streaming on Netflix Take a seat. Better yet, make a nice, hot cup of tea, pull up your nearest fainting couch, and get ready for some information that is sure to blow your mind. Ready? You sure? Okay…here goes. *takes a deep breath* Americans are really, really stupid when it comes to both art and nuance. An example is the kerfuffle that sprang up regarding The Last Temptation of Christ. It all began with the 1955 novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis that examined the life of Jesus. Specifically, it posited the concept of Jesus briefly succumbing to temptation while on the cross and... Read More

There are very few shows you can deem “must see” anymore, although not as much due to their quality, as due to the fact that not many shows can truly be described as being targeted for a wide audience anymore. We live in a world that’s become increasingly fragmented and subdivided, and invariably there are few things upon which the vast majority of the population can agree. Entertainment used to be the great uniter of the people. When television began to rise to prominence in the ‘50s and ‘60s, cultural touchstones were based upon events it showcased. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. The finale... Read More

Project Power is streaming on Netflix Next to westerns, there’s no other genre that has the flexibility that superheroes have in terms of storytelling. You might think that your options are limited to an MCU snarkfest or the Snyder cut of Justice League, truly an edgelord’s delight. But there’s more to superheroes than that. A hell of a lot more. Consider Wild Cards. Originally a series of anthology novels, the premise focused on an alien virus released over the skies of New York City. 90 percent of those infected died. Nine percent lived and were known as Jokers, people afflicted with crippling... Read More