Missing sports this summer? Join the Reader's Mike Schulz and OurQuadCities.com's Zane Satre as they discuss six of Mike's favorite inspirational and entertaining sports films.
 

Damned if this fiercely funny, inventive, thoughtful, and affecting release doesn't feel like the first movie comedy designed specifically for the pandemic era: a spiky yet empathetic commentary on modern life and modern romance in which “modern,” for once, genuinely means “this exact moment right now.”

At The Movies: At Home Movie Recommendations

The Reader's Mike Schulz returns to Living Local on OurQuadCities.com to discuss home viewing options, including his all-time top five "desert island" movie picks. Read Mike's in-depth review here: "Let's Play Desert Island!: A Middle-Aged Reviewer's Five Favorite Films of All Time."

As we continue to wait for large, semi-large, and even intimate public-entertainment venues to safely open again, here are a few more home-viewing favorites from my nostalgia cabinet: five – well, make that six – excellent works from 1979 to 1992 all focused on the business of show, with different titles for different nostalgic moods.

As a record of filmed theatre – especially considering Lin-Manuel Miranda's achievement is probably the greatest musical-theatre offering of the last 20 years – this Hamilton might have exactly zero peers.

As we celebrate 2020 being half-finished at long long last, let's take a look at 20 actors – all of them Golden Globe and/or Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominees – who have somehow been denied Oscar recognition despite healthy, sometimes legendary big-screen résumés.

Treating viewers to a pair of free online screenings in honor of this year's Independence Day, Moline's Fourth Wall Films company and Davenport's Putnam Museum & Science Center team up to present the moving, historical, locally themed documentary A Bridge Too Far from Hero Street, its July 5 and 6 showings celebrating the life and experiences a true war hero from Silvis, Illinois.

If you've been finding yourself starved for getaways but don't necessarily want to get away far, or if you're feeling itchy as a result of your daily commute not taking longer than the length of time it takes to get from your bed to your PC, consider these five vacation-based home-viewing options from 1978 to 1995. They're not quite trips to Hawaii, but unlike Walley World, you can at least visit any time you want.

Here, with only side mention of the lesser films they inspired, are five more home-viewing options in lieu of open cineplexes: iconic, terrifically enjoyable '80s flicks that all produced remakes that you've probably, understandably forgotten about, if you even knew about them in the first place.

While we continue to hope that current plans remain in place and summer theatre might actually resume by mid-August (fingers crossed!), here are some home-viewing options: five of my favorite stage-musical adaptations from the personally formative years of 1978 to 1986. Don't judge me for the first inclusion. I used to hate it, too.

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