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- Welcome to the Christmas weekend time for popcorn and a good movie.

and the Putnam planning for the future while revving up the past in the cities.

(upbeat music) If you're a lover of two wheeling it, the Putnam has you covered with some machines you may never have seen, but first our annual look at the movies.

This year has been one for holding back for some premiers and launching some movies on streaming services.

It's a different Hollywood.

We talked with River Cities Reader Editor, and Film Reviewer, Mike Schulz.

So Mike, when you're looking at this Christmas year for movies, is it a lot different than last year?

I mean, it seems like there's more out there now.

- There is more out there, but we live in a strange area in terms of last year at Christmas, we actually got four or five or six movies, all released when much of the rest of the country didn't get anything.

We were still going to the movies last year in August in September, it was open, but for a lot of people that didn't happen until this spring.

So I think for many in the country, it feels like, ah, we're open again, lots of movies, but to be honest, I think it's gonna be the same number that opened last Christmas.

- Well you've also been going, I mean, you're a lover of movies, you're in the theater all the time.

What have you noticed inside the theaters?

I mean, are there a lot of people that are going?

- There's enough, but the thing is I usually go on Friday afternoons more than anything, and it's always light on a Friday afternoon because most people don't have jobs reviewing movies, so they actually have to be somewhere else during that time.

So I always pretty much see them with a light audience unless I'm accidentally seeing it as a weekend afternoon or a weekend evening or something like that.

It's not crowded.

I mean, as you well know, I mean, people are coming back as speedily as we would hope.

They'll see a Marvel movie and that's pretty much it.

I mean, when even like like James Bond kinda does okay at the Box Office, there's clearly a problem.

- Is that because it's no longer considered for a date night?

I mean, cause that was a big deal was date nights.

Or else I know that you have "Clifford the Big Red Dog" that's out this holiday season So I mean, is it that families aren't bringing their kids to the theaters either.

- I think everybody kind of realized that it was so convenient just to stay home for your movie entertainment.

Because once you start staying home, something will be, for instance, start streaming today that came to the movies three months ago.

Okay so you watch them all, you just see them all three months later, and you don't have to get in your car, and you don't have to pay $10 per person.

I don't have like Disney+ for instance, but when they debut a movie for $30, that wouldn't work for me as a single viewer.

But if I've got four kids and being a spouse, you're saving a whole lot of money there, that makes sense.

And you don't have to pay for a sitter if it's a grownup movie, it's just become so convenient for people.

But I sure would miss the experience of actually going and sitting among people and seeing something you haven't seen before together and kind of experiencing it all in that same moment.

I'm gonna miss the theater experience if and when it goes away.

But yeah, in the meantime I'm a lifer, you know, (laughs) I want them to stay open so yeah.

- Well and of the four Christmas day opening movies that I wanted to talk about, one of them is "The Tragedy of Macbeth" Joel Coen, one of the Coen brothers.

It's Denzel Washington in it.

but this is another movie that is being released Christmas day, and then it's on Apple TV January 14th.

- Absolutely so you might as well wait till the 14th for many people I think.

Last weekend I saw two movies, "Don't Look Up" this media comedy with Leonardo DiCaprio, and the Lucille Ball movie "Being the Ricardos" and both of them are going to be screaming next week.

I got the jump on it because I wanted to review them and didn't want to have to review eight movies over Christmas as opposed to four or five.

But if you know it's only gonna be a couple of weeks, why not wait?

I do understand, I understand that attitude.

- But it really is the experience I would think.

And let's be honest, anybody who is over a certain age, I mean, we're not going to outdoors anymore, but still theaters have a place as far as our social activity with other people.

- Absolutely, and I think like "Spider-Man" is gonna be opening Christmas.

"Eternals", Marvel's "Eternals" did really well.

The "Venom" sequel went well.

Younger audiences are still going, but unfortunately they're still only seeing movies that younger audiences traditionally went to the first place, Marvel movies, I think with a superhero in it.

And so adult dramas, a few of which are opening on Christmas day are having a tougher time.

So it'd be curious to see, there was a great movie "King Richard" with will Smith, playing the father Venus and Serena Williams that was at a theater that was spectacularly entertaining.

And would have killed with a huge audience of this had really inspirational rocky ask underdog hero movie.

And nobody went to see it because it was streaming on the same day that it opened the theaters.

So ah, it's rough.

- Is it a case that like biopics and some of those type of movies play better at your home.

And like you said, the Marvel, the big screen experience you wanna be at the theater.

- Well, I think people wanna get their money's worth.

And with a Marvel movie, at least you see your dollars on the screen.

You watch Tom Hardy turn into a disgusting symbiote from outer space and you go, "Oh, that was worth my 10 bucks, that was pretty cool."

You're watching a low key sports drama with Will Smith that feels like a really well-made TV movie.

I think it's easy to say, why don't I just watch that on my TV?

That it's kind of what it was built for in the first place.

- [Jim] And our TVs are getting bigger too.

- Exactly right, I think people want to see that they're getting their money's worth it.

It's the reason that Broadway can charge or once upon a time could charge like $300 for the spectacle of it.

I mean, it's show me where my money is going.

That's what people want to go see, so, yeah, that's where we're at, I guess.

And we have been there for a long time.

- So of the four, I'm looking at a couple one that's getting a lot of buzz, of course, is "A Journal for Jordan", which is a story about a US army soldier in Iraq written by his wife who was a New York Times editor.

It is a powerful story.

- Yeah and I hope it does well, Denzel Washington, of course, is the director too.

And Michael B. Jordan from "Black Panther", great, great actor is the star.

I hope people will come out for it.

I'm not convinced that they will, it's adult dramas, even kind of family themed ones of like that one and like "American Underdog" that's also opening, they're having a really, really rough time right now.

And they tend to vanish within a couple of weeks.

And we just keep "Spider-Man" on 10 screens as opposed to three.

So I'm crossing fingers and I hope they're good, but it feels like an experiment that I'm, it's an experiment I'm worried about, let's just say that.

Those are some pretty heavy hitting titles for Christmas.

- Well when we're talking, you just brought up "American Underdog", which has to do with a quarterback, Kurt Warner.

And let's be honest, it's an Iowa story.

At least it begins as one.

- It is, Jim I'm so embarrassed.

this is one of the great things though about me not knowing anything about sports at all, is that every time I see kind of inspirational true story, sports figure movie, I usually have no idea what's gonna happen.

(Jim laughing) So I'm not all worried about them missing highlights from my heroes life.

I'm just like, "Oh, who is this guy, interesting, okay."

So I'm in many ways the perfect audience for inspirational sports movies.

But yes, he's an Iowa hero, absolutely.

It's got a good cast to Zachary Levi as the lead and Anna Paquin, Dennis Quaid, that could be good, yeah.

- Also got one of those coming of age movies which always seems to do well if it's done well.

And it's "Licorice Pizza" that is coming out.

- (laughs) Yeah I can't wait for it.

- It is already nominated for so many awards.

- I can't wait to see that, Paul Thomas Anderson, yes one of my favorite filmmakers from "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia", and "There Will Be Blood" and "Phantom Thread".

He has been making incredible movies for 25 years but he's only made eight of them.

So he's really choosy, and you really have to kind of wait for his movies to come out.

But yeah, like you said, this is a growing up in the seventies movies.

So you and I can relate.

- [Jim] (laughs) Very much so.

- At least I can, I'll say that.

But yeah, it's got Philip Seymour Hoffman's son in his first movie, it has one of the lead singers from the pop group IAM, it has Bradley Cooper, Sean Penn, Tom Waits.

Lot's of people.

- I know there's big names in it but it's one of those, whenever you see like a coming of age movie, you also kind of wonder, wow, the young actors, is this gonna be their launching pad?

- Absolutely yeah, and especially when your dad is Philip Seymour Hoffman.

It's like, is he gonna hold up to dad?

You know, whose reviews are great.

And like you mentioned, he's up for awards as well.

That's the one I'm most looking forward to, I can't wait to see "Tragedy of Macbeth", I cannot wait.

I think I'm looking forward to wait for "Licorice Pizza" even more though, I'm super excited for it, yeah.

- It is interesting when you brought up "The Tragedy of Macbeth" or actually I did, and I apologize for that.

(Mike laughing) And "A Journal for Jordan" both have Denzel Washington involved.

Now of course, in "The Tragedy of Macbeth" he's in it, and "A Journal for Jordan", he was a director or producer?

- Directing, yeah directing.

- Directing I mean, holy cow, how do you get to do that simultaneously it seems, of course it's not.

- Well it seems simultaneous, and that's because they just held so many things last year.

'Cause I'm not exactly sure, I'm pretty sure "Macbeth" was supposed to come out this year, regardless.

I think "Journal for Jordan" maybe last year.

But like you mentioned, right now, we have Cate Blanchett in two movies, she's doing "Nightmare Alley", this Guillermo Del Toro movie.

And she's also in, "Don't Look Up".

You have Bradley Cooper in "Licorice Pizza" and also "Nightmare Alley".

You have J.K. Simmons, who as of tomorrow will have three movies in the theaters at once.

I'm not sure how they do it either.

- [Jim] Well it's a bit of a bottleneck.

- Crazy matter of timing.

Yeah, it's nuts.

- Yeah exactly.

Hey, I do wanna talk about these biopics that seem to do, do you call them biopics or biopics.

- I call the biopic, yeah.

- Okay I know, and that's where you're supposed to, I pronounce it wrong.

So anyhow, "Being the Ricardos" came out "National Champions" could be labeled as that, "House of Gucci", which I know the Gucci family is not particularly pleased with.

- Nor was I, so yeah.

- Yeah so tell me a little bit about those in particular.

- Well "Being the Ricardos" oh gosh, I really wish I enjoyed that more than I did.

It's Aaron Sorkin, it's about it's Lucille Ball story.

- Well he wrote it and directed, Aaron Sorkin.

- Yeah wrote and directed it, exactly.

Aaron Sorkin does a lot, which is compress a whole bunch of events that took place over years.

- [Jim] Yeah it's very dense.

- And puts them all in the span of one week.

So you basically have Lucille dealing with, where she was unjustly outed as a communist we have heard Desi getting pregnant and having to tell CBS, we wanna have the baby on the show.

And you also have the gossip columns said that Desi Arnaz was cheating on Lucy.

So it all lands at once for the four women.

But unfortunately, I just didn't buy the movie at all.

It was just kind of, it was like a filmed Wikipedia page.

It was just static with an information, not terribly interesting.

- But that's a bit Sorkin ask anyhow.

I mean, when you go back to things like "The West Wing" where it was like all walk talk, and it was really compressed as well.

- Sure but that was at least kind of energetic and alive.

This one just kind of sits there.

I was not happy, people can see it for free next week and make up their mind, (Jim laughs) "House of Gucci" is laughably bad.

- Really.

- It's really terrible.

It should have been a big nuts black comedy about this terrible, terrible family.

And instead they kind of treated as a very sincere drama.

Only Lady Gaga appears to be having fun with it.

She is kind of fun, but the rest of it it's two and a half hours.

It's longer than "West Side Story", if that tells you anything, it just, it keeps going.

And "National Champions" while not a biopic, at least is incredibly timed story with the boycott of a college football game when a hiking wining quarterback says, we're not gonna play anymore unless you start paying players, or at least covering us with insurance.

So it's an incredibly timely story.

And interestingly of those three biopics, that's the most entertaining one.

That's the one people should go see, it's great.

- Which is "National Champions".

- Yeah, yeah it's thrilling.

- That's the one you like the best.

- Loved it, yeah it was great fun.

- Well, you brought up "West Side Story".

- Yeah, let's talk about that.

- I haven't heard anyone say anything good about it.

- You're kidding.

- No, what they said is that, you know why try to create a masterpiece than ever before.

- Oh okay, so you haven't heard anything good from people who haven't seen it.

(Jim laughs) Okay, gotcha, because I haven't talked to a single person who has seen it that hasn't loved it.

Now to be fair I was kind of on that side of it's a masterpiece, leave it alone.

That being said, I have no problem with Puerto Rican characters actually being played by Puerto Rican actor.

- Oh absolutely.

- I think we're okay, time is up.

- You're absolutely right about that.

But you also you Spielberg directing, so you got a lot on the line here, but the Box Office receipts, weren't that great?

- No, they weren't that great.

I'm not terribly worried because I think people are going to slowly but surely find it because the people who aren't going to the movies as we've already talked about are adults and especially older adults.

And those are the people who'd love "West Side Stor" the most.

Whether they choose to go to the movies is something else.

But this thing is not going to be streaming by next week.

It's not going to be streaming in two months.

It's going to be, they designed it as a theatrical event.

You have to go out, if you want to see it.

And once people actually get a sense from hopefully friends or people like me saying that it's spectacular, so entertaining and so respectful of the original while also being very kind of 21st century in its mentality and in its casting choices.

And it's splendid, I've rarely had that much fun this year at the movie.

It was just bomb.

- In other words, this is the way the movie should have been made originally.

- Yeah it was great.

And I loved the original movie, but this one's better, I think so.

- You heard it first.

- Take that for what's worth.

- Well then let's talk about 2021 'cause I listed, 'cause I told you some of the things I wanted to talk about and I always ask you about your favorite movie.

but I really wanna know what was your favorite movie experience, 'cause that could be something completely different.

- Yeah, it was, to be honest, the one that I keep going back to when you mentioned that and you mean about wanting to talk about that was "Free Guy", the Ryan Reynolds movie, where he kind of enters a video game or is it a video game character.

Do you know about this one?

- No, no - Oh, it was a huge.

- I gotta get out more.

- [Mike] Dude you really.

(Jim laughs) It's hilarious, and the visual effects are so great.

And I got to sit with a crowd of 30 people, 40 people, but they laughed so loud and it had been so long since I'd been in a movie where people were just laughing that uproariously and I was one of them.

I had the time of my life.

I just, I couldn't have been happier.

It reminded me of every reason I love going to the movies.

- Well, other than what "Green Hornet", Ryan Reynolds has done pretty well for himself.

- Yeah right " Green Lantern" actually.

- "Green Lantern", I was gonna say, "Green Lantern" too.

And he loves talking about that I know that.

- Yes he still best, but he's done pretty well for himself beyond that, he's doing okay.

- What about the awards season that's coming out?

I mean the Golden Globe for Foreign Press Association is still trying to recover, I don't believe they have a show set for next year and instead.

- They don't no, they announced nominations, but they're not doing a show this year.

- That's what I thought.

Yeah 'cause NBC didn't want it.

Critics Choice though took their date of January 9th.

- I wish I liked the Critics Choice more than I do.

- [Jim] Who are they?

- There things seems to be, let's do our best to predict the Oscars.

And so and as opposed to actually seeing what Critics like the best they go with, the names you've been hearing up.

And for all the categories, they also have six nominees instead of five, just to hedge their bets on what gets nominated.

So I find that I find the group a little bit silly, but yeah, that's taken over.

We'll we'll see how it goes.

I've seen their award shows in years past and they're nowhere near as fun as the Golden Globes, that's for sure.

- Well yeah that's Golden Globes were known as being a slosh fest in some ways, if I remember.

- Yeah the Globes are wacky and wine flows.

- The wine flows.

- Academy Awards for 2022 does that make, if you don't have the Golden Globes, does the Academy Awards become more important?

- I'm not sure, I mean like the last Academy Awards, we know did like record low ratings, it went down from like 50% from the year before.

And I get that because it happened at the end of April, and it was all streaming titles because theaters were closed, and so nobody had any vested interest in it.

And the big movies, I mean, as much as I love them were things like "No Man's Land" and "Promising Young Woman" and pretty downbeat titles.

This year I think we're gonna see, I think we'll see "West Side Story" in the mix for sure.

I think we'll see "Belfast", which is a really heartwarming Kenneth Branagh movie about his boyhood in Ireland.

I think we're gonna get the "Doom" remake is gonna be nominated.

So I think there might be at least some more rooting interest among the general public this year.

- So what's your saying is right now during Christmas time, get off the sofa and support some of these theaters to see some of these movies.

- I do it like four times a week.

Y'all can do it once a month, seriously.

It's as much fun as you remember.

And I personally, and we talked about this last year, I think on Zoom is that I feel super comfortable there.

I feel that they're doing absolutely everything they can to keep people safe, to keep the health standards up.

You get to sit far away from people.

That's one of the great things about it not being so crowded.

Go see a movie absolutely.

There's some good stuff out there.

- River Cities Reader Editor, and Film Reviewer, Mike Schulz.

In a moment, the Putnam revving up the old year and ready to bring in a special new year.

But first Laura Adams has some ideas for you during your Christmas holiday as you take time to go out and about.

(upbeat music) - [Laura] This is out and about for December 23rd through 31st.

There's still time to shop at the Holiday Shopping Makers Market at Iron and Grain in East Moline through January 4th.

While Winter Wheels Antique Motorcycle Exhibition continues at the Putnam Museum.

Winter Nights, Winter Lights at the Quad City Botanical Center is open almost every night through January 2nd.

And the Embers band performed the 24th at 7:30.

And Last Call Party Band on the 25th at Rhythm City Casino, The family-friendly musical Winter Wonderland at Circa 21 finishes their run on the 29th.

Or experience Julotta on Christmas morning in Bishop Hill at 6:00 AM.

Plus there's a Christmas Eve concert play and liturgical dance troupe performance at St. Anthony's on the 24th at three.

Sonya Brown's Christmas dinner is a free meal for anyone on Christmas day at 11:00 AM at the Faith Walk World Outreach Center in Silvis.

on new year's eve, Johnny Lyons performs an Elvis tribute at Bally's Casino in Rock Island.

The Hit List perform at Rhythm City Casino in Davenport.

The Merrill Hotel in Muscatine holds their new year's Eve celebration starting at seven with overnight stays.

And Solitary Man attribute to the songs of Neil Diamond helps you ring in the new year at Circa '21.

While next door at the Speakeasy it's bottoms up burlesque on new year's Eve at 10.

For more information, visit wqpt.org.

(upbeat music) - Thank you, Laura.

Davenport's Putnam Museum is taking you to the wild side with a motorcycle exhibit that will certainly have some two and three wheelers that you have never seen before.

But the Putnam is also looking ahead with plans to expand its local exhibits, to deal with issues of today.

Sometimes through the lens of yesterday, the history of the cities that you may not know, we talk with the Putnam Museum's Vice President of Museum Experiences, Benjamin Johnson.

You just don't expect the Putnam Museum to be a motorcycle showroom.

And there you are with a Winter Wheels Antique Motorcycle Exhibition, where did this come from?

- Well, like a lot of great things.

It happened purely by accident because we ended up with an unexpected gap in our exhibit calendar, and being the new guy here, joining the Putnam Museum back in July, basically I told the gang to relax, don't worry about it, I got it.

You go back to doing your 10 other projects.

And I got to business call on everybody and trying to figure out exactly who would potentially be interested in this.

And I'd done motorcycle shows and exhibits at previous museum stops around and ended up finding apparently the right people, and the local Chief Blackhawk Antique Motorcycle Club kind of embraced the idea of the project and put me into touch with a few other people.

And that steam rolled into what has become Winter Wheels.

And we ended up with almost 60 antique, custom, different vintage, whatever words you wanna use.

People use different definitions for however old or authentic original the bike is.

So we got all sorts of things from rode bikes to dirt bikes, to chopper, customs, real old stuff, cool restorations, and even a few that are really old and all original, which is always a cool combo.

- Well, and the truth is, part of the Putnam Museum is to try to illustrate more local, and also a kind of a celebration of engineering over, I mean, the DaVinci exhibit was a great example of that a few years ago is that you kind of wanted to show the progression of some of the engineering that we see now.

- Yeah and motorcycles are a great example of things that they all kind of began all over the place simultaneously.

There really wasn't a single inventor of what you would think of as the modern motorcycle, but there were a lot of people around a similar time that were trying to solve the same problems.

And even here in the Quad Cities, there were a lot of early motorcycle enthusiasts at the turn of the 19th and the 20th century.

And even now with the Chief Blackhawk Antique Motorcycle Club, one of the largest motorcycle shows in swap meets in the country takes place here in the Quad Cities every year.

This past summer was their 50th anniversary show.

So there's a huge group of people here in the Midwest and in the Quad city specifically that are interested in all things fast.

So whether it's cars or motorcycles or anything in between, they love it.

And we've had a great response so far.

- Well, let's talk about one of your permanent exhibits because I mean, museums have these rotating ones, you also have of course, River, Prairie and people, and just got awarded a quarter million dollar grant.

What do you hope to see in that exhibit space that's gonna really bring it alive more so I should say.

- Yeah.

So for anybody who's come to the Putnam, basically anytime since the mid eighties, you've been able to enjoy the legacy River, Prairie, People exhibit, which is our regional and local history exhibit.

And it has done an outstanding job over the last four plus decades of telling the story of our region and like anything after 40 years, there are stories that you realize that you missed, or there are people that you didn't include.

And for us, this was a real unique opportunity to reach out to the federal level, like you said, and we were the only museum in the state of Iowa to be awarded this particular grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which is $250,000 from the government.

And we'll also be mashed by a significant contribution in-house both in kind and from local and regional donors.

And the idea here is to continue to tell all of the stories that we are used to telling that we have included in the legacy exhibits since the eighties, but also to identify a lot of those stories and people and places that were left out.

And as we've all seen over the last, couple of years, at least, but the last decade or two, there are stories, the Mexican American history in our community, the African-American history, women's roles in the development of Davenport and the Quad Cities the native American contributions beyond kind of the very surface level stuff that we've included in the past.

We wanna make sure that it's an exhibit for the entire community and tells the most detailed in-depth stories that we can tell, so that everybody who comes in, whether you're a local resident or you are a tourist, or on business traveling through that you have a better understanding of what it means to come from the Quad Cities, how we got here, who helped us get here and all of the different cultures and people and personalities that have helped shape the community that we love.

- Well and it seems like the Putnam is really trying to underline the importance of the racial makeup of the Quad City area.

I mean, you have the colors of culture exhibit that's been open since May, I don't know to what extent that you've been working with the Science Museum of Minnesota, which has raised why are we so different, I should say.

That's an important part that it seems that the Putnam is trying to put out there for the Quad City public.

- Yeah, it's been a national and international conversation for years.

And the thing here at the Putnam Museum, along with a lot of museums all across the country and around the world are trying to do a better job of telling inclusive story, and not just for the sake of being inclusive or pandering to whatever the kind of current social environment is, but to genuinely do better history and to do a better job of discussing all of the things good, bad, and the ugly that have brought us to where we are, 'cause we firmly believe that there's far more good than bad and that you can't be an educated, an engaged citizen without understanding, all aspects of different people and events.

- The Putnam Museums, Vice President of Museum Experiences, Benjamin Johnson on the air, on the radio, on the web, on your mobile device and streaming on your computer.

Thanks for taking some time to join us as we talk about the issues in the cities.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Wheelan-Presley Funeral Home and Crematory, a proud supporter of "WQPT has been serving Quad City families since 1889.

They now have livestream capabilities for viewing your loved one's funeral or memorial service.

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You are in always will be our top priority.

We care about your financial and physical health.

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