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Movies are all about emotions. Positive ones, negative ones and everything in between. We’re entertained and enthralled by movies because we’re so emotionally invested in these stories and characters. And given everything going on in the world right now, we could all use some of those positive emotions that only movies can provide.

Keep Music Live, a fundraising campaign that raises money to support small, independently owned venues in Washington in the time of COVID-19, has announced the application for relief grants is now open. The application period, which opened Tuesday, will close on Feb. 2 at 11:59 p.m. PT. 

For director Conor Allyn, making films has always been a family affair. He got his start helming action movies in Indonesia produced by his father, former Dallas political consultant Rob Allyn, and now has 11 features under his belt. Father and son also served as producers on Mexico’s Academy Awards submission this year.

Animals abound in Ramin Bahrani’s “The White Tiger,” a wild and rollicking adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel. Animals are how our protagonist, Balram (Adarsh Gourav, in a chameleonic performance), makes sense of the world into which he’s born: an oppressively hierarchical Indian society.

“12 Hour Shift” brings us a world populated by mundane, shoot-the-breeze small talk floating on the surface of a sourly sinister plot. We find Mandy (Angela Bettis) sitting on the curb outside a hospital smoking a cigarette in preparation for her double as a night nurse. Her chatty co-worker comments on Mandy’s thin physique.

Nicholas Sironka wondered if he was still in Spokane and not his native Kenya when an angry mob invaded the U.S. Capitol this month. The sensitive north Spokane artist, who moved to Spokane 21 years ago, was shocked when the news broke that the hallowed halls in Washington, D.C., were desecrated.

It's not easy performing under a microscope in the TMZ era. Over the last generation, no athlete was observed more so than Derek Jeter, who thrived and somehow failed to commit missteps while scrutinized in New York. The Hall of Fame baseball player set an example on and off the field, which is extraordinary.

It’s 1980 in the Notting Hill section of London in “Lovers Rock,” the second of director Steve McQueen’s Amazon Prime series of five Small Axe movies about life in Caribbean immigrant communities in the United Kingdom. The exquisite 71-minute film is one of the brightest lights of a burst of new dramatic movies.

Anna Paquin plays the top spin doctor at a London public relations firm in “Flack: Season 1” (TV-14), a dramedy filled with bad behavior and the brilliant women who cover it up by destroying other lives … including their own. Lydia Wilson, Rebecca Benson and Sophie Okonedo co-star in the British production.

If you had wanted to know last January when your favorite band was coming to town, or which artists were expected to grace Spokane with a concert, you probably would have looked it up. And, in all likelihood, you would have ended up on bandsintown.com, which for years has been a central medium for connecting artists to audiences.

Social media is a dumping ground for our epiphanies, so that's where Daniel Ek unloaded his latest eureka on Tuesday. "I have come to realize that much in the world tend(s) to be correlated to how we see time," the Spotify CEO and corporate philosopher wrote on Twitter. "Many things that appear illogical can make perfect sense."

Featuring a cast of refreshingly three-dimensional characters, heart-warming friendships and countless games of chess, “The Queen’s Gambit” is the kind of emotional roller coaster that you’ll immediately want to ride again. Based on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel, “The Queen’s Gambit” is focused on Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Jennifer Lopez had already sung the famed folk song “This Land Is Your Land” and was midway through “America the Beautiful” when she paused to deliver a patriotic message at President Joe Biden’s inauguration: “One nation, under God,” she said in Spanish. “Indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

W.C. Fields warned against working with kids and animals. Thankfully, "Masterpiece" ignored at least half of that advice. As part of its 50th year on the air, the PBS staple is offering a new adaptation of "All Creatures Great and Small," the misadventures of an adorkable veterinarian.

When a public figure transcends the realities of their own life to become a symbol, or an icon, it can be difficult to remember that they were, indeed, human, too. This becomes one of the motivating theses of Sam Pollard’s illuminating documentary “MLK/FBI,” alongside another, equally important charge.

Injustice often inspires art. When the Ohio National Guard killed four college students protesting the Vietnam War in 1970 at Kent State, Neil Young penned "Ohio." The counterculture anthem is one of the greatest protest songs ever written: "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming / We're finally on our own / This summer I hear the drumming / Four dead in Ohio."

Anne M. "Marnie" Rorholm, Ph.D., has been selected as the director of development at Spokane Valley Summer Theatre, where she has worked as a volunteer since the nonprofit began in 2015. "The production quality at SVST created by professional leadership and local talent is simply unmatched in the Spokane area," Rohrholm said.

In accordance with the first phase of Gov. Jay Inslee's reopening plan, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture is now open for private visits. On Tuesdays through Saturdays, a group of as many as six people from the same household can visit the MAC for 50 minutes. Visits begin at 10 a.m., with the last visit at 4 p.m.

In 1964, four legends met up on the night that Cassius Clay became heavyweight champion of the world. “One Night in Miami” (2020, R) imagines what transpired that night between Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and Clay (Eli Goree) before he became Muhammad Ali.