Joseph PrywellerDec 18, 20206 minKEY LARGO: A STORM BREWS INSIDE USKey Largo doesn't take long to find its hard noir core. The classic Bogie-Bacall picture from 1948 stashes the main characters in a rumpl...
Joseph PrywellerNov 16, 20206 minTHE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES: DISILLUSION AND THE RETURNING VETThe war is over in the Pacific. Three servicemen are returning home. They bum a ride together on an Air Force transport plane, sitting in...
Joseph PrywellerNov 9, 20204 minTHe INVISIBLE MAN: TRANSPARENT TERRORSometimes, when it comes to bad relationships, it is not about the lack of love between two people, or lack of chemistry, fidelity or att...
Joseph PrywellerMay 25, 20206 minThe Lessons of Network in a Post-Modern WorldGo ahead, open up the window, stick out your head and say it three times loud: I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore! Does...
Joseph PrywellerMay 10, 20205 minTHE GRADUATE: THE SOUNDS OF LONELY SILENCEIt is a movie about choices, the wrong ones and the right ones and what do when you're not certain which are which. It is a movie about l...
Joseph PrywellerApr 30, 20205 minWHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD ROCK MOVIES GONE?What's so funny about peace, love, understanding and making a really good rock movie that's not just another easy biography? The former t...
Joseph PrywellerApr 25, 20204 minLEAVE NO TRACE: MOVIES OF ISOLATIONThis occasional series will look at overlooked films on popular streaming services -- Amazon Prime, Hulu and Netflix -- that are well wor...
Joseph PrywellerApr 25, 20204 minTHE FAREWELL: PUT ON A HAPPY FACEThere is delusion that means unnecessarily avoiding confronting a grimmer reality and delusion that is sometimes necessary to survive. Wh...
Joseph PrywellerMar 14, 20205 minGROWING UP UNLOVED: MOVIES OF REBELLIONRebel Without a Cause really gets the heart beating when the world is blown to bits. In an iconic scene near the beginning of the movie, ...
Joseph PrywellerMar 7, 20204 minWINE, ROSES AND WHISKEY Addiction, in the form of mental illness and recovery, is a powerful reminder of the weakness in all of us and our sometimes-lethal attra...
Joseph PrywellerJan 12, 20205 minMacho Men Night at the MoviesI've just finished watching the 1963 World War II film The Great Escape, a daring, almost three-hour-long account of an attempted bust-ou...
Joseph PrywellerJan 9, 20205 minThe Subtle Subversivness of Mister RogersAs I walked out of a movie theater on a cold winter afternoon after seeing It's a Beautiful Day, I heard a couple remark how the film was...
Joseph PrywellerDec 30, 20195 minThe Irishman: A Moral Slippery SlopeTo paraphrase, Friedrich Nietzsche, morality comes in two flavors. There is the Judeo-Christian-based form that favors moral kindness and...
Joseph PrywellerDec 23, 20194 minThe Cotton Club Encore: Coppola and the MobThe backstory behind the making of Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 box office bomb The Cotton Club has all the the plot twists and palace int...
Joseph PrywellerDec 17, 20193 minRichard Jewell: Bubba the BomberThere are times when we are so hellbent on justice that we do an injustice instead. Richard Jewell, Clint Eastwood's latest film about a w...
Joseph PrywellerDec 3, 20193 minThe Return of the Anti-HeroDoes American need an anti-hero? We live in a time of partisan bickering, of a deepening divide between rich and poor, of random shooting...
Joseph PrywellerDec 3, 20193 minThe Sensational Sound of SilenceI recently watched an obscure 1950s Western called Time to Die. Made in Mexico and directed by Arturo Ripstein, a controversial filmmaker...