Cinema Basement

 A review by Brooks Rich The nephew of King Arthur, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel), is looking to become a legend in his own right. On Christmas Day the mysterious Green Knight arrives at the castle and challenges Arthur to a friendly game. One of his knights must do battle with the Green Knight. If they land a single blow, then in a year's time they must journey to the Green Chapel and receive the same blow in return. Gawain accepts the challenge and yet the Green Knight does not fight back, instead bowing and offering his head. Gawain beheads him, only to have the Green Knight, rise, pick up his head, and say "one year." A year later Gawain must travel to Green Chapel, a six day's journey north, to face the Green Knight.  They don't make movies like this anymore. This is no Hollywood film with non-stop action scenes and answers for every little question. This is a slow paced ambiguous fairy tale, a film about one man discovering what it's like to be honorable and fa...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Socialite Lauren Staton, the legendary Faye Dunaway, conspires with another woman named Lisa to murder Nick Franco, their two timing lover with a violent streak. Lauren shoots Nick and then has Lisa keep his body warm with an electric blanket. When she later approaches with the building superintendent, Lisa fires a shot into the air, making it appear that Nick was murdered just then, giving Lauren a solid alibi. However Columbo begins to circle like he does and in order to distract him, Lauren flirts and seduces him, which starts as an act but she finds herself liking him. Columbo is indeed enchanted by Lauren as well but he suspects she's trying to distract him.  There's a lot that stands out about this episode. For one it is the only episode written by Falk himself. He is playing around with all things Columbo. His at times slovenly appearance while on a crime scene. How distracted he can get. The little things that bother only him. And of cou...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Jarvis Goodland, the legendary Ray Milland, is a snobbish egotistical plant collector who conspires with his nephew to fake a kidnapping to access a trust account. However Goodland turns the tables on his nephew and murders him when the nephew refuses to leave his adulterous wife. When the opportunity presents itself, he tries to frame the wife for the murder. The police even fall for it hook, line, and sinker. Well besides a certain lieutenant.  It should be clear now that the heavyweight in every Columbo is Falk himself. He is the show and without him nothing works. The chess match with the killers and the relentless nature of Columbo's investigation all fall on Falk's shoulders. Absolutely. I especially like in this episode we see a Columbo case from the post of view of a young sergeant who admires him, John Jay Wilson, who would return in a later episode. Wilson is the modern police, well modern for the '70s, and Columbo is the old school...

 A retrospective by Brooks Rich Eccentric artist Max Barsini lives in a beachside house with his wife Vanessa and his live in model Julia. Next door to them lives Louise, Max's first wife. The three women are essentially Max's three wives, even though Max is only officially married to Vanessa. When Louise announces she is leaving to move in with her former psychiatrist now her lover, Max fears she will reveal that years ago Max murdered his business partner. He and Louise were living in a small apartment above a bar and were impoverished. So under the guise of painting in private, Max sneaks away and drowns Louise. It looks like an accident. But a homicide lieutenant with a cigar isn't sure about that.  This episode has really grown on me. At first I found it kind of weird, with it's bizarre borderline creep of a killer and it's artsy film school dream sequences. But over time this one has become one of my favorites. Actor Patrick Bauchau does a fantastic job with t...

 A retrospective by Forrest Humphrey  Paul Hanlon (Robert Culp) is a premier football team manager, and he's grown tired of the team's young, immature, party animal owner, Eric Wanger. So one day he stages an alibi, heads out to the young man's home, and bashes his skull in with an ice block while Wagner is swimming. With the murder weapon safely melting in the pool and the murder looking like an accident, Hanlon escapes, and its up to our battered Lt. Columbo to figure out how Hanlon did it.  What I like about this episode is how truly stumped Columbo is for most of the runtime, seemingly unable to get around the villain's alibi. He does find his first clue pretty quickly, reinforcing how intelligent he is with the unorthodox way he gets tipped off. This leads to another great game of cat and mouse between our two leads, and as with my previous episode, it remains amusing to see the villain so aggravated by the bumbling detective.  I wont spoil the final section...