Stealers Wheel

Fabled reverberations of distant past, a time when magic still filled the air... and men would quest to prove their knightly virtues, are brought to vivid life in writer/director David Lowery’s 2021 Arthurian era legend, The Green Knight. Almost ethereal in its nature – not due to some sort of fragility, but rather because it feels as if it is transcendent of this time... a wisp of lore echoing from distant past that ought be lost at the merest blink of an eye, it is akin to being transported back into a magic-tinged Medieval landscape. Lowery deserves much credit for brewing such a mythical auratic atmosphere. It is no easy feat being an Arthurian laureate, for you must know the earliest records dating back to Geoffrey of Monmouth in the twelfth century, through the long annals...

Riffing on the gumshoe detectives of yesteryear, 1994's Clean Slate, directed by Mick Jackson, is a bit like a comedic and much less complex version of Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). Poor Maurice Pogue (Dana Carvey) has a lot going on in his life: a former LAPD detective, the private eye will soon be taking the stand. . . as he witnessed a murder by a notorious one-thumb-missing gangster, Philip Cornell (Michael Gambon) – who’s always accompanied by two menacing bodyguards (Mark Bringelson and Christopher Meloni); though the supposedly murdered woman, Sarah Novak (Valeria Golino), has returned looking for the PI’s help – or is she simply a well chosen lookalike

A very different type of Christmas classic, 1988's Ernest Saves Christmas, directed by John R. Cherry III, is where season’s spirit meets slapstick comedy, saving Santa comes by way of snakes, and a taxi driver can concoct a plan to salvage Christmas morning for millions of youngsters. The third movie of the Ernest (Jim Varney) franchise finds the man driving taxi in Orlando (in fact, this was the first film to be shot at the new Disney/MGM Studios). Akin to limo driver Lloyd Christmas in Dumb and Dumber, his heart and soul is bigger than his brain. A huge lover of the holiday season, Ernest is pleased to give a man claiming to be the real Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) a ride.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – there is no doubt Pre-Code cinema thrived on this ancient idiom. A prime example is George B. Seitz’s 1931 romance driven drama, Arizona (based on a famous play of the time written by Augustus Thomas). Poor Evelyn Palmer (Laura La Plante) – she’s been in a very secretive romantic tryst with one of the Army’s top up and comers, Lt. Bob Denton (a very early starring role for John Wayne). Charming, debonair, and a supreme athlete (he’s the star full back in the annual Army-Navy football game... they even send him in to kick the extra point to win the game), Evelyn has spent the last two years of her life courting the catch. . . only for him to break it off after his memorable performance (saying he never planned on marrying her after all).

A sugar stalker, milk chocolate peeping Tom, juice sucker, and cookie cadaver all mean... well, absolutely nothing, but they sure do sound like they would fit nicely in the 1969 giallo So Sweet... So Perverse, directed by Umberto Lenzi. Inspired by the movie that started the whole twist-ending trend, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Les Diaboliques (1955), the narrative follows Jean Reynaud (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a wealthy businessman living in Paris. Married to disenchanted Danielle (Erika Blanc), he is more interested in playing the field (from what we hear, so is his wife), rather than spend time in their expansive third floor apartment together.

Wow – what a tagline: “One will die tonight! The girl on the loose, the smart secretary... they’re too teasing...too tempting...too easy a target for a crazed killer!”. 1957's The Girl in Black Stockings, coming from famed producer and sometime director Howard W. Koch, is a B budget film noir that really demonstrates its influence as a precursor to the gialli and slasher films that would follow some fifteen or so years later. Nearly entirely set in one location, welcome to the small town of Kanab, Utah... a population of three thousand that houses within it the relaxing Parry Lodge – a perfect place for those looking to escape their stressful lives. Run by a brother and sister, Edmund Parry (Ron Randell) is a clench jawed cynic (likely stemming from the fact he is a quadriplegic), often spouting cheerful lines like, “I’d like to get so drunk I’d look in a mirror and spit in my own face”, while Julia (Marie Windsor – The Killing) is everything to him but wife (but that doesn’t mean she’s not jealous when a woman shows him any attention).