Tag Archives: Richard Roundtree

1982 Films, David Carradine, Horror, Richard Roundtree

Q: The Winged Serpent-1982

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Q: The Winged Serpent-1982

Director Larry Cohen

Starring Michael Moriarty, David Carradine, Richard Roundtree

Scott’s Review #1,112

Reviewed February 15, 2021

Grade: B-

A campy and tongue-in-cheek work, Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) is an amusing monster movie affair. It’s best suited for the post-midnight hour when not much else is on television. I jest because it’s not a bad watch at all, but neither is it to be taken very seriously.

It’s terribly overacted, overplayed, and over-the-top and not remembered very well. Soon after watching it I almost forgot the entire experience.

This is never a positive for a film. Q: The Winged Serpent is forever destined for placement in the cult horror category for a good laugh or three. Sadly, most will laugh at the film rather than with it.

There are tidbits added about the mass media, politics, and even the police force that don’t seem necessary for this type of film and don’t go anywhere.

A film like Q: The Winged Serpent should stick to entertaining the audience instead of incorporating any serious messages.

Larry Cohen, best known for cheap horror and science fiction films directs Michael Moriarty as Jimmie Quinn, an angry aspiring jazz pianist who leads a life of crime to get by.

Purely by accident, he stumbles upon Q,  a winged, dragon-like, female lizard, who resides atop New York City’s Chrysler Building.

The police are on the hunt for Q, who enjoys killing residents atop rooftops for fun. Jimmie plans to tell the police where Q lives, for a price tag of one million dollars.

Speaking of Cohen, never did he deliver better work than when he directed an episode of the Showtime Masters of Horror anthology in 2006. The episode, entitled “Pick Me Up” was fantastic and also starred Moriarty.

We never really know why Q arrives in Manhattan. There is a quick reference that she is an Aztec god or something, but we never know what motivates her or why she slices and dices New Yorkers. Maybe there is some message of overindulgence there, but we never find out much about her or care why she is who she is.

There is a silly side story of the detectives cheating Jimmie out of his just desserts which only makes the police seem like assholes. Life in New York City during the 1980s was fraught with crime and corruption and while the knock against authority might be justified it’s also not entirely helpful either.

David Carradine and Richard Roundtree play the main detectives which adds a bit of star quality to the picture. Neither of them has much substance to do and adds little beyond name recognition to one-note roles.

The best part of Q: The Winged Serpent is the genuineness of the filming. It was shot on location in and around New York City’s Chrysler Building and uses the interior of the building’s tower crown as a primary location.

This is fabulous for fans who have never been inside the historic building or for those who have it’s a cool reminder of just how incredible the building is.

Many shots of mid-town Manhattan are included which is an absolute treat.

Cohen also wrote and produced the film so he has a passion for the project he is admirable for. He wasn’t simply some hired gun for an uninspired effort. He is setting out to create a nod to the legendary monster-horror film King Kong (1933) or those old Japanese monster films of the 1950s like Godzilla where a monster wreaks havoc on a metropolis.

The special effects for the flying serpent are not very good and seem quite amateurish and clay-like. Therefore, the entire tone of Q: The Winged Serpent is that of a B-movie. I’m not usually a CGI fan, but the film could have used a boost in that department.

Q: The Winged Serpent (1982) gives a nice representation of life in another time in New York City. I loved the cabs, the traffic, the noise, the grizzled residents, the street vendors, and the corruption.

The film is largely messy and uninspired, but not completely a dud either.

1995 Films, Best Film of the Year, Brad Pitt, Crime Thriller, David Fincher, Gywneth Paltrow, Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Richard Roundtree, Thriller

Seven-1995

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Seven-1995

Director David Fincher

Starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman

Scott’s Review #780

Reviewed June 29, 2018

Grade: A-

Many films containing a similar theme as Seven (1995) have come along over the years- some good, most mediocre. The mixture of homicidal detectives tracking crazed killers has been done ad nauseam and more often than not, done with either poor writing or a predictable outcome-or both.

Instead of being a run-of-the-mill film, Seven serves as a representative blueprint of the tautness and unpredictability that can be achieved by using a familiar yet compelling concept, provided there is good writing and good direction.

The film is incredibly brutal and riveting.

Respected director David Fincher gathers an all-star cast of Hollywood heavies including Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, and Gwyneth Paltrow, all of whom add to the well-crafted script.

It also brings the talent level to respectability and, as great as the story is, with weaker actors, the stakes would not have been as high and the film may have even been ruined.

A serial killer is on the loose in Los Angeles- detective duo William Somerset (a very good Freeman) is set to retire and is tasked with finding the killer. He is partnered with David Mills (Pitt), a young, hot-tempered man who has just moved to the city with his wife Tracy (Paltrow).

Unbeknownst to David, Tracy is pregnant and unsure whether to keep the child- this point factors in heavily as events unfold.

The killer is using the seven deadly sins: greed, gluttony, sloth, lust, pride, envy, and wrath, as his motivation for the creative slayings.

In retrospect Seven is very similar to the still-to-come Fincher work, 2007’s Zodiac, so much so that both films could be watched in sequence- one being a true story, the other pure fiction.

Both focus on the serial killer element with a message, they each have marvelous psychological intrigue and purpose. There are cat-and-mouse scenes aplenty for fans to enjoy.

At the risk of this point being a total stretch, I’d also argue that 1971’s Dirty Harry influenced Zodiac, Seven, and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

A heinous killer shrouded in intelligence, danger, and motivation is a commonality of all of the aforementioned films, and numerous studies of each of the killers could be dissected if time permits.

Each killer is calculating and manipulative.

On that note, Kevin Spacey gives a tremendous performance as the cold and villainous John Doe. Clever and inventive, his victims are intended to suffer and suffer greatly.

Some of the kills could be included in the best of the torture-horror franchise, Saw (2004), as they are very twisted and carved in brutality.

A supermodel is disfigured after being given a choice to call for help or overdose on pills, representing pride. A man is forced to consume food until his stomach ruptures, representing gluttony. Spacey portrays his role as calm, cool, and collected, eliciting a terrifying response from audiences, especially as he toys with the detectives.

Still coming into his own as an actor in 1995, Pitt proves he can almost measure up (though not quite) with big-boy acting talents Spacey and Freeman. Playing an ambitious man eager to prove himself in “the big city” with his pretty wife in tow, Pitt’s David is wholesome and family-oriented, yet has an edge.

All around the likable hero, Pitt is perfectly cast in the role and a large part of its success.

The frightening final sequence still resonates with me after all of these years since Seven was released. In a classic standoff between Doe and the detectives, as is typically the case in these types of films, the ultimate climax is twisted, psychological, and gruesome.

I did not see this shocker coming as it culminates in lives being forever changed. The expressions and actions of Freeman, Pitt, and Spacey are superlative.

Seven (1995) is a film basking in riches. On par with the best of the best in serial killer films, it is powerfully directed by Fincher. The film is fraught with grisly symbolism and its share of suspenseful sequences.

With powerful acting, it is a film relevant and watchable decades after the original release. Perhaps not quite on the level as Dirty Harry or The Silence of the Lambs, but pretty damned close and that is impressive in itself.

Oscar Nominations: Best Film Editing

1974 Films, Adventure, Ava Gardner, Charlton Heston, Disaster, George Kennedy, Richard Roundtree, Walter Matthau

Earthquake-1974

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Earthquake-1974

Director Mark Robson

Starring Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner

Scott’s Review #407

60030175

Reviewed June 2, 2016

Grade: B+

One of the several disaster films to populate film screens in the early to mid-1970s, Earthquake is one of the “main four” blockbusters (The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Airport being the others), that still resonate with viewers in modern times and are nostalgic to watch.

One might argue that the aforementioned few largely influenced Earthquake since it was the last of the group to be filmed.

Certainly, the influence is apparent.

Earthquake is a classic, traditional, disaster film containing many stock characters (or types) and is an ensemble piece- as disaster films always are- frequently containing stars of yesteryear attempting exposure in the modern cinema.

The gender roles in Earthquake are quite mainstream for the day as the females are all clearly  “damsels in distress” types and the men are portrayed as the heroes.

The action begins as we witness a Los Angeles-based middle-aged couple (the central couple if you will) engaging in a dispute.

Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner play Stewart and Remy Graff, an affluent couple, a former football star, she a boozy socialite. Her father is the wealthy Sam Royce, played by Lorne Greene. Stewart is carrying on an affair with a young actress, Denise Marshall, creating a soap opera-style romantic triangle, adding drama to the film.

We meet other characters who round out the character’s stories- LAPD Sgt. Slade (George Kennedy) shares a flirtation with Rosa (Victoria Principal), while drunkard Walter Matthau and evil kineval character Richard Roundtree provide comic relief.

These stories are merely filler until the inevitable earthquake arrives to ‘shake’ things up.

The earthquake is the main character in the film just like the tidal wave, the fire, and the airline peril are in the other same genre films.

The character’s trivial relationships soon take a back seat to the action as the earthquake shatters the city in subsequent onsets and aftershocks, destroying buildings and resulting in many deaths.

The very lengthy main earthquake sequence is second to none and hovers around the twenty-minute mark. We see many characters in peril. The scene goes on and on but is hardly redundant.

The scene is masterful and well done. The effects, cinematography, and visuals alone hold up well today and must have been breathtaking circa 1974.

In one particularly thrilling scene, a group of office workers on the thirtieth floor of a skyscraper desperately try to scramble to the elevator as the building shakes and shimmies. One businessman shoves a secretary out of the way and selfishly immerses himself in the crowded elevator as others desperately pound on the elevator door to escape.

Things do not end well for the folks on the elevator as bolts loosen and the car crashes to the ground. An animated blood splat fills the screen in a lighthearted, comical way.

The film wisely does not take itself too seriously.

As fantastic as the destruction sequence is, Earthquake is not a film without a few flaws, mostly from a character standpoint.

Unbelievable is Heston playing Greene’s son-in-law and Gardner are assumed to be young enough to be his daughter- they appear to be around the same age.

A strange character, Jody, a store clerk, suddenly dresses as a soldier, wearing a wig, following the destruction and, assumed to be gay by thugs, is teased, which prompts him to shoot them with a machine gun. He subsequently becomes obsessed with and nearly rapes Rosa.

The sub-plot seems uneven and very unnecessary.

With spectacular special effects, Earthquake is a must-see disaster film with a slightly downcast, hopeless tone. It does its job well- it entertains, thrills, and features an all-star cast of former Hollywood elite and a few rising stars.

A fun time will be had.

Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Sound (won), Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing