It had been awhile since I’d seen a great “red scare” picture—a movie filled with the type of paranoia and fear that so thoroughly informed a huge number of films in the 1960s, and had a Reagan-era resurgence through the 80s. This weekend, we got a sneak peek at the latest big-budget Hollywood action/adventure flick which brilliantly employed a late-Fifties “red menace” backdrop and it got me thinking…what are the ten best films born from the Cold War and the U.S. rivalry with communism, particularly the variety found in the former Soviet Union? So, I present you with my Top 10 Cold War films list. And just for fun while you’re reading this list, push play and repeat on the Scorpions “Winds of Change,” Even if you don’t have the song, you and I both know it’s still on the iPod in your head.

10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

I don’t want to reveal too much about the film until Thursday, but I feel a rock fist up coming on for the return of Indiana Jones. George Lucas made a savvy choice to move the storyline up twenty years into the future and set it in 1958. Within the first act of the film, Lucas gets in a ton of “American Graffiti”-style moments—complete with preppies and greasers—which are fantastically tongue-in-cheek and, along with a barrel full of other twists and turns, place the audience squarely in the middle of the anti-Communist era. As it turns out, even Indy’s loyalty to America is called into question as the film opens and introduces a new era with a new set of friends and enemies. Lucas and Spielberg always knew how to skewer the Nazis for gags and laughs, and the iconic Soviet baddies get a similar treatment in this heroic reprisal.

Mutt Williams: What’s he gonna do now?
Marion Ravenwood: I don’t think he plans that far ahead.
Indiana Jones: I’d cover my ears if I were you!

9. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

The best things about director Ron Howard’s “A Beautiful Mind” were Russell Crowe’s performance as Nobel Prize winner John Nash, a brilliant mathematician plagued with schizophrenia, and the scenes of delusion and paranoia that Nash experienced. Nash begins a relationship with Agent Parcher of the Defense Department and begins decoding secret Soviet communiques. In spite of the film’s many flaws, the international intrigue and red menace paranoia gave the film tension and excitement it would certainly have lacked without it.

Nash: I’ve gotten used to ignoring them and I think, as a result, they’ve kind of given up on me. I think that’s what it’s like with all our dreams and our nightmares, Martin, we’ve got to keep feeding them for them to stay alive.

8. Rocky IV (1985)

What matter of man must we send to end the new Cold War? Who could possibly repair decades of hatred and misunderstanding between the U.S. and Russia? Why, the Italian Stallion of course. I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think much of the Soviets until Rocky put the smack down on Ivan Drago, and said “now that we’ve kicked your chemically and technologically enhanced ass, I guess we can be friends.” The training in the snow scenes are indelibly etched in my brain. A bearded Rocky Balboa trudging down snow-covered roads all the while being tailed by the KGB. Sly directed and wrote this 80s-era Cold War classic.

Rocky: During this fight, I’ve seen a lot of changing, in the way you feel about me, and in the way I feel about you. In here, there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that’s better than twenty million. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that if I can change, and you can change, everybody can change!

7. Spies Like Us (1985)

There’s always a little room for some Cold War comedy, John Landis-style. Just remembering the names of the main characters in “Spies” makes me laugh, Dan Aykroyd was Austin Millbarge, and Chevy Chase was Emmett Fitz-Hume (and still funny.) Millbarge and Fitz-Hume are two bumbling government employees turned “spies” who have a few memorable run-ins with a small group of Soviets and their nuclear warhead. The duo does their part for improving international relations, and Paul McCartney chips away at his diminishing 80s credibility with the film’s goofy themesong.

Austin Millbarge: For once I’m completely in agreement with my partner. I’m not going down there. Do you know what those things can do? Suck the paint off your house and give your family a permanent orange afro.

6. Red Dawn (1984)

For all you “Red Dawn” fans, it sounds like a remake may be in your future, although it’s hard to top Soviets parachuting down on top of your high school. While I didn’t grow up in the era of duck-and-cover drills, however, thanks to this film and “The Day After,” I did grow up thinking that a Russian invasion or full-on nuclear holocaust was pretty much inevitable. “Wolverines!”

Col. Andy Tanner: …The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that’s why they’re here. That’s why they won’t use nukes anymore; and we won’t either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing’s pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.
Darryl Bates: What started it?
Col. Andy Tanner: I don’t know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they’re gonna fight.

5. Good Night and Good Luck (2005)

Director George Clooney’s ode to journalist and pioneer Edward R. Murrow “Good Night and Good Luck” is a fantastic film depicting the struggles for some Americans during the height of McCarthy-era communist paranoia. Murrow famously challenged Senator Joseph McCarthy on his fear and propaganda campaigns and helped to turn the tide on the red scare mania that had whipped the nation into a dog-eat-dog frenzy.

Colonel Anderson: Wouldn’t you guess that the people who have seen the contents of that envelope might have a better idea of what makes someone a danger to his country, or do you think it should just be you, sir, who decides?
Fred Friendly: Who? Who? Who are these people, sir? Who are the people? Are they elected? Are they appointed? Is it you?

4. The Hunt for Red October (1990)

Inspired by the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, as I have mentioned a time or two before, director John McTiernan’s “The Hunt for Red October” is one of my all-time faves. Like “Rocky IV,” this script finds Americans and Soviets learning to get along, but not without some explosive and claustrophobic cat-and-mousing in the ocean deep.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?
Captain Ramius: I suppose.
Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?
Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

3. The Right Stuff (1983)

Director Philip Kaufman’s (”The Unbearable Lightness of Being”) adaptation of the Tom Wolfe novel about the space race is another bonafide Cold War classic. While the Cold War was “cold” because the U.S. and the Soviets weren’t directly engaging in warfare, space was a hotly contested ground which became the new front upon which the two giants waged their battle. “The Right Stuff” features one of the all-time great ensemble casts with fresh-faced performances from Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward and Sam Shepard.

Lyndon Johnson: And as I was sayin’, whoever controls the high ground of space controls the world. The Roman Empire controlled the world because it could build roads. Later, the British Empire was dominant because they had ships. In the Air Stage, we were powerful because we had the airplane. And now the Communists have established a foothold in outer space. Pretty soon they’ll have damned space platforms so they can drop nuclear bombs on us, like rocks from a highway overpass. Now HOW IN THE HELL did they ever get ahead of us?

2. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

There are few films as important to cinephiles and students of the art as “Strangelove”. It is also a film that an awful lot of people just don’t get. I have to admit, I’m still somewhere in the middle on this one. I haven’t spent the kind of time with “Strangelove” that may be required to fully digest the entirety of its importance and contribution to film. What I can say with certainty is that it has stuck with me and it hasn’t stopped perplexing me since the first time I screened the film. “Strangelove” is challenging in ways that few films can claim to be and it’s wicked funny. Kubrick’s satirical look at the Cold War conflict between the U.S. and the Soviets has a distinctly different tone and intention than most of the red menace films of the sixties or later. It is as profound and hilarious a statement about the ridiculousness of warfare, and of human behavior in general, as any that have been made since.

General Jack D. Ripper: Mandrake, do you recall what Clemenceau once said about war?
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: No, I don’t think I do, sir, no.
General Jack D. Ripper: He said war was too important to be left to the generals. When he said that, 50 years ago, he might have been right. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

1. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

The ultimate in Cold War/red scare films has got to be the original “Manchurian Candidate,” directed by John Frankenheimer, and starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and one super-nasty Angela Lansbury. That’s right—the same Angela Lansbury who starred for years in “Murder She Wrote” gave us one of film history’s most vivid and truly evil villainesses, Mrs. Iselin. Raymond Shaw (Harvey) is brainwashed in a twisted communist plot to win the Cold War from the inside out. Sinatra’s tortured Major Bennett Marco fights to remember what memories they stole from him and Shaw in time to stop the communists from executing the final stage of their plans. “Candidate” is a remarkable film with one of the most riveting and original plot twists in film history.

Bennett Marco: 52 of them! Take a good look at ‘em, Raymond, look at ‘em, and while you’re looking, listen. This is me, Marco, talking. 52 red queens and me are telling you… you know what we’re telling you? It’s over! The links, the beautifully conditioned links are smashed. They’re smashed as of now because we say so, because we say they are to be smashed. We’re busting up the joint, we’re tearing out all the wires. We’re busting it up so good all the queen’s horses and all the queen’s men will never put old Raymond back together again. You don’t work any more! That’s an order.

Tags: A Beautiful Mind, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and, Good Night and Good Luck, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Manchurian Candidate, Red Dawn, Rocky IV, Spies Like Us, The Hunt for Red October, The Right Stuff

Look out kids, here comes summer. A few months back, in desperation for some warm weather, I did a list of Top 10 Hot Movies. In anticipation of a little fun in the sun and some time in a few highly chlorinated, probably recently peed-in public swimming pools here is my list of Top 10 Movies From the Deep: films that take place primarily in, on or under large bodies of water. This is just a favorites list, there are some films that I would defend until my face is blue and then there’s “Deep Blue Sea.” Some of you, with wicked supreme old school monster-movie backgrounds, may be able to enlighten us with some requisite water monster classics, and I’m sure more than a few of you have a number of older films in your pocket that I’m missing - take for instance “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. I’m sure we’re due for a “20,000 Leagues” remake any second now, but in the meantime, here are my current favorite Movies From the Deep.

10. Ghosts of the Abyss (2003)

There is no way “Titanic” was going to make this list, however the follow-up documentary which James “King of the World” Cameron made, post his bloated Celine Dion-themed behemoth, was actually quite interesting. The film was narrated by Bill Paxton (who also starred in “Titanic”), and Cameron and co. developed new underwater filming technologies to bring the wreckage of the Titanic to life in 3D. The mysteries of this famous shipwreck are far more illuminating from a historical perspective, minus all the sappy ridiculousness that Cameron poured so copiously all over his Oscar-winning smash-hit.

Old Rose: 1,500 people went into the sea… when Titanic sank from under us… there were twenty boats floating nearby… and only one came back. Six were saved from the water… myself included. *Six*. Out of 1,500. Afterward, the 700 people in the boats had nothing to do but wait… wait to die… wait to live… wait for an absolution… that would never come.

9. Deep Blue Sea (1999)

THIS IS A TERRIBLE MOVIE! However, sometimes unintentional humor, sharks, and LL Cool J all mixed together makes for high-end entertainment. Seriously, I can’t defend this film. I would try, but I swear I get a kick out of it because it is so over the top. Directer Renny Harlin is known as much for his big-budget action stinkers as the few (ie: “Cliffhanger” and “Die Hard 2″) that aren’t so bad. I base a great deal of my appreciation of this truly bad-is-good film on the monologue sequence where Samuel L. Jackson gives a tough-as-nails speech about how their going to make it out of the situation and then gets promptly swallowed up like an hors d’oeuvres by a problem-solving Mako shark. The rest of it I blame on LL Cool J.

Russell Franklin: So here’s the riddle. What does an eight thousand pound mako shark with a brain the size of a flat head V8 engine and no natural predators think about?
Carter Blake: Well, I’m not waiting around here to find out!

8. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

There are few actors who experience a redefinition quite like Bill Murray has in the last decade. From “The Royal Tenenbaums” to “Broken Flowers” to “Lost in Translation” and “Rushmore,” Murray has charted a new course in his work that few actors are capable of or willing to attempt. Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” is easily his least accessible film to date with regards to characters and story, but it remains thoroughly intriguing. From an art direction standpoint, the scenes in this film that take place on a doll house-like, cutaway set of the ship, are on par with visionary filmmakers like Michel Gondry and Tim Burton’s finest moments.

Ned Plimpton: I’m gonna fight you, Steve.
Steve Zissou: You never say, “I’m gonna fight you, Steve.” You just smile and act natural, and then you sucker-punch him.
Ned Plimpton: You fight your way, and I’ll fight mine.
Steve Zissou: Oh, listen, Ned. Don’t you try to…
Steve Zissou: I think your Team Zissou ring might’ve caught me on the lip.

7. Lady in the Water (2006)

This film got a bad rap. Quite possibly because M. Night Shyamalan cast himself as the man who will save the world, but more likely because the film was fundamentally misunderstood - it is a fairy tale. I believe now, as I did when I first watched the film in the theater, that viewed through that lens it is a clever and enjoyable ride with yet another fabulous performance from Paul Giamatti. The girl comes through a swimming pool from a water world below, so technically this counts.

Cleveland Heep: H-how was the movie?
Harry Farber: Sucked
Cleveland Heep: Oh… what a shame.
Harry Farber: Characters were walking around, saying their thoughts out loud. Who does that? And in a typical romance where the couple finally tell each other they love one another in the rain. Why does everyonelike to stand around and talk in the rain in movies?
Cleveland Heep: Um… well maybe it’s a metaphor for purification; starting new.
Harry Farber: No, it’s not!

6. Cast Away (2000)

This one is the most debatable entry on the From the Deep list, but quite a bit of the film takes place on the ocean. The scenes with Hanks barely escaping a dramatic plane crash, or lying lifeless on what’s left of a makeshift raft being gently prodded by handy whales constitute a film primarily on or entirely surrounded by water. If you’ve ever been overcome by work and stress and given in to the desire to escape to a deserted island in your mind, this film will make you think twice about your aspirations to become Robinson Caruso.

Chuck Noland: We might just make it. Did that thought ever cross your brain? Well regardless I would rather take my chance out there on the ocean, that to stay here and die on this shithole island spending the rest of my life talking to a god damn VOLLEYBALL.

5. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

Despite the presence and star power of Russell Crowe, Austrailian director Peter Weir’s (”Dead Poets Society”) epic about sea captain Jack Aubrey didn’t exactly set any new box office records in 2003. It did, however, garner Weir a Best Director nomination and a Best Picture nomination for the film shot almost entirely on the water. Crowe and co-star Paul Bettany anchor the film with solid performances and obvious chemistry, and the ship-to-ship battle sequences are a thing of wonder.

Capt. Jack Aubrey: I respect your right to disagree with me, but I can only afford one rebel on this ship. I hate it when you talk of the service in this way. It makes me feel so very low. You think I want to flog Nagle? A man who hacked the ropes that sent his mate to his death? Under MY orders? Do you not see? The only things that keep this wooden world together are hard work…
Dr. Stephen Maturin: Jack, the man failed to salute. There’s hierarchies even in nature. There is no disdain in nature. There is no…
Capt. Jack Aubrey: Men must be governed! Often not wisely, but governed nonetheless.
Dr. Stephen Maturin: That’s the excuse of every tyrant in history, from Nero to Bonaparte. I, for one, am opposed to authority. It is an egg of misery and opression.
Capt. Jack Aubrey: You’ve come to the wrong shop for anarchy, brother.

4. Crimson Tide (1995)

One of the two submarine films on the list - the one still to come has the better story - but, “Crimson Tide” has better dialogue. Supposedly script-doctored by Quentin Tarantino, “Tide” is a claustrophobic, mutinous adventure with rapid fire dialogue and plot twists that make it one of my favorite military films of all time. Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington are phenomenal bouncing off one another and, if I’m not mistaken, this was my first proper introduction to both Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson) and Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini).

Capt. Ramsey: You do qualify your remarks. If someone asked me if we should bomb Japan, a simple “Yes.” By all means sir, drop that fucker, twice! I don’t mean to suggest that you’re indecisive, Mr Hunter. Not at all. Just, uh… complicated. ‘course, that’s the way the Navy wants you. Me, they wanted simple.
Hunter: Well, you certainly fooled them, sir.
Capt. Ramsey: Be careful there, Mr Hunter. It’s all I’ve got to rely on, being a simple-minded son of a bitch. Rickover gave me my command, a checklist, a target and a button to push. All I gotta know is how to push it, they tell me when. They seem to want you to know why.
Hunter: I would hope they’d want us all to know why, sir.

3. The Abyss (1989)

James Cameron makes his second appearance on the list at spot number three with “The Abyss.” I remember watching a “making of ” on HBO or Cinemax in high school and thinking, maybe for the first time, about what it would take to shoot a film like “The Abyss.” Special masks were engineered so the actor’s faces would be recognizable during underwater dialogue sequences, they flooded parking lots and built a set inside a grain silo which was then filled with water covered with black beads on the surface to block out all light. I recommend the extended edition of the film with a few extra minutes of the alien plotline that was left out of the theatrical version.

Ensign Monk: Bud, give me a reading from your liquid oxygen gauge.
Virgil: 5 minuts worth
Lindsey Brigman: What?
Alan “Hippy” Carnes: It took him *thirty* minutes just to get down there!
Lindsey Brigman: Bud! Do you hear me? You drop your weights and start back now, Bud. The gauge could be wrong. Do you hear me? Just drop your weights and start back now. The gauge could be wrong! The gauge could be wrong, you drop your weights and start back now!
Virgil: Going to stay awhile

2. The Hunt For Red October (1990)

This is by far the best of the Jack Ryan films based on the novels by Tom Clancy. Unfortunately, “October” star Alec Baldwin chose not to reprise his role as Ryan in future films, turning the part over to Harrison Ford for a few decent films (”Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger”) - and then there was the Affleck incident. The ensemble cast is amazing, with far too many names to list here. The story is top notch, Baldwin and Sean Connery both turn in career-best performances and director John McTiernan of “Die Hard” fame brought it all together into one cohesive action-adventure thriller from the depths. Playing chicken with nuclear submarines is usually going to add some tension.

Jack Ryan: Has he made any Crazy Ivans?
Capt. Bart Mancuso: What difference does that make?
Jack Ryan: Because his next one is going to be to starboard.
Capt. Bart Mancuso: Why? Because his last was to port?
Jack Ryan: No. Because he always goes to starboard in the bottom half of the hour.

1. Jaws (1975)

This is the one that started it all. “Jaws” is the prototype summer blockbuster and the ultimate motivation for an almost genetic fear of all things moving in the deep - which many people, including myself, are entirely familiar with. Even the long list of tragically flawed ‘films from the deep’ that “Jaws” spawned - which include “Alligator,” “Lake Placid,” “Orca,” “Leviathan,” and many, many more - can’t undo the magnificence of Steven Spielberg’s breakout feature. It’s a movie that was so affecting that it put a permanent hex on sharks, the same way the Garden of Eden story has besmirched the reputation of snakes for centuries.

Hooper: Mr. Vaughn, what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all. Now, why don’t you take a long, close look at this sign.
Hooper: Those proportions are correct.
Mayor Vaughn: Love to prove that, wouldn’t ya? Get your name into the National Geographic.

Tags: Cast Away, Crimson Tide, Deep Blue Sea, Ghosts of the Abyss, Jaws, Lady in the Water, Master and Commander, The Abyss, The Hunt for Red October, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Tom Clancy, tom hanks