DAA First Movie Marathon: Spy Thrillers

Dirty Ass Aisles Presents- The Spy Movie Marathon!!


Here's the deal...........I love a good spy thriller, but I hate Bond movies. All of 'em. I can definitely see why it's such a popular franchise, but it just ain't my cup of tea. At all. But fortunately, I promise I would never stoop to the level of boring/angering all of you with some long pretentious diatribe laying out all the specific (and obvious) reasons why I don't like the Bond films. No, I would rather be constructive, and offer my own suggestions for some spy films that I feel go above and beyond. So without further dumb rambling, here is a list of 8 of my most favoritest secret agent flicks ever, to be watched back to back in a spy movie marathon like a good meth binge. Consider it an anti-Bond marathon, full of (mostly) realistic characters and situaitons, and above all, just good filmmaking.

Let's get it started with.................

1. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold

The Spy: Richard Burton
Who's Trying to Kill Him: Witty Communists

Maybe one of Richard Burton's best roles ever. Maybe the best spy movie of the 60's, period. A couple months ago I was flipping through the TV, and I noticed that it was playing on the Turner Classic Movie channel, and even though I've seen it many many times, I just had to sit my ass down and watch it again. Don't have to tell me twice.

Simply put, you can't have a decent spy movie discussion without this one in the mix. It's essential, and so I had to make it the kick-off.

2. Munich

The Spy: Eric Bana
Who's Trying to Kill Him: Palestinians

A very rare accomplishment, an homage that actually manages to outdo many of the films it honors. This was Speilberg's love letter to the 70's spy thriller. It's the true story of small group of Israeli assassins sent on a mission to hunt down and kill the people responsible for the terroristic kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli olympic athletes in 1972. Can a movie possibly have a more polarizing subject as it's focus??? I submit........*clears throat*.......that it cannot.

But at the end of the day, the real subject of this movie is patriotism, and all the conflicts (inner and public) that come along with it. And for what that's worth, I've rarely seen any movie handle that better than this one.

And as far as spy movies go in general, there's always been somewhat of a bias from movie geeks towards the 60's and 70's. But I really think there have been some great ones coming out in recent years, and this is probably the best of that crowd.

3. Three Days of the Condor

The Spy: Robert Redford
Who's Trying to Kill Him: Watch and find out.............

This is the Robert Redford I like to see.........back before he had the charming cabin-in-the-mountains speech patterns of my grandmother in every movie. The whole time I was watching The Last Castle, I just kept thinking about Christmas cookies and hugs. And we won't even talk about the yawn-orgy that was Spy Games.

And while this one isn't much of a masterpeice compared to some of the others we've been talking about so far, it's probably one of the most purely thrilling thrillers on the list. The pacing is great, action is always happening, story is always unfolding piece by piece. And if you didn't already know, this is just one of many great political thrillers from director Sidney Pollack, who these days would rather act in excellent thrillers (see: Michael Clayton) than make them much anymore. And even when he does get back behind the camera, the results are extremely underwhelming, almost take-offs of his past work (see: The Interpreter). Not a good look, Sidney. You're doin' just fine but seriously, come on back home where you belong.

4. Army of Shadows


The Spy: Lino Ventura
Who's Trying to Kill Him: Nazis in occupied France

Melville's masterpiece about the French Resistance. Just mentioning this movie makes me want to scrap this whole spy-marathon idea and just start a Lino Ventura marathon right now. He can't not be amazing in any movie he's in, and this particular movie itself is amazing in it's depiction of the imperfect world of espionage, as opposed to the perfection that we usually see with superhuman heroes who know all, see all, kill all, and hump all without getting chlamydia. DON'T LIE TO ME!!! The spies in this film are clumsy at times, flawed in not only their execution but in their motivations as well, and they rarely succeed in their missions. I mean, talk about flawed characters, we can clearly see that the main character has an unhealthy kind of blind hero worship devotion towards his "chief", a radical leftist writer turned resistance-leader. And I won't get into it in detail, but the ending is heartbreaking in it's moral ambiguity.

5. Eye of the Needle


The Spy: Donald Sutherland
Who's Trying to Kill Him: The Allied Powers circa WWII

Donald Sutherland plays a German spy, one of the cold-bloodiest assassins ever to be put on film. I know what you're thinking........."Donald Sutherland as an assassin?? Cold-bloodiest?? I don't think that's a word, Sandman."

Well, you know what, get off your damn high horse, hypothetical reader!! Because Sutherland is surprisingly believable in this movie. I love that so many of his violent actions are open to some level of interpretation, because you never really know just how much he hates or loves his job of killing people. Especially since during the course of the movie, he's forced to kill multiple people who just happen to cross his path at the wrong time and see too much for their own good. It's implied that he's somewhat reluctant to do them in, but really, how reluctant can you be?? His job is way better than mine any day of the week.

Botton line, this is just a beautifully shot film from the early 80's, and one that just might change the way you look at Donald Sutherland forever. Check it out.

6. Our Man in Havana

The Spy: Alec Guiness
Who's Trying to Kill Him: Cuban authorities, among others

I'm a huge fan of Graham Greene novels, almost dick-rider level of fan if we're being honest. He could do no wrong. The adaptation of The Quiet American a couple years back was like heaven in a sex sandwich glazed in satisfaction sauce as far as I'm concerned. And while I still think that was the best Greene adaptation on screen, this 1959 flick directed by Carol Reed comes a close third after The Third Man, which was also directed by Reed. Kinda makes you wonder if maybe he wasn't on dick-rider status, too.

The Plot? Obi-wan kenobi is a clueless british salesman in Cuba in need of money, so he takes a job selling "intelligence" to the British intelligence agencies. The problem is, his "intelligence" deserves the quotation marks I'm putting them in because it's all entirely made up. Complete bullshit. But the British agents don't know this, in fact they take it VERY seriously, as do all the other covert agents of all affiliations lurking around Cuba. And they all have questions for our hero the salesman.

Nice synopsis, right? I don't know why Amazon keeps turning down my applications to be a synopsis writer for their site. Apparantly, they consider it "unprofessional" to write film descriptions while sniffing paint at a public library.

At any rate, Our Man in Havana has the perfect combination of suspense and comedy, and the fact that this movie isn't out on DVD yet almost makes me believe the crazy homeless guy who stands on the corner by my apartments warning people that Satan is roaming the earth causing "many troubles". That's the real conspiracy here.

7. The Lives of Others

The Spy: Ulrich Mühe
Who's Trying to Kill Him: His own job

If I could go back and re-do my Best of 2006 list, I would have to slip this one in somewhere in the middle. I caught a late-pass, but better late than never for a film like this. Essentially, the story is about a German spy having a change of heart, in both his outlook on the world and his moral stance on his own position in that world. Even though it won the Oscar for best foreign film last year, it seems like everybody needs the same late pass that I got because it's completely unknown to most people, as far as I can tell. Which sucks because it deserves all the notoriety that Munich got that very same year.

8. Casino Royale

The Spy: Daniel Craig
Who's Trying to Kill Him: The "evil-doers" (c) George Bush

You know what, fuck it. I said this was supposed to be the anti-Bond list, but truth be told, Casino Royale still fits just fine in that category. A perfect end to the marathon.

What an undeniably great movie this is. I'm almost glad that Tarantino handed this project off to someone else, because who knows what it might have looked like if he didn't (The New Bond: Henry Winkler?). To be fair though, I'm sure we would've got some outstanding Bond girls out of that deal.




And there you have it. That's what I would consider THE perfect spy-thriller movie marathon. Looking back over the list now, this wasn't intentional but it reads more like a list of some of the greatest leading men of all time at the top of their collective game. I hope you take my advice and check out at least..............well, 8 of these films. At least. They are all well worth the rental/download.

I hope you enjoyed the suggestions. I'll probably do this kinda thing a lot on here, when I have the time. More regular reviews coming soon. And I've gotten alot of comments about how people love this blog, and one suggestion to organize it a little better, so look out for some basic categories in my reviews. New films (still in theaters, new this year, etc), general rental suggestions (older movies that are great), and movies I feel are TRASH (similar to what I did with Bully). But really..............thanks for the comments, but fuck ya'll for sending them privately. I still have a whopping 0 comments so far and I'm already 4 posts into this thing, so I would appreciate some feedback on here since ya'll "love it" so much.

Yep.