I was inspired by a comment someone made over on Brad's Blog that ALL the Rocky sequels were "awful". First of all, that's an incorrect statement. Only Rocky V was actually "awful", but I digress.
Anyway, I was thinking about how Rocky IV was a classic "Cold War" movie. It was made in 1985, at the end of the Cold War (although we didn't really know it at the time) and has a great dynamic between the Soviets and the Americans in the context of boxing and how it bleeds over into the political and the personal.
So what are my other top "Cold War" movies? In no particular order:
1. Rocky IV (1985): Great battles in the ring between Ivan Drago, Apollo Creed, and Balboa. Culminates in my favorite Rocky "training" scene when he goes to the Russian countryside to train.
2. Red Dawn (1984). The Soviets invade Texas to start WWIII, but Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, and Jennifer Grey fight back in guerrilla style combat. I hate that they tried to remake this movie.
3. War Games (1983). Matthew Broderick and a computer almost bring the Soviets and the Americans to a nuclear exchange by accident. Great ending with teaching the computer that nuclear war isn't really "winnable".
4. Miracle (2004). Again, made well after the Cold War, but set in 1980, which was a very low point for the USA in terms of the morale of the American people. If the locker-room speech before the game doesn't get you going, not much will.
5. The Hunt for Red October
(1990). Although it was made after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the
movie is set in 1984, and is one of Connery's best roles outside of the Bond series. It's probably the coolest submarine movie ever made, and it's extremely quotable: I would liked to have seen Montana.
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| Once more, we play our dangerous game, a game of chess against our old adversary - The American Navy. For forty years, your fathers before you and your older brothers played this game and played it well. But today the game is different. We have the advantage. |
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ReplyDeleteThat is my favorite movie of any genre and I think I'm gonna watch it again right now.
I'm glad you took my advice and went with Red Dawn (1984). I agree with all of your other selections, except "Miracle" which I haven't watched yet.
ReplyDeleteI would add "Dr. Strangelove", "Stripes", and "White Nights" to the list.
Of course the best cold war movie was Val Kilmer's 1984 masterpiece, "Top Secret!" Leaving that one off the list was about as silly as you can get.