S3E24: Alphaville

Would love to see you guys cover La Chinoise. My new college’s leftist club mentioned doing a movie night for it in the past and I kind of panicked… like what the hell is this movie, and are they going to call me a revisionist for disliking it?? Then I realized they’re just broke and can only afford to watch movies in the Criterion Collection 🙃

It baffles me that Godard claimed to be a Maoist while consistently being very racist against Chinese people. Like, what are you doing, man?

Your pronunciation of Guadalcanal is genuinely atrocious.

Listening to this as a full adult, as explained and expounded upon by people who have thoughtfully watched a lot of movies, it does make much more sense and hits different than in my Art Goth phase as a youth when I watched a lot of weird black and white movies just because... 11/10.

Quite late here but OSS 117: Alerte Rouge en Afrique Noire could potentially set an untouchable high score

I would love to hear the pod watch a Soviet spy film to provide a view from the other side of the curtain.

I think y’all would have a TON of fun with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, a Dolly Parton classic. It isn’t Eurospy at all, but I’m submitting it for a future bonus episode where things are a bit too serious on the main feed. Some of the fits are absolute fire and it’s always nice to see Burt Reynolds. The nebulous queer coding of the villain is ripe for discussion as well, I think you’d have a good time with it

As comment 100 I’d like the recent Clifford film with Jack Whitehall to be covered. There’s a massive red dog and this dog doesn’t fit in normal dog spaces, this dog has to try to live in a matchbox world.

Please do something with Jean Paul Belmondo. Ideally, Le Magnifique.

I don't know if they're on theme but I think the two Peter Ustinov Poirot films would make good episodes. Although I think you might have mentioned having them on your list already. I also thought of the Worricker trilogy to stay in the realm of espionage.

Not a Eurospy suggestion but if you need a fun one or perhaps do a pulp/schlock season I'd love for you to watch Order of the Black Eagle (1987). It's an absolutely awful Bond/Indiana Jones ripoff featuring a sidekick Baboon who pilots a tank and a plot to resurrect a cryogenically frozen Hitler (for which the prop looks more like a Hitler cake). There's a previous film in the series called Unmasking the Idol as well.

Yeah, the uh, apple-onion and the Calrissian, or whatever that Nitchy guy said

Does A Most Wanted Man count as Eurospy? It's recent, but a European(ish) production and die vibes sind ausgefucht.

I am a cis het man. No one I know personally would get the reference sesh gremlin q (a bit from an earlier episode). I would like to meet someone who knows about sesh gremlin q. Alas I am at work the days the live shows are being held. Whilst I enjoy the live shows (good work on the prince. I saw it live) I have a double purpose asking for more live shows as my heart yearns for someone who knows about sesh gremlin q. “Ever heard of psilocybin 007?”

If you're taking Eurospy suggestions: 1967's Bersaglio Mobile, which was renamed Death on the Run / Moving Target. It's a spy movie through the lens of spaghetti westerns. The potential for drops in this one is *high*. It was also the basis for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood's fictional Eurospy movie, "Operazione Dyn-O-Mite!" - the car chase that's briefly shown was made by subbing Leo's face over footage from Bersaglio Mobile.

I'm going to throw in for One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing. Possibly not technically Eurospy but it's absolutely playing with many of the same tropes. Cultural Insensitivity is going to be up there with Live & Let Die but it's the kind of film we could get some good conversation out of.

Can I recommend The Conversation? Not Euro, and the least glamorous side of spying ever put to film, but an excellent movie. And, I am finally caught up!!!

This is not eurospy, but it is so, so worth your time: The Road to Wellville (1994). If you are a fan of wigglers, it has such a bounty of historically-accurate wigglers as must be seen to be believed. I fear that I can't say more without spoiling the purity of your first impression.

The King's Man (2021). The prequel to The Kingsmen series that takes place during WW1 and blames the war on those evil anti-monarchists, fanboys Kitchener, then does the hardest horseshoe theory I've ever seen for a post credit stinger... if you do this movie please please please don't skip the post credit scene. Also you guys mentioned doing Fury awhile ago, not eurospy but I would love for you guys to do that movie.

Of Eurospy ... things. There is still The Avengers (1998). It's not the one you're thinking off. It has Sean Connery, Ralph Fiennes ... so Bond adjacent casting already.

Hello, not sure if thats allready mentioned somewhere, Billy Wilders "One, two, thee" could count as Eurospy Movie (a very early one set in after war Berlin before the wall was build)

When y’all did westerns I had really hoped you’d do The Quick And The Dead, and I would love to see your take on that! Sharon Stone is amazing in it and I’d be curious to see what y’all have to say about it!

This one is more so in the context of sci-fi and Cold War anxiety films: The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Infiltration as a central concept would fit nicely with this seasons theme.

The Third Man, basically the ur-eurospy thriller

"The Man Who Knew Too Little" is a send up of eurospy stuff, Bill Murray is a painfully boring and unfunny man who signs up for a London "live street theater experience" to have an evening of eurospy adventure. He gets entangled into a Real Actual spy adventure but of course thinks this is all just very impressive theater work. Asking goons "oh sorry do you mind if I give this scene another try?" When they're confusedly pointing guns at him and wondering why he's not afraid and what the hell he's talking about.

I'd be interested in what you have to say about de Palma's "Body Double". I just saw it recently and I can't tell if it's completely brilliant or completely coked out of its mind

Just to terrorise nova again I will argue for Who Dares Wins

Dog Day Afternoon is about a guy robbing a bank to pay for his trans girlfriend's GRS

The Fourth Protocol was one that sprang to mind for me as well.

Others have mentioned them, but The Ipcress File and *especially* Day of the Jackal would be incredible for KJB - but also another Forsyth adaptation - The Fourth Protocol - 80s and fun, and also with an *incredibly* hot young piers brosnan starring to tie it into bond (also there's a russian officer in the first half hour who is spits nate bethea)

You know, when you had asked for more Eurospy movies earlier I had the fleeting thought of suggesting Johnny English movies, but then decided no, it would be cruel to have them watch those.

Said it before, will say it again - detective bureau 2-3, kill the bastards! gives great footage of 60s Tokyo, gorgeous colour grading, and it's like....just kind of a blast (even if it has some unfortunate 60s misogyny)

Not a EuroSpy movie, but for robbery season you 3 should watch Sexy Beast, Ben Kingsley’s performance alone is worth it

have yall considered Johan Falk? or maybe the 2014 robocop reboot/remake

It is unfortunately American, but Torn Curtain would be an interesting one.

OK another nomination for EuroSpy, and it is not strictly euro but it is spy and it does thake place in Europe but I am suggesting Paul Feig's SPY starring Jenny McCarthy which I remember being super fun and also a pretty good Bond parody

Not sure if this I what y’all would be going for, but it would be interesting to contrast the Euro-Spy Thriller with the Euro-Political Thriller based on the actual political violence and struggles in Europe of the 60s. I’m mainly thinking of something along the lines of Z (1969).

I will defend the guillotine. I don’t really believe in the death penalty, but if you’re going to do it, the guillotine remains the most humane. It’s only traumatizing for the observers, and I don’t really see why execution shouldn’t be.

My great uncle won a silver star on Guadalcanal (army), and the Guadal part rhymes with waddle

Suggestion: Tinker Tailor BBC miniseries, it’s on YouTube. Been waiting for it forever, and I know you know it exists

Re. Alphaville, there's an Irish-language parody called Éireville, in which a black-and-white dystopian city is dominated by the preserved brain of Éamon de Valera, the year is always 1916, the time is always 19:16, and the hero's name is Lemmy Cúramach ('careful'). Just a factoidy nugget for the Godard trivia completists.

Once again shilling for "Arlington Road" (1999), a pre-9/11 paranoid thriller about terrorism, from a time when 'terrorism' was mostly synonymous with 'angry white men' in the media landscape. Very chewy, both in terms of analytical potential and what Jeff Bridges and Tim Robbins do to the scenery.

I am a broken record, but Avengers S4, "The Gravediggers". There's a man who loves trains so much he wants to destroy all cars, and Diana Rigg gets tied to a miniature railway track in a leather catsuit. It's perfect!

You should, for closure if nothing else watch the only good bond film- rogue male. The '76 film that asks the question "what if a toff tried to kill Hitler and then hid in a badger set for a bit?"

Y’all should watch the Eurospy movie “I saw the TV Glow” I’d love to hear your thoughts

I consider a computer to be indispensible.

I put forth the movie Gotcha! It's euro, it's spy, and ive never heard another living person say one word about it. I remember it being corny and fun but it has been decades since I saw it so

Also good movie that overlaps spy and crime is Le Samouraï

The Beatles: HELP! badly parrodying Bond and Eurospy while being incredibly racist and not as funny as A Hard Day’s Night

I mentioned this on Twitter but you guys should absolutely watch Possession (1981) as a Eurospy film. It’s made by a Polish director in West Germany and has just the most incredible performances from GILTS Sam Neill and Isabelle Adjani, is bizarrely bookended by an (intentionally?) incomprehensible spy plot, and has a man who is perhaps The Kauffman of all time.

Day of the Jackal please God Michael Lonsdale, colonialism, weaponizes bisexuality NOVEMBER JUST MENTIONED IT, ITS AN OMEN REMAKE BEING RELEASED WITH REDMAYNE Also the movie Convoy is a Marxism-Lorryism tour de force that confronts law enforcement, race, and has the protagonists insult the villain with a trans joke

If you’re taking suggestions for the heist season, I can’t recommend “How to Steal a Million” highly enough. It’s O’Toole and Hepburn at their most charming; it’s not possible to be unhappy after watching it.

If we are recommending eurospy adjacent French art movies then the Georges Franju remake of Judex is my pick. A pure dessert movie.

Highly recommend Charade and/or The Ipcress File.

I'll recommend The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972) as a silly, corny and horny french spy film parody. It has a great cast and I guess it's about a sigma male. The Wikipedia page has a blue link to "buttock cleavage"

A film pitch: me and my partner were trying to look for a specific film and every time we looked for it on perfectly legal websites, for some reason all the Different Websites kept giving us “Machine Gun McCain” instead - we watched the trailer and it looks AWFUL. We didn’t want to watch it, but for some reason I think You Should

Would you ever consider doing a live show in the states?

No more euro spy plz

as much as you can see this movie's fingerprints on so many movies I think where it had the most influence was science-fiction TV, trying to express high concept ideas on a zero budget

I wish I could say do ok connery again. I won't, it's just that I went back and listened to that episode and if you'd seen it these days, with the proper context... well all right you probably still wouldn't like it, but it'd be like Our Agent Tiger where you're mostly bored but there's a few aspects that are hilarious.

Pls do redline

Idk if you guys would ever be willing to do it but, The Prisoner would be interesting

I don’t know if y’all would want to do a musical again, but I can’t help thinking g that it would be really fun if you did the James Bond/Eurospy parody musical Spies are Forever. Its free on YouTube.

Okay hear me.. out... the backyardigains international super spy episode. 1. its camp 2. its GOOD

In French, "une chinoiserie" originally meant "a Chinese thing", specifically a Chinese piece of art (usable or decorative china, paintings, furniture, etc.). Once Chinese aesthetics (or the European interpretation of Chinese aesthetics) got popular in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, a lot of these chinoiseries were made in Europe by Europeans, also called "chinoiseurs" ("Chinese-ers"), for European and Chinese markets. So what did Europeans think Chinese aesthetics were? Dragons, Buddhas, blue on white porcelain, intricate details, heavy decoration - you get the picture. But the word also took on the meaning of some of the negative attributes associated with Chinese people: eccentricity, a taste for complexity, excessive effort for unimportant things, cunning, deceit, slyness, disguises, excessive and obfuscating uses of metaphors in language, etc. I've heard "Arrête de chinoiser" (lit. "Stop Chinese-ing") said to people who are "splitting hairs" about something. So "Don't try your chinoiseries on me" is, as noted, very racist, and in this case also means "Don't try to use your deceit/cunning/slyness on me". I think it also refers to the difficulty of using "the spoken word" to describe reality - a part of the racist stereotype about Chinese people in Francr is that they can never say things straightforwardly. https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/Chinoiserie

My humble pitch: d.e.b.s. (2004). it's not very euro (apart from two bad accents, french and russian respectively), but it *is* very spy, very lesbian, and incredibly silly. i would love to hear what you guys make of it if you think it could be a good episode

The Champions TV series cut together a movie. A team of Euro spies that get superpowers from visiting a monastery in Tibet!!

"She shakes her head to say 'yes'." Ah, so it's set in Albania then.

I still maintain tinker tailor but the tv show would be amazing content.

I was expecting a lot more werewolves

as an unfortunately located American, I shall be purchasing the livestream tickets. But my transfemme ass will be there in spirit!

How the fuck have you talked about movies that inspire/are like the matrix and haven't done ghost in the shell yet I'm begging you

Ok ok, hear me out…. The Spy Who Dumped Me (2018) It’s in Europe.… like mostly. 👀

You gotta do Danger: Diabolik. It's Italian, it's incredibly horny, and it has cool villain lair set design. Also an Ennio Morricone score (it's not good though).

I think that Never to Young to Die (1986) it has John Stamos, George Lazenby and Gene Simmons (yes that Gene Simmons) doing spy shenanigans.

For an extra eurospy movie, I would love to see you do That Man from Rio, mostly because I liked Belmondo when I was a kid and it would be fun to see you tackle that.

I beg of you, do The Jackal, if only to see the many faces of Bruce Willis. It's basically a reverse bond movie and features a good guy IRA sniper and his bask ex-girlfriend. It even passes the Bechtel(sp?) test.

just watched this last night, what a coincidence lol

When you think about it Flash Gordon says a lot about masculinity

I already do listen to KJB with my partners

ah shit, the French