Posts by Rammesh
The Old Man. Season 1 (2022). Season 2 (2024) – The Past is Never Dead and Buried
Genre: Spy Movie Time: 7 episodes x average 50 minutes Platform: Disney Hotstar SEASON 1 “You get to be my age in this business and one way or another, you will have something personal with just about everyone”. “Better way is to keep things buried in the ground than to wish them…
Read MoreHell in the Pacific (1968) – A unique film
Clickable links in red Genre – War Movie Time: 1 Hour, 43 minutes Platform: You Tube Free Director: John Boorman. Cast: Lee Marvin. Toshiro Mifune. There are war movies and then there is Hell in the Pacific. A unique film with ONLY two characters onscreen. The American cannot speak Japanese while the Japanese…
Read MoreEast (2020) – Unique film on a forgotten war
Genre – War Movie (based on true events) Time: 2 Hours 20 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime Language: Dutch Historical background: World War 2 showed to the colonial subjects that their Colonial Masters were not a hundred feet tall and could be defeated. This was especially so in the Asian colonies,…
Read MoreUlajh (2024) – Dull and Uneven
Clickable links in red Genre – Spy + Conspiracy thriller Time: 2 Hours, 8 minutes Platform: NetFlix Director: Sudhanshu Saria Cast: Janhvi Kapoor. Roshan Mathew. Gulshan Devaiah. Many spy thrillers commonly talk of honey trapping which is sexually entrapping a male and blackmailing him to obtain secrets. The opposite of that is…
Read MoreThe Veil (2024) – Contemporary but …
Director: Daina Reid. Damon Thomas (3 episodes each) Genre: Spy thriller Time: TV series – 6 x 55-minute episodes Platform: Disney + Hotstar Cast: Elisabeth Moss. Yumna Marwan. Dali Benssalah. Imogen Salter (Elisabeth Moss) is an MI6 operative who takes down rogue traders. She is sent to a refugee camp on…
Read MoreBerlin (2023) – Brilliant slow burn
Genre: Spy Story Time: 1 Hour 50 minutes Platform: Zee 5 Writer Director: Atul Sabharwal Cast: Aparshakti Kurana. Rahul Bose. Ishwak Singh. People have complaints, and my favorite is that the James Bond franchise has distorted people’s perception of spy films. If pressed, they will reluctantly concede that while it’s not real, it’s great…
Read MoreIC814 – Gripping
ALL CLICKABLE LINKS IN RED Genre – Drama (true story) Time: 6 episodes x 45 minutes Platform: Netflix Language: Hindi Director: Abhinav Sinha On a monday morning in 2003, one of my colleagues came back after watching a movie and joyfully said “I saw a great movie.” Zameen”. I went goggle eyed…
Read MoreIll Met by Moonlight (1957) aka Night Ambush – Unbelievable but true
All clickable links in red Genre – War Movie (true story) Time: 1 Hours 30 minutes Platform: You Tube Director: Michael Powell, Emrich Pressburger Powell and Pressburger, forged their collaboration during World War 2, as they produced war propaganda films, including the wartime classic 49th Parallel (1941). Their films epitomize British cinema and…
Read MoreFirefox (1982) – How Clint Won The Cold War!
Clickable links in red Director: Clint Eastwood Genre: Spy cum techno Thriller Time: 1 Hour 57 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime (rent) Cast: Clint Eastwood. Freddie Jones It is 1980 and The Cold War is intensifying. Both sides are intensifying the race to create deadlier weapons. British Intelligence obtains information that the Soviet Union…
Read MoreThe Assassination of Trotsky (1972) – Interesting
All clickable links in red Director: Joseph Losey Genre: Spy Drama (True Story) Time: 1 Hour 38 minutes Platform: You Tube Cast: Richard Burton. Alain Delon. Romy Schneider. French Superstar Alain Delon, personified French cool in his best period during the 1960s and 1970s, where he played a wide range of interesting roles that ranged…
Read MoreNorth by Northwest (1959) – Classic Hitchcock
All clickable links in red Director: Alfred Hitchcock Genre: Spy thriller Time: 2 Hours 16 minutes Cast: Cary Grant. Eva Marie Saint. James Mason. Martin Landau. Platform: Amazon Prime Rent As mentioned in my post on Notorious (see here), Alfred Hitchcock made 11 spy movies, which were marketed as suspense thrillers. Hitchcock’s films are…
Read MoreDanger Close (2019) – War is hell
All clickable links in red Genre – War Movie (true story) Time: 2 Hours Platform: Amazon Prime Director: Kriv Stenders. Platform : Amazon Prime Whenever we think of the Vietnam War, the popular image is the American image, with helicopters ferrying troops, US air force combat planes blasting and napalming jungles and pictures of various…
Read MoreMr. and Mrs. Smith (2024) – Scenes from a Spy marriage !
Director: Multiple directors Genre: Spy thriller. Drama. Time: TV series – 8 x 55-minute episodes Platform: Amazon Prime Cast: Donald Glover. Maya Erskine. Wagner Moura. Parker Posey. (Hopefully Ingmar Bergman fans will forgive me for that title) . A mysterious agency gives two strangers new identities. “John” (Donald Glover) and “Jane” (Maya Erskine) Smith…
Read MoreKleo – Season 2 (2024) – Goofy Quirky Fun
Clickable links in red. Director: Isabel Braak. Nina Vukovic Genre: Spy thriller Time: TV series – 6 x 55-minute episodes Platform: Netflix Cast: Jella Haase. Dimitrij Schaad. Julius Feldmeier. The open ending of Season 1 (see here for the post on Kleo Season 1) left no doubt that the infamous red suitcase, which Kleo…
Read MoreThe Death of Stalin (2017) – Black comedy meets grim reality
Clickable link in red Director: Armando Iannucci Genre: Black Comedy (true story) Time: 1 Hour 42 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime Cast: Steve Buscemi. Simon Russel Beale. Jeffrey Tambor. Michael Palin. Andrea Riseborough Three men are in a Soviet Prison. They compare notes why they are there. 1st Man: I am here…
Read MoreMissing (1982) – Poignant and relevant
Director: Costa Gavras Genre: Drama – True Story Time: 1 Hour 57 minutes Platform: Amazon Prime (rent) Cast: Jack Lemmon. Sissy Spacek. John Shea. After the Watergate scandal broke, there followed a series of disclosures about the American government that had the ordinary American , shaking his head in disbelief. The CIA had not…
Read MoreDie Gustloff (2008) – Slow but poignant
All clickable links in red Director: Joseph Vilsmaer Genre: Drama – WW2 True Story Language : German Time: 1 Hour 41 minutes Platform: You Tube Free – with hard coded English subtitles Cast: Kai Wiesinger. Valeri Niehaus. Heiner Lauterbach. Which was the world’s biggest maritime disaster? With three movies on this topic, it…
Read MoreFoul Play (1978) – Surprisingly good comic thriller
All clickable links in red Writer, Director: Colin Higgins Genre: Comic thriller Time: 1 Hour 51 minutes Platform: You Tube Alfred Hitchcock made 58 films over 50 years of which 11 were superb spy films, though they were marketed as “suspense thrillers”. His films influenced and continue to influence generations of filmmakers, in…
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