Category Archives: Spies

A Brief History of Spy Movies: Part Three

THE LE CARRÉ ADAPTATIONS In the past two posts I review Harry Palmer movies and a dozen spy pictures from 1966 to 2006. This post is devoted to the film adaptations of the godfather of spy novels. Roger Ebert described John Le Carré’s novels as “chess problems in which one solution is elegant and all…Read More

A Brief History of Spy Movies: Part Two

40 YEARS OF SPY THRILLERS  In the first post I watched the Harry Palmer movies, and the third I look at the film adaptations of John Le Carré novels. Here's a cross-section of stellar—and not-so stellar—spy movies through the years. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) was directed by Michael Anderson, Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay based on…Read More

Now on Canadian Netflix — February 2019

Velvet Buzzsaw A deliciously trashy art world satire/horror from Dan Gilroy, the filmmaker behind Nightcrawler and Roman J. Israel. , a picture with a lot more of the edge and unease of the former rather than the prestige aspirations of the latter. It tells the story of a shallow, ambitious, group of nasties; the delightfully named Morf Vandewalt (another…Read More