Posted on 12/16/2017 9:03:28 AM PST by PJ-Comix
There is a lot of crap on TV to be avoided but there is one series that I found supremely entertaining (and educational). It is "Red Mafia." It is a Russian production from 2011 but now available via Amazon Prime as you can see HERE.
It is not to be confused with the Russian Mafia of current times. This series is about Party corruption during the Soviet Era. And there was quite a bit of corruption all the way to the top. What makes this series especially entertaining is that it has a lot of humor. For example, Brezhnev (in his later years) comes off as a bumbling fool who speaks in an extremely slurred manner). KGB head Yuri Andropov plays a wiley clever game with his enemy the head of the MGB who is so terrified of Andropov that he attempts to have him arrested (I don't want to give away what happens).
Stalin also makes several appearances in this series. A group of Army deserters during WWII escape punishment by setting up a fake engineering brigade and end up not only making lots of money, but are given high awards for their services.
Believe me, you won't be disappointed watching this series of six episodes. I enjoyed every minute of watching them!
Wasn’t too bad? I would like to find out about TERRIFIC series. And I would put “Red Mafia” in that category. I just got done watching the first episode of “The Last Tycoon” and it was really lousy. No wonder they didn’t renew it for a second season. I wished I knew to avoid it so I could have saved that wasted time.
This Australian series ( not the USA one) has lots of adult themes......but it is very funny:
Rake
Australian TV series
Rake is an Australian television program, produced by Essential Media and Entertainment, that first aired on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s ABC1 in 2010. The fourth series started on ABC TV on 19 May 2016. It stars Richard Roxburgh as rake Cleaver Greene, a brilliant but self-destructive Sydney barrister, defending a usually guilty client.More at Wikipedia
Genre:Comedy-drama
Created by:Peter Duncan, Richard Roxburgh, Charles Waterstreet
Written by:Peter Duncan, Andrew Knight
I watched Manhunt (about the unabomber) and Mindhunter (how FBI profiling began) on Netflix. I tried to watch Wormwood about the CIA MK Ultra but can’t recommend it.
On Amazon Prime I recommend Come Before Winter, true story about Sefton Delmer and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Nazis.
NARCOS.....Neflix, story of Pablo Escobar and Columbian drug lords. well worth the watch.
Amazon Prime: Comrade Detective series
AP description: In the 1980s, millions of Romanians tuned in to Comrade Detective, a gritty, sexy, communist buddy cop show that has now been digitally remastered and dubbed into English for the first time by a cast featuring Channing Tatum, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Jenny Slate, Nick Offerman and many more.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073X8ZBCR
==
Tatum was the one primarily responsible for having this series dubbed into English.
In a brief commentary at the start of one of the later episodes, he was asked why he went to the expense of having it dubbed, rather than just subtitled. He responded: Nobody wants to read subtitles.
I concur and wish more TV/movie productions would do the same. If I wanted to ‘read’, I would get a book. Also, reading subtitles causes the viewer to miss anything going on in the actual movie. We know it is a movie or TV production, so use ENGLISH and drop the subtitling. Subtitling does NOT make it seem more authentic.
Czas Honoru (Time of Honor) - A Polish series about the Polish Underground during WWII.
The Last Tycoon took a while to get into, but I watched the entire series. I liked it. It was sort of an insider look at the early days of Hollywood.
The Patriot. I watched the first episode and hated it. Then, months later someone commented in an FR thread about it. So, it went back and rewatched — the entire series. It was pretty good.
Over on Netflix, The Frontier is a pretty good series (Season 2 just became available).
Okay, I will check out “Comrade Detective.”
I think that someone was MEEEE!
Upvote for The Patriot.
I watched the first season of NARCOS and about 3 minutes of the second season. I just couldn’t stand more — having to read subtitles and not being that interested in stuff about drugs or drug lords.
Another series that I recommended. However, the main problem with "The Patriot" is its name which makes you think it is a serious series about a patriot since humor is the big factor in it.
Netflix corrupted regular TV viewing when they introduced binge watching.
I luv it.
Even with my TiVo, I will record an entire season of the cable series, then binge watch the episodes. With TiVo, I can speed through commercials or skip them on many recordings.
I found it absurd. Like a Jewish guy (Monroe Stahr) goes into a confession booth and confesses to a priest because he has no one else to talk to? Laughable maybe but not at all real.
You do know that “Comrade Detective” is a modern day satirical comedy. It took the premise of what a 1980’s buddy cop TV show, or something like Hill Street Blues would look like had been made in a communist country before the fall of the Iron Curtain. There was never such a series made in Romania at the time. The bad dubbing is part of the shtick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comrade_Detective
save for later
Just sayin'...
later
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