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Providing their audience with an unflinching snapshot of the life-or-death nature of armed conflict, war movies have formed an intrinsic part of popular culture since the earliest days of cinema, to the point that storied names in the vein of Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, and The Deer Hunter are widely regarded as some of the best movies of all time. Furthermore, many of the best war films of all time owe much of their success to a superb villain who carries the story with their wicked presence, serving as the perfect antagonistic foil.

In many cases, the villain is the movie's best character, with the actor tasked with bringing them to life producing a nuanced and compelling performance that has the potential to overshadow the efforts of the film's protagonists. From morally devoid war criminals and renegade soldiers to Machiavellian double agents, the best portrayals of war movie villains...

The 1970s were an excellent time to be a fan of the spy thriller genre. Franchises like the James Bond films were becoming increasingly popular, with five Bond films being released during this decade alone. 007 wasn't the only force to be reckoned with in the genre, though. Other major features, like 3 Days of the Condor and Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation, also roared onto the scene, making spy thrillers a beloved genre throughout the country.

Of course, not every spy film received the same level of acclaim as these hits. Because so many of this type of film were being released at the same time, many great ones managed to fly under the radar. Sadly, these films never seemed to get the attention they rightfully deserved. Now, when looking back at this era in the film industry, it is essential to take a look at the more...

FX’s long-gestating Shogun series is now targeting a February 2024 premiere on Hulu and FX. The date announcement was accompanied by the first teaser trailer for the 10-episode limited series based on James Clavell’s bestselling novel.

Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks created the series and executive produce, with Marks also guiding the series as showrunner. Additional executive producers include Michaela Clavell, Edward L. McDonnell, and Michael De Luca.

Poster for FX’s Shogun

FX offered this detailed description of the plot, cast, and characters:

Shogun is set in Japan in the year 1600, at the dawn of a century-defining civil war. Producer Hiroyuki Sanada stars as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, who is fighting for his life as his enemies on the Council of Regents unite against him. When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, its English pilot, John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), comes bearing secrets that...

After giving everyone a case of the chills because of his performance as Charlie Cullen in The Good Nurse, Eddie Redmayne is ready to kill again. Redmayne will star in The Day of the Jackal series, a new project destined for Peacock and Sky. The concept is a reimagining of the 1973 film adaptation from Universal Pictures. In The Day of the Jackal, Redmayne plays the Jackal, a professional assassin hired by a French paramilitary dissident to kill French President Charles de Gaulle in 1962.

Inspired by Frederick Forsyth’s novel of the same name (and Universal’s film adaptation), the new version brings the character and story to a contemporary setting, letting our corrupt geo-political landscape loose in a world of deception, lies, cover-ups, and death. In addition to telling an intriguing tale of careful murder, The Day of the Jackal series will meditate on the concept of an anti-hero.

Ronan Bennett...

Children of the Damned

Blu ray

Warner Archive

1964/ 1.85:1/ 89 Minutes

Starring Ian Hendry, Alan Badel

Directed by Anton Leader

Wolf Rilla’s Village of the Damned was an alien invasion thriller that was genuinely invasive—all around the world women of child-bearing age are suddenly and mysteriously pregnant. No matter the circumstances, whether a virgin or a lonely widow, they wake from a deep sleep to find themselves in a family way. Who or what is responsible is never determined and the results are devastating—marriages shattered, young lives ruined, reputations damaged beyond repair. Strong stuff for 1960 and Rilla didn’t shy away from the moral, not to mention awkward, implications of the situation. The otherworldly offspring grow up to be intellectual powerhouses with a talent for telekinesis and mind control—they’re defeated, irony of ironies, by an equally intelligent adversary who destroys them by simply not thinking at all.

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“A Beautiful Mess”

By Raymond Benson

Filmmaker Stanley Donen had substantial success with his comedy-thriller, Charade (1963), which starred Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. It was hyped and critiqued as “Hitchcockian” in tone and style, especially the light-hearted and glitzy To Catch a Thief (1955). (There are many who mistakenly believe that Charade is a Hitchcock film.)

The studio then wanted to repeat that success with a similar picture, Arabesque, also with Cary Grant in the lead role with Donen directing again. However, Grant felt that the script was “terrible” and passed. Donen allegedly wasn’t too thrilled with the script, either, and he wasn’t too keen on making the picture without Grant.

Then Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren expressed interest in the movie, so Donen acquiesced. Sounds like a fairy tale scenario for the greenlighting of a Hollywood movie, right? The two Oscar-winning stars were cast,...

Fred Zinnemann’s counter-assassination thriller remains topflight filmmaking, torn from reality and shot through with an unsentimental dose of political realism. Edward Fox’s implacable killer outwits the combined resources of an entire nation as he stalks his prey, and when bad luck forces him to improvise, he racks up more victims on his kill list. Step aside Bond, Bourne and Marvel — the original Jackal is the man to beat.

The Day of the Jackal

Blu-ray

Arrow Video USA

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date September 25, 2018 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, Tony Britton, Alan Badel, Michel Auclair, Tony Britton, Maurice Denham, Vernon Dobtcheff, Olga Georges-Picot, Timothy West, Derek Jacobi, Jean Martin, Ronald Pickup, Jean Sorel, Philippe Léotard, Jean Champion, Michel Subor, Howard Vernon.

Cinematography: Jean Tournier

Film Editor: Ralph Kemplen

Second Unit Director: Andrew Marton

Original Music: Georges Delerue

Written...

Few latecomer ’60s spy movies were big successes. This amusing Brit effort sank without a trace, perhaps taking with it the career of the talented Tom Courtenay as a leading man. The comic tale pits an underachieving, cheeky London lad against an intelligence conspiracy that wouldn’t be doing anybody much harm — if they didn’t insist on murdering people.

Otley

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator (UK)

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Available at The Ph page / Street Date March 19, 2018 / £15.99

Starring: Tom Courtenay, Romy Schneider, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, James Bolam, Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, James Cossins, James Maxwell, Edward Hardwicke, Ronald Lacey, Phyllida Law, Geoffrey Bayldon, Frank Middlemass.

Cinematography: Austin Dempster

Film Editor: Richard Best

Art Direction: Carmen Dillon

Original Music: Stanley Myers

Written by Dick Clement, Ian la Frenais from a book by Martin Waddell

Produced by Bruce Cohn Curtis, Carl Foreman

Directed by Dick Clement

The British film...

In a sense, Arabesque (1966) is a sort of warmed-over rehash of Donen's earlier Charade (1963), which was a really nifty mock-Hitchcockian comedy thriller with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. The later film stars Gregory Peck, who's no Grant, and Sophia Loren, who isn't Hepburn but is Loren—which ain't nothing.Donen was reputedly highly unhappy with the script, despite being the movie's producer, and his cinematographer Christopher Challis records him saying that their only hope was to present the story in as stylish and eccentric a manner as possible: this, for the most part, they do. (A pretty-well identical tale is told of Sidney J. Furie and The Ipcress File, and the result is similar in each case: a pop-art expressionist fairyland London in which everyone is or might be a spy or double or treble agent.)The opening scene, in which George Coulouris is murdered at the optician with poisoned eyedrops,...

One of the best international thrillers ever has almost become an obscurity, for reasons unknown – this Blu-ray comes from Australia. Edward Fox’s wily assassin for hire goes up against the combined police and security establishments of three nations as he sets up the killing of a head of state – France’s president Charles de Gaulle. The terrific cast features Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig and Cyril Cusack; director Fred Zinnemann’s excellent direction reaches a high pitch of tension – even though the outcome is known from the start.

The Day of the Jackal

Region B+A Blu-ray

Shock Entertainment / Universal

1973 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 143 min. / Street Date ? / Available from Amazon UK / Pounds 19.99

Starring: Edward Fox, Michel Lonsdale, Delphine Seyrig, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, Tony Britton, Alan Badel, Michel Auclair, Tony Britton, Maurice Denham, Vernon Dobtcheff, Olga Georges-Picot, Timothy West, Derek Jacobi, Jean Martin, Ronald Pickup, Jean Sorel, Philippe Léotard, Jean Champion,...

“The British Film” collection was launched by Network Distributing in April 2013 as part of a five-year plan to release over 450 vintage British films through a deal with Studiocanal. Many of the films have never been available to own and will benefit from new transfers. We’ve already reviewed a couple of their previous releases, the Hammer horror pairing of Countess Dracula and Twins of Evil – and now we take a look at two more interesting British horrors of the 1970s…

The Shout

Stars: Alan Bates, Susannah York, John Hurt, Robert Stephens, Tim Curry | Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski

Synopsis: During a cricket match at an insane asylum between the inmates and the local villagers, Crossley and Graves keep themselves entertained by telling stories. Crossley tells of how he came to possess supernatural powers enabling him to kill with a single shout and although his companion dismisses the tale as an insane fantasy,...

By Lee Pfeiffer

When it opened in 1970, director Lewis Gilbert's film version of Harold Robbins' best-seller The Adventurers was reviewed by New York Times, which referred to the production as "a spectacular blast-furnace lulu of human waste". Indeed, Gilbert himself said of the film a few years ago that it was "terrible" and that he regretted having been involved with it. With such a reputation, it's no wonder that even retro movie lovers such as myself have never made the effort to watch the movie. However, the Warner Archive has just re-issued Paramounts original DVD release of the film and, upon receiving the screener, I had enough morbid curiosity to give it a try. How, after all, could a film by a major director and featuring a big all-star cast go so completely wrong? The answer is: it didn't. The Adventurers is not high art, but it doesn't...

Hitting movie theaters this weekend:

Arthur – Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Jennifer Garner

Hanna – Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana

Soul Surfer – AnnaSophia Robb, Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt

Your Highness – Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman

Movie of the Week

Hanna

The Stars: Saoirse Ronan, Cate Blanchett, Eric Bana

The Plot: A 16-year-old (Ronan) who was raised by her father to be the perfect assassin is dispatched on a mission across Europe, tracked by a ruthless intelligence agent and her operatives.

The Buzz: I’m moderately excited to see Your Highness, but Hanna wins ‘movie of the week’ here, as it looks to be a better film to see on the big screen. Director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) looks to have another great comedy on his hands in Your Highness, but if I had to pick just one to see in the theater, Hanna would be it. The premise...

Dancer who became a choreographer, actor and director for stage and screen

As a dancer, Wendy Toye, who has died aged 92, was a child prodigy. Born in Hackney, east London, the daughter of a bristle merchant, she had made her first public appearance at the Royal Albert Hall by the age of four. Aged nine, she choreographed a ballet at the London Palladium and also won the women's prize, dancing the Charleston, at a ball organised by the theatrical manager Cb Cochran and judged by Fred Astaire and Florenz Ziegfeld among others. The men's prize was won by Lew Grade.

She was always grateful for the advice she received from her tutors, including Ruby Ginner, Ninette de Valois and Anton Dolin, and regretted that when she reached the next stage of her career – choreography and direction – there were no teachers. She had to learn as she went along.

During the 1930s,...

As it often does, this week brings a host of new movies and some great classics hitting Blu-ray for the first time. This week’s releases include the first time on Blu-ray The Time Traveller’s Wife, Couple’s Retreat, The Phantom, Bronson, Drop Zone and The Running Man.

There is also the first season of Stargate: Universe, a couple seasons of Jag, season three of The Guild and the Blu-ray release of The Coen Bros.’ A Serious Man with Michael Stuhlbarg (pictured above).

Check out this week’s new releases:

Movies

A Serious Man ~ Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind (Blu-ray and DVD)

Bronson (Widescreen Edition) ~ Tom Hardy (Blu-ray and DVD)

Couples Retreat ~ Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau (Blu-ray and DVD)

Dangerous Man ~ Jerry Wasserman, Steven Seagal (DVD)

Dante’s Inferno: An Animated Epic ~ Mark Hamill, Victoria Tennant, Vanessa Branch (Blu-ray and DVD)

Dare ~ Emmy Rossum, Zach Gilford, Alan Cumming...