Happy Birthday, Mr President…

We’re beyond excited as War Machine, the latest original movie from Netflix, and Quentin Tarantino’s cheerfully violent war epic, Inglourious Basterds, both come to Netflix at the end of the month.

And what could these two witty, action-packed movies possibly have in common? They both star the fantastic Brad Pitt in a lead role, that’s what!

The Manchurian Candidate

Two soldiers captured during the Gulf War are programmed to go loopy when they return home. Several years later, one becomes a vice-presidential candidate, but can he be stopped before a dastardly plan is put into effect? Denzel Washington and Liev Schreiber are the brainwashed troopers, with Meryl Streep popping up as a creepy, domineering matriarch whose attitude to her son would give Freud a headache! It’s all a bit first-season Homeland, but all done long before that ginge Nicholas Brody hit our screens.(Available On Demand)

Cold Case JFK

Can the conspiracy theories surrounding what happened at the grassy knoll in 1963 stand up to 21st century CSI techniques? Well, you’ll find out in this documentary that explores all angles to find out if Lee Harvey Oswald really was the hitman on that momentous day. (Available on Netflix)

Conspiracy Files

All this talk about conspiracies can get a bit too serious sometimes. It’s just as well that we have Rob Delaney at hand to lighten things up. Good old Rob manages to come up with some outlandish and quite hilarious links between major organisations, such as the Church and Apple, in this far-flung conspiracy series. (Available through Catch Up)  

Hitman

JFK’s murder really brought hitmen front and centre back in the Sixties. In his own peculiar way, Timothy Olyphant did something similar ten years ago, when he played bald hitman Agent 47. Not since Yul Brynner in The Magnificent Seven have we had a more deadly skinhead. This guy never rests or runs out of bullets. In this relentless shoot-em-up, he tries to stay one step ahead of deadly Interpol and Russian agents. Watch the bodies pile up faster than you can shout, “Oi Baldy!” (Available On Demand)

The Parallax View

These days Warren Beatty might be better known as the man who called out the wrong winner at the Oscars, or maybe even as the actor who bedded 13,000 women (where did he get the time to make movies?), but he wasn’t always just a love machine. Here he plays a journalist who uncovers a conspiracy while investigating the assassination of a leading US senator in this tight Alan J Pakula political thriller. (Available on Netflix)

No Country for Old Men

Now the hitman in this gem of a movie, Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem), may not have been as follically challenged as Agent 47, but those luscious locks couldn’t hide the fact that he was madder than a box of frogs. Put plainly, he’s a psycho with bad hair who likes to toss a coin to decide whether people live or die (how charming). The creepy character earned Bardem an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a Bafta. As we say in these parts … deadly! (Available on Demand)