Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-12-27 (Friday)

On 12/28/2024 10:06 AM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:
 

I watched:

 

La Femme Nikita (4K disc)  1990 action movie written and directed by Luc
Besson.  Anne Parillaud stars as Nikita, a junkie who reaches a point of
no return in her criminal life after she murders a cop during a robbery.
  The French government then fakes her death and retrains her as an
assassin, as well as how to behave more ladylike.  For her first
assignment they send her into a restaurant to assassinate someone, but
intentionally sabotage the hit to see how she reacts to the situation.
 From there she falls in love while working as a highly trained
government assassin and struggles to live her new life with her new
love.  Jean Reno costars as a "cleaner."

 

Laon: The Professional (4K disc) 1994 action movie written and directed
by Luc Besson. . . .

 

Colombiana (blu-ray) 2011 action movie written by Luc Besson and
starring Zoe Saldana as a woman who when she was a young girl saw her
entire family murdered in front of her by a drug cartel.  She then gets
her uncle to train her to become a killer.  Since her uncle is a killer
himself, it's not much of a hard ask and he agrees without much
persuasion.  Although he does convince her to also go to school since
she's a little girl.  Flashforward to present day and Zoe is a
professional hit woman out for revenge.  If I didn't know any better,
I'd swear Luc wrote this to be a sequel to Léon: The Professional, with
Zoe essentially playing a grown-up Natalie Portman's character.  Anyway,
it's a very solid revenge action flick with Zoe laying waste to anyone
who gets in her way as she's out for revenge against the cartel who
murdered her parents all those years ago.

 

Anna (4K disc)  2019 action movie written and directed by Luc Besson.
Sasha Luss (Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets) stars as a
junkie who reaches a point of no return in her criminal life after
people die during a robbery.  The Russian government then retrains her
as an assassin, as well as how to behave more ladylike.  For her first
assignment they send her into a restaurant to assassinate someone, but
intentionally sabotage the hit to see how reacts to the situation.  From
there she falls in love while working as a highly trained government
assassin and struggles to live her new life with her new love.  I could
have sworn I once saw a different movie written and directed by Luc
Besson with a similar plot, but I'm sure he wouldn't recycle his own
ideas over and over again.  Anyway, as movies written and directed by
Luc Besson about a junkie the government recruits and retrains to be an
assassin go, this is a pretty good one.

 

How many of the movies directed by Luc Besson in my collection should I
watch this week?

 Arthur, I don't see how you can tell the difference among La Femme
Nikita remakes and Fifth Element remakes. Luc Besson is stuck in a rut.
 

The Fifth Element is *nothing* like Nikata!  Now, Anna on the other hand is almost a remake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74BzSTQCl_c

 If you can stand more, sure.

I'm done.
Between Thursday and Friday I watched them all.  Over the past few days I also watched several that he wrote or produced.  Not counting ones he directed, I actually have a  bunch more in my collection.  The guy's credit list as writer or producer is ridiculously long.  The only other movie I *almost* watched was "Lockout."  He didn't direct, but wrote and produced it.  I have no memory of what happens in this flick and was going to watch it, but when I read the plot description about a cop whose framed for murder and put in hibernation for 30 years, I thought it might go better with Demolition Man, whenever I get around to watching that again.