POINT OF NO RETURN

"I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt"--The Road to Wigan Pier

This afternoon I finally made it to Dawna's Classic TV Meetup in Regent's Park, on a screen that's about five feet by three feet. (On the way over I was reading in The Road to Wigan Pier about working-class housing estates that make Regent Park look like paradise!)

The DVD was Point of No Return, John Badham's 1994 Hollywood remake of Luc Besson's French spy romp La Femme Nikita.  The original had quite a few cliches--like when X pulls a gun on Y to make him do something Y was about to do anyway--but it also had Jean Reno, one of the world's coolest actors, in the surprisingly cool role of the spy boss.  

The American version predictably had even more cliches, but only had Gabriel Byrne as the boss.  Byrne has talent, but he isn't Reno.(Someone said that whatever role Byrne is in, he doesn't seem quite right for it!) The movie also had Bridget Fonda as the spy--she was very pretty, and maybe she still is!--and Dermot Mulroney as her clueless lover. (Moira fondly refers to Mulroney as "that goof"!) Harvey Keitel also played much the same "cleaner" role that he had in Pulp Fiction the same year.

How cheesy was this version? We learn early on that Bridget's a Nina Simone fan, as she specifically asks for her records, then plays them all the time. Later on Byrne reveals that he's given her the code name Nina, and she says, "For Nina Simone?" (Just in case you forget the connection...) Typical line: "Everything you touch turns to shit!"

On the way home, I met Genevier on the subway, whom I know from my time of dance lessons at the Arthur Murray studio.  I used to sing karaoke with her husband Jim, and we may get together again to do that!

On Netflix, we've started watching Bloodline again, from the first episode, before we get to the third season.  I've also started watching the last episodes of Hell on Wheels, the western with the pretty actresses.