Streaming Quick Picks: Luc Besson
The next installment of our new Artist of the Week feature ties into this week’s Madfilm Meetup tomorrow, Luc Besson’s Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson, at Marcus Point Cinema. Fortunately, most of Besson’s films are available through streaming services or, in the case of some of the earlier films, local video sources. The poster images below will guide you to the GoWatchIt.com entry for the films, where you can choose which streaming platform you prefer. For those films that aren’t currently streaming, you can add them to your GoWatchIt queue and wait for them to become available, or if you’ve got to see them now, check out the buttons at the bottom of the page for searches through Four-Star Video Co-Op and the Madison Public Library catalogs.
This post includes only the films Besson has directed. If we were to add the ones he’s written or co-written, the list would be considerably longer. Like many moviegoers, the first I ever saw by Besson was Léon (aka The Professional), which introduced me to Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, and a side of Gary Oldman I just hadn’t seen before (i.e. the screaming crazy side). Léon captures Besson at his best with an emblematic action film that is both thrilling and unabashedly sentimental, while also exhibiting his nascent tendencies for “upping the ante” when it comes to hyperbolic action–something he does to mixed effect in later films, particularly the ones on which he serves solely as screenwriter. Not content with one type of film, Besson has genre-hopped from espionage and period fare, to science fiction and fantasy, to animated family films.
His most recent film, Lucy, has been fairly polarizing for the critics. We hope you’ll judge for yourself by joining us Tuesday evening for our Madfilm Meetup screening of Lucy. In the meantime, be sure to let us know via the comments section which films you love—and which ones you don’t—by this week’s director.
