Hacker Cinema
Nikita
1990 · Film · 117 min
Directed by Luc Besson
A beautiful felon, sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a policeman, is given a second chance – as a secret political assassin controlled by the government.
2 positive4 neutralfrom 6 commenters
Where to watch
No streaming data for this title.
7 comments on Hacker News
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your list, even though some of those are mediocre at best, but yeah I did mean per year, and limited to Hollywood (Parasite for instance not counting). And no, ok, I will also straight up disagree with the second Knives out Movie which I thought was absolute trash. A perfect example of poor storytelling and the form over substance of modern cinema.
But just taking say 1992 you have Last of the Mohicans, The Unforgiven, My Cousin Vinny, Malcolm X, Bad Lieutenant, Scent of a Woman, Reservoir Dogs, Dracula, Chaplin.
And then a bunch of fun schlomp like Arizona Dream, Basic Instinct, Sister Act, Army of Darkness, Home Alone 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Mighty Ducks, Wayne’s World.
These are all undoubtedly great movies.
And then another huge bunch of watchable stuff easily comparable to some of your mentions like Watcher or High Life.
And 1992 is not an outlier.
In 1993 you have Jurrasic Park, Groundhog Day, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, Scindlers List, Meanace 2 Society, Alive, Dazed and Confused, Falling Down, In The Name of The Father, True Romance, Demolition Man, Carlitos Way, The Secret Garden, Philadelphia, A Perfect Workd, Cool Runnings, Short Cuts.
In 1991 Silence of The Lambs, Ternimator 2, JFK, Point Break, Thelma and Louise, Boyz in the Hood, The Doors, My Own Private Idaho, Barton Fink, The Fisher King, Naked Lunch.
In 1990 Goodfellas, Hunt for Red October, Total Recall, Edward Scissorhands, Home Alone, Godfather 3, Dances with Wolves, Tremors, Back to the Future 3, Awakenings, The Witches, Wild at Heart, Jacobs Ladder, Nikita, Slacker, Millers Crossing.
And the quality difference is massive too, not just somewhat better. Like just Millers Crossing is miles better than anything that has been made in the last 5 years, and I’m picking at random.
In 1994 Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Speed, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, Stargate, Natural Born Killers, The Crow, Clercs, Maverick, Ed Wood, In the Mouth of Madness, Interview With The Vampire.
I could go on.
And this is not even talking about how the 80s is a better decade for cinema, or how the 70s is the peak of the power of the author with far more experimental, artistic, and substantial productions.
Has quality declined? Yes. Massively. Humongously. Stupendously.
Sure, but the endpoint is itself strong enough to sustain a direct attack?
Would a kill-chip in the neck (cfr Nikita and something other series) be better then?
Or even better (cfr Hanna TV series) with the exceptional profiling and overpopulation directly hit all potential shooters following minority report, sorry, the hyper-score?
> I do think there is a kernel of truth to what you're saying, but I don't think it's right to dismiss entirely the fact that representation IS important.
This idea is insidious.
Firstly people have to remember fiction is fiction. The reason why the first few seasons of Game of Thrones was compelling was because the world they lived in didn't have any modern sensibilities in it. The more they threw in modern sensibilities the worse the show got (thought the action scenes for the most part got better).
There was some show recently where Black slaves in the USA had taken power over the whites and a white KKK member from another dimension somehow got transported there. Some decried the show and wanted it banned. I thought it sounded excellent, because it was soooo divorced from reality. Same with the "Man from the High Castle". The setting in which the enemy won WWII was compelling.
Secondly just randomly pushing people into roles for the sake of representation ends up cheapening any genuine effort. The Wire was brilliant because the huge number of black people being in the show made sense. At the time I didn't actually notice that most of the cast was black.
You know what the end result is. It made me notice skin colour when I didn't used to and made me start to resent any effort (no matter how genuine) because I know there is probably some quota involved somewhere to pander to a demographic.
> Historically, "rich white people" have been in control of the media, so it's great to see this group becoming more self aware.
It isn't self awareness though. They are projecting their prejudices onto the rest of us. This includes places where it just isn't relevant and makes almost no sense.
How dare they project their prejudices onto me in an effort to absolve themselves of guilt, then have the gall to tell me that I am the one with the problem when I object to it. Fuck them!
I clearly remember when I decided I wouldn't watch anymore broadcast television (this was about 8 years ago now).
There was a show hosted by Scottish Comedian Frankie Boyle that was infamous for his offensive comedy. On that show there was a rich Canadian woman on the TV telling people in the audience that all men had done through the centuries was raping and beating women.
Then there was a black musician called "Akala" telling me the British Empire institutions were guilty of perpetuating racism. He seemed to be obilvious to the fact that he was on a British Institution being broadcasted to every home in the country.
Other the gross oversimplification of history. I had nothing to do with it (nor did my family as they were all very poor). It would be like blaming today's Germans for what Hitler did. It is absolutely disgusting.
You know what the end result of this is? It made me hugely suspicious of any claim of sexual misconduct or racism. It is the classic story of the boy that cried wolf.
> We should let people with compelling stories tell their stories! Now that streaming is the norm, there's room for everyone, now that we're not limited to only the stories which are marketable for primetime.
Maybe I am getting old but I remember a lot of this already happening. I am not saying it was perfect and I don't disagree with it in principle.
Recently "Black Panther" was released. "The first black super hero" they said. People seemed to forget Wesley Snipes played Blade for 3 movies (starting in 1997) and they were the first Marvel Movies and made the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe viable as it showed that a comic book property could be successful.
Before that we had the "There are no female action heroes" they said. Forgetting all thrillers in the past with heroines, a whole movie franchise called Aliens, Cherry 2000, Nikita, Tank Girl, Buffy and a bunch of other movies I have probably forgotten about where the woman had taken charge of the situation and won the day.
People increasingly think that the world before they were born didn't exist.
Although to be a successful movie the characters would get recruited into a secret organization which turns their leet skillz to battling back other hackers in other countries. Sort of Nikita meets Mr. Robot. That meme can be done badly as CSI:Cyber showed.
"provide an equal number of counterexamples, then."
Equal number to what? What is the number we are looking at - did anybody even count anything here? I already mentioned several female action heroes in other comments, like Underworld, Resident Evil, Buffy, Dark Angel, Aliens, Aeon Flux, Nikita. If you only count movies that are actually worthwhile, the comparison to male hero movies is not bad (I can only compare to mostly worthwhile movies).
Also some things don't make sense, as somebody pointed out, WW2 didn't have that many female soldiers, so why would you expect 50% of WW2 movies to be about female soldiers? You could go on and complain that there are too many WW2 movies, but that is hardly convincing as a feminist issue.
"Your last paragraph is blatant sexism, fyi."
It's not actually. Would "women have boobs" also be a controversial statement? It is very obvious that it is easier for women to reproduce than for men, and it is statistically proven. Just because you can't see it (like boobs hanging off a person) doesn't mean some difference does not exist.
Men get to do the life threatening jobs because men are more expendable. Women are the limiting factor in reproduction (only about one baby can be produced every nine months per woman).
It doesn't mean that women can't do life threatening jobs, just that there is a reason they usually don't have to.
If it is sexist to assume that there are differences between men and women, then maybe it was sexist. Then I'd have to say I'd rather be sexist and stick to science than give up logic for ideology.
Edit: I wonder what is the feminist explanation for less women doing risky jobs? The patriarchy doesn't want women to be cannon fodder because they could start believing they can be aggressive and revolt against men? Or really just the media - if more female warrior movies were being made, women would be flocking to the military by the millions?
There are many, many movies with women as the main actrice. Even female heroes.
What do you mean by hero, somebody who carries heavy guns and mows down lots of enemies? Even those exist, for example Resident Evil (totally unrealistic of course).
Have you even actually counted the movies with male and female heroes, or do you just have a gut feeling that there are only few female heroes?
While you are counting, you could also count how many men die as collateral damage ("guards") vs how many women.
Edit: some more I remembered in the meantime: Underworld series, Alien series, Aeon Flux, Buffy, Dark Angel, Nikita
That's funny because I'm also building a web-based Excel/database hybrid, and I'm also a bit concerned about demand. But your story doesn't deter me at all, for two reasons: one, because I'm crazy; two because of La Femme Nikita. Let me explain.
People talk about ideas as being worthless, etc. No, they're not. You can't get an oak tree with a mustard seed. But there's a big difference between even oak trees. Idea and execution are the same thing, just two ends of a continuous line.
The films La Femme Nikita and Point of No Return have nearly the exact same plot. The former is one of the greatest action films ever made; the latter is one of the worst.
That whole "build something people want" is only for people who want to make money. And honestly, if what you want is to make money, be a dentist.
People waant Facebook and Twitter and Farmville. But they need core technological innovation. They need better ways to work with data. You did the right thing, Andrew. It wasn't a waste of time. And I won't stop either, because the world has far too much of what it wants and far too little of what it needs.