I got into the films of Luc Besson via The Fifth Element (one of my favourites) and Leon. There's just something about his style that I like. I've been adding them to my DVD collection gradually, but some were disappointing. The Big Blue is long and slow, The Messenger is a bit messy. Nikita is one of his earlier works when he was still working in French and is about a drug addict criminal who is recruited by a government agent as an assassin. It has a similar feel to Leon and even features Jean Reno in a similar role. Anne Parillaud plays the lead very well. It's a sort of My Fair Lady with more guns and less singing.

I'm not that keen on Eric Serra's music. Part of that may be that the synthesiser sounds are very eighties. I found The Big Blue soundtrack grated similarly.

I bought the DVD ages ago, but it had been sitting on the shelf waiting for me to find the time. I started off watching with the English dub, but this was too annoying, so I switched to French dialogue plus English subtitles. My French is very limited.

The film was remade in America as Point of no Return (I think it was The Assassin in the UK), but I've not seen that.

One of these days I'll get Leon on DVD, but I fancy the US version that has extra scenes and have never seen it cheap.

I've been wanting to learn more about Leonardo, not just because of the Da Vinci Code, but mainly as a major character in the history of science. I picked this book up in Miami.

I tells his life story in a fairly brief form with some emphasis on his anatomical studies. It talks about his art to a lesser extent. There's some exploration into the possible causes of his alledged homosexuality.

It was an interesting read, but I could have done with more detail on his inventions and more pictures. When you are reading about such a great artist it's nice to see the works.

I know there are plenty of other Leonardo books. Any recommendations?