Trainspotting

Trainspotting is a 1996 Academy Award-nominated, BAFTA-winning cult classic film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. The movie is about a group of heroin addicts in late 1980s Edinburgh and their passage through life. It stars Ewan McGregor as Mark Renton, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie and Kelly Macdonald as Dianne. Author Irvine Welsh also has a brief appearance as hapless drug dealer Mikey Forrester.

The screenplay, by John Hodge, was adapted from Welsh's novel. It does not contain any references to the non-drug-related hobby of train spotting. The title is a reference to an episode in the original book (not included in the film) where Begbie and Renton meet "an auld drunkard" in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them, in a weak attempt at a joke, if they are "trainspottin'". As they walk away, Renton realizes the drunk was Begbie's father.

Plot

Set in Edinburgh, the film begins with a narration from Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) as he and friend 'Spud' career down Princes Street after shoplifting to raise cash, with security guards in pursuit. Renton states that unlike people who "choose life" (a traditional family lifestyle with children and material possessions), he and his cronies have opted out of ambitious pursuits, preferring to live in a blissful, meaningless heroin-induced stupor. We are introduced to his friends: film buff Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), hanger-on Spud (Ewen Bremner), keen footballer Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and unpredictable thug Francis Begbie (Robert Carlyle). Sick Boy, obsessed with Sean Connery, is also a heroin addict, as is the goofy, innocent Spud. In contrast, Tommy and Begbie openly criticise heroin use. Tommy lives an athletic, drug-free lifestyle. Begbie does not believe in heroin, but he is (ironically) a vicious drunk, eager to pick fights for the mere thrill of instigating physical altercations. This point is clearly illustrated when Begbie is seen casually throwing his pint glass off a bar balcony, injuring a woman and causing a large-scale pub brawl.

Source: Wikipedia

Continue reading the plot and the reaction to the film by clicking on the main title ("Trainspotting") above.

I think it is a great film partly because all the characters are frighteningly realistic.

I recommend you watch it if you haven't already. And if you have, watch it again in English (with subtitles).

But I warn you that it isn't for the over-sensitive of you!

Which film do you consider great? Write a brief description of the plot and why you like it so much.

This is one of the tracks from Trainspotting.

The original version is by Lou Reed and is the one featured in the film.

This version is sung by a variety of artists (including Lou Reed) to raise money for charity.

Film Review - No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men is the most violent and infuriating film Joel and Ethan Coen have made. It’s a clever adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy story about the cruel indifference of the American west. The title is a warning that old-fashioned values no longer apply. The murder rate is enjoyably brisk, and the opening scene in the dusty Texas desert is a sensation.

A resourceful redneck called Moss stumbles across the eerie remains of a drug deal that has gone very wrong. The Mexican gangsters have shot each other to bits. Their prone bodies are starting to bloat. The air is thick with flies. A ton of heroin is stacked in the back of a pickup truck. A hopeful corpse is gripping a briefcase containing $2 million in $100 bills. The wary Moss, played with deadpan cool by Josh Brolin, ignores the drugs and walks off with the cash. The most psychotic hitman in the history of motion pictures is assigned by a mega-rich corporate giant to find the money and kill Moss. This is a return to the vintage badlands of Blood Simple for the Coens.

But this Texas is a very different country from the one they filmed in 1984. Life is infinitely cheaper. The country has been poisoned beyond repair by drugs and greed. Local codgers such as Sheriff Bell are the rare witnesses of better days. Tommy Lee Jones plays the razor-sharp cop like a punch-drunk boxer. He wears his grievances as lightly as chain mail. Sheriff Bell can identify a driver from tyre tracks in the sand, but he can find absolutely no reason to the mayhem and murders he is employed to solve.

No Country for Old Men is a sour requiem for the past, and a biblical warning about the future.

It’s also stunningly photographed by Roger Deakins. The desert landscapes are framed like paintings, and the plot hardly breaks sweat. Some things never change. The Coens never hurry their actors. There’s always time for a rueful scratch of the chin, and a long squint at the horizon.

The professional assassin hired to bump off Moss is the most absurd character the Coens have ever invented. He is bravely played by a po-faced Javier Bardem with scene-stealing weirdness. He is a satanic force of nature whose weapon of choice is a gas-fuelled bolt gun more commonly used in abbatoirs to slaughter cattle.

His most sinister feature is his hair: a classic 1960s moptop. He is an unnerving pleasure who is obsessed with destiny and coin-tossing moments that mean life or death. He is responsible for an astonishing amount of carnage.

It seems churlish to take issue with a film with such rich characters. But I lost touch with the final reel. I couldn’t picklock a meaning from the chaotic climax. It creaks with significance, but I left the cinema not entirely convinced that the glittering plaudits it has won are entirely deserved.

The supporting acts are first rate. Kelly Macdonald is terrific as Moss’s trailer-trash wife with a heart of gold. Woody Harrelson delivers a neat and icy cameo as a sharp-suited and corrupt private investigator. And Jones is in his element as the terse sheriff doomed to spend his retirement struggling with the big picture.

Source: The Times

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