July 19, 1996 (U.S. release date)
It’s not exactly a bold statement to say that TRAINSPOTTING was a phenomenon. A low budget Scottish counterculture movie that made $72 million around the world, made stars out of most of its cast, internationally launched a director who has since won best director and best picture Oscars and is still a major player today, and has been named by the BFI as the 10th greatest British film of the 20th century. Also it’s a good movie. I hadn’t seen it since the theater 30 years ago, and it knocked me out again.
It’s the sophomore film for director Danny Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald, and they reunited much of their team from SHALLOW GRAVE: writer John Hodge, cinematographer Brian Tufano, editor Masahiro Harakubo, production designer Kave Quinn. This time it’s based on Irvine Welsh’s 1993 debut novel, and it’s the first-person-narrated tale of twentysomething heroin addict Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor in only his fourth movie) and his rowdy social circle in Edinburgh.They have some wild times, some horrible times. Fights, deaths, pubs, soccer fields, hospitals, court rooms. They rehab, relapse, reintegrate, and most of them survive it with a bit of punk rock stubbornness and Gen-X ironic distance.
Chances are you’ve seen it, I don’t have to tell you who these characters are. If not, you’ll meet them in the movie. I like the lovable idiot Spud (Ewen Bremner, JUDGE DREDD, who had played Renton in a stage adaptation), even though I really can’t fathom how he managed to accidentally splatter his shit all over his lady’s parents’ breakfast. I like seeing their square jock friend Tommy because now I recognize Kevin McKidd from starring in Rome later. Bleach blond Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller, HACKERS) is such a funny character, because it both makes sense why they’d hang out with him and why he would be so aggravating. Renton says that Sick Boy tries to kick at the same time as him just to show he can do it easily, “thereby downgrading my own struggle.” (read the rest of this shit…)
How are you gonna get em back on JUDGE DREDD with Sylvester Stallone when they’ve seen DREDD with Karl Urban? The new version is lower budget and streamlined and way better. It’s dedicated to the purity of this fascist character and the ugly world he lives in, and doesn’t worry about commercial considerations. (And sure enough did not do well commercially.) The new version is cool because it’s just about this larger than life character on one day doing one job. The old one, of course, had to be the story of the biggest thing that ever happened to Judge Dredd. It has all the weaknesses of calculated blockbuster type filmmaking, and only some of the strengths.
released May 25th, 2001
