Watching...

Trainspotting. The problem with buying movies on DVD is that, really, how often are ya actually gonna siddown and watch 'em? Here's one I could watch over an' over an' over an' over an' over, and have. It's a hoot. The central sequence, where Renton ODs and goes through withdrawal, is damn near perfect. Actually it's a lot like the song that opens the sequence, Perfect Day by Lou Reed: haunting, funny, chilling, moving, sad, and beautiful, despite (because of?) being built upon grotesque and/or distasteful elements (a dead baby, Spud in jail, Lou Reed's tuneless monotone). The climactic scene where Renton rips off his mates to the sounds of Underworld is another sublime marriage of sound and vision.

The first time I saw this, I thought Robert Carlyle would be a big star, but it didn't really happen, not even with The Full Monty and Angela's Ashes. Something about Begbie in this movie reminds me of DeNiro as Vito Corleone in The Godfather II, which is funny because in the nightclub scene there's a mural of DeNiro ... as Travis Bickle.