Today I watched Trainspotting on DVD, the first time I've watched in a long time and also the first I've seen it in widescreen since I saw it at the movies when it came out back in '96. It's still pretty good, and not as depressing as I remembered it, though watching any movie on VHS can be a pretty depressing experience. I remember how before I went out to see it my dad asked me which movie I was about to see so he could check the synopsis in the paper, and that he really didn't like the idea of his 16 year old son going to a movie about junkies. Different times, I guess. I like it how everything about the movie looks so ugly and dirty, and living in Israel I know a thing or two about dirty ugly places. Scotland looks like the crappiest little shithole ever in this movie. Even those great big green hills look completely oppressive, the kind of view only shooting sweet junk up your veins can help you forget. The actors have that sort of quality too, looking more like real people than movie stars, but I guess that's sort of my problem for watching too much American stuff. Ewan McGregor being the exception, of course. For some reason he very much reminds me of a young Alec Guinness. Can't imagine why. Kelly Macdonald is an old teenage fantasy of mine, despite having a rather oddly shaped nose. Too bad her role is so tiny here, way smaller than I remembered. I really like the dead baby puppet, not the one crawling on the ceiling, the greenish one in the crib. Very realistic. The music in the movie is still pretty great, and it was really nice to hear all those cool songs again after so many years. Kind of reminded me of all that time I spent in high school sitting in class, listening to the Trainspotting soundtrack (and later the second one) on my portable CD player and trying to ignore everybody around me. Good times. I've been trying to find a copy of the book for years now at this used book store I like in Tel-Aviv, without much luck so far. Maybe some day.
Kelly Macdonald, not humping Obi-Wan
Maxx update: I've finally found the entire TV series available for download in near-DVD quality! It says it was sourced from a VHS cassette, but there's just now way, the quality is just too good. It's also divided into 13 full episodes, the way it was first broadcast (the version that came out on VHS was cut down and the episodes were bunched together) so the whole thing is a mystery to me, but an extremely happy one at that. If the buttholes who own the rights for the show don't want my money, this should do just fine. Yaaaaaayyyy!!!!!
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