Spot this Movie with “Rent Boy”
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Sudhir Nair
(Mumbai , India)
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With Held
Spot this Movie with “Rent Boy”
A few years before Morpheus talked about Choices that one makes in Life, Ewan McGregor had the following to say as Renton in Trainspotting:
“Choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family, choose a F@$#ing big television, in short – choose everything under the sun and choose life…but I chose not to choose life. Reason? Who needs reason when you’ve got Heroin.”
This has to be one of the best opening hooks in the history of movies. The moment Renton utters these magic words as his cronies are being introduced one by one; we know instantly that we are in threshold of watching something extraordinary. And for once we are not disappointed.
Trainspotting is directed by Danny Boyle and is based on a novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The story revolves around a group of youngsters who are so much into drugs that it makes them intolerably abusive (amongst other things) to the society which off course doesn’t want to accept them in either of the state that they are in. A group of youngsters who are smart enough to cook up a detailed plan on how to scrounge the street for drugs; who possess an elephant like memory about movies (hell they would have been made lifetime members of PFC); whose dream in life is to get an endless supply of drugs without any hassles; and who off course know to cook up (is that an appropriate term?) and administer drugs intravenously. But the fact remains that they were not smart enough to say no to drugs in the first place.
The movie is the best example of how and what a black comedy should be. The movie makes you feel funny, sad and angry at various moments in the movie. Just like how a junkie would feel during drug use. A lot of scenes are there that will be etched on your memory and stay with you for long – The simultaneous sequence of Spud’s night out with his gal; Renton’s night out with his; and Tommy’s night out are all shown in a wonderful parallel narration that will keep you in splits for quite sometime. As will the howlarious Spud interview scene. All the scenes involving Fancis Begbie will make you marvel that somebody can conceive such a nasty character. And nobody is ever going to forget surreal “The Worst Toilet in Scotland” sequence all their lives. But for me the scene that takes the cake is the one where we are told how Tommy met his nasty end while the Vicar’s reading out his eulogy simultaneously.
All the actors do a wonderful job in convincing us that all these characters are extremely real. Be it Ewan McGregor as Renton or Ewen Bremer as Spud or specially Robert Carlyle as Begbie everyone does a more than a commendable job. When watching a movie if you end up relating with the character and not the actor, you know that the actors are more than successful in their endeavor.
The screenplay by John Hodge is top-notch. All the characters are well etched out in the movie thanks to a wonderful narration by Renton and some well made scenes that don’t follow the movie’s timeline but are integrated so seamlessly that we hardly feel the irritation of flashbacks. The background songs have been used very effectively throughout the movie. “Just a perfect day” playing in the background when Renton has an OD and the background score during the terrifying Drug withdrawal sequence are a class apart.
Trainspotting has always been one of those movies that druggies always like to tell their buddies to watch (incidentally, the person who told about this movie also introduced me to grass). It’s also been one of those movies that’s recommended to watch to highlight the negative effects of drug (ab)use. The movie is set in Scotland and the Scottish accent might take sometime to digest but it’s worth it. It’s more than just a good movie. It’s one of the rare movies wherein we feel for the characters, laugh inhibitingly at the characters, scream at them for making wrong decisions and lastly it also makes you swear not to touch drugs no matter how tempting the offer might be to indulge in it.
And finally as a parting shot sample this conversation between two characters who are movie fanatics:
Renton: What about “The Untouchables”?
Sick Boy: I don’t rate that at all.
Renton: Despite the Academy Award?
Sick Boy: That means F#@$-all. It’s a sympathy vote.
And there you have it – the key to understanding the functionary of Oscars explained in this 1996 gem.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
was reading
‘in search of the miraculous’
by p d ouspensky
here is the book
http://www.esnips.com/doc/a482d666-2eba-41d7-88c4-77b5e0f66f88/Ouspensky—In-Search-of-the-Miraculous
@};-
just found these two books
and the temptation to share them is beyond me
so
‘zorba the greek’
http://www.esnips.com/doc/1c6d7c37-7d82-4119-8095-b01991940f98/Nikos-Kazantzakis—Zorba-the-Greek
and
‘the last temptation of christ’
http://www.esnips.com/doc/26a9e348-bea9-4b58-a707-20d6e2a4ad66/Nikos-Kazantzakis—The-Last-Temptation-of-Christ
^:)^[-o< @};-
@vishrant,
both Zorba and Temptation were made into movies.
Temptation is the movie which should have gotten Scorsese the oscar and a whole lot of other awards
havent seen zorba
aaj tak main shahrukh ke is sal ke filmfare ke performance ki coverage dekh raha tha.
‘unki maa ki bahan ki kismat to dekhiye’
shahrukh khan aur filmfare ab dada kondke ke level per aa gaye hain.
ek arab ki aabadi main. mushkil se teen hajar log honge jo hollywood per palte hain. aur wahi phir filmfare ki script likhte hain.
aur is tarah ke dialogue sunane ko milte hain. do sal se ye ho raha hai. bollywood main koi mard nahien bacha kya. sab chhakke hi hain.
[-x
abhi jehan main tigmansu dhuliya aur uski haasil ki yaad aayi.
:((