Choose life? Choose everything. Choose........... Danny Boyle was put firmly on the map with this stark and brutal look at the damage drugs can do to your life, focusing on a small group of youths in Edinburgh as they go about their daily mundane existence. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, Boyle makes sure the camera is put to good use and the imagination is triggered as we sit through an hour and a half of powerful cinema. The film follows our gang of youths, all friends, all with difference goals and ideals in life. They go about their day with their extremely different personalities, knowing that their lives are in their own hands, but somehow ...  Read the complete review

So it must have been around '96 or something, because England were doing alright in the football, and it was the last time I can remember when everyone in the country didn't hate each others guts. We were all driving along on this big double decker bus painted with the Union Jack. Liam and Noel were there, wearing their little round shades, and they were like, "Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?", and we all agreed it wasn't, because all we needed was cigarettes and alcohol. Jarvis was there too, in his felt jacket, and we were singing along with the common people, singing along ...  Read the complete review

Trainspotting released in 1996 is a grim, sometimes depressing look at the drug scene in Edinburgh and is brought to us by the same team that gave us Shallow Grave in 1994. Sometimes funny but mainly hard-hitting and powerful this film is a really good insight into the drug culture and how it can take hold of lives. Ewan McGregor puts in a strong performance as Mark Renton, a heroin addict with a collection of strange mates that don't really fit in anywhere. First there is Sick Boy played by Jonny Lee Miller who is a drug dealer in his spare time but not for serious money. Next we have Spud played by Ewan Bremner. He is a character who follows the crowd and ...  Read the complete review

Trainspotting is a film from the mid-1990's, and is both grim and fascinating. Sadly, it was the film chosen by my now-husband for our first proper date at the cinema back in 1996. How romantic (not)! The story, originally a book by the great author Irvine Walsh, follows a group of apparent no-hopers living in the Edinburgh drug scene, and tells the tale of what happens to them all. Most of the characters are not particularly likeable, save for maybe Ewan McGregors character, Renton. Robert Carlisle makes an early film appearance as the truly terrifying psychopath Begbie, who none of the group really want hanging around them ...  Read the complete review

I remember the controvesy surrounding this film when it came out at the cinema in 1996. I was 16 at the time and I got my dad to rent the film out from the video shop for me and my friends to watch. It was THE film of 1996, and everyone in my social circle was talking about it. This film is like marmite: you really either love it or you hate it! I have to say I fall on the side of loving it, though there are certain parts of the film that i find very difficult to watch! The first of these occurs near the beginning of the film where Renton (played by Ewan McGregor in one of his earliest big screen roles) has dropped some heroin suppositories into a ...  Read the complete review