the m0vie blog

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Emma Kiely, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting.

Using heroin to numb the pain of simply existing, Mark Renton drifts through a series of episodic adventures in nineties Edinburgh. Renton and his friends find themselves caught up in a web of sex, violence, drug abuse and existential malaise, grappling with challenges both large and small as they struggle to make it out the other side of their experiences.

At time of recording, it was ranked 173rd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

Show Notes:

• Recorded 3rd February 2022.
• Note: Due to the COVID-19 situation, this episode was recorded remotely. We suspect, going forward that a lot of our episodes will be until the crisis resolves.
• Note: At one point Darren suggests that Lust for Life was a track on The Idiot. Instead, it was the title track of the album following The Idiot.
• Trainspotting at The Internet Movie Database.
• The IMDb Top 250 at time of recording.
• Follow Emma on Twitter.
• Read Emma’s articles at Collider.
• Ewan McGregor promotes Davidoff Adventure, December 2007.
• Quentin Tarantino discusses his fondness for Sunshine, April 2018.
• Damian Jones at NME discusses the controversy over Richard Curtis’ writing credit on Sunshine, May 2020.
• Douglas Bankston at American Cinematographer discusses the use of digital cinematography in 28 Days Later, July 2003.
• The National Post looks at Michael Mann’s contributions to digital cinema, from Collateral to Blackhat, January 2015.
• Adagio in D Minor by John Murphy, November 2008.
• Jack Tregoning at Grammy looks at the impact and influence of the soundtrack to Trainspotting, March 2021.
• Matt Glasby at GQ looks back on how the soundtrack to Trainspotting shaped the film, June 2019.
• Alex Godfrey at Vice looks at how Trainspotting made Born Slippy one of the defining songs of the decade, March 2017.
• The cast of T2 Trainspotting join The Graham Norton Show, January 2017.
• Colin Hogg at The Spin-Off looks at the complicated relationship between David Bowie and Lou Reed, January 2016.
• David Cheal at Financial Times looks at the relationship between David Bowie and Iggy Pop, August 2021.
• Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib at MTV looks at how Bowie quit cocaine in Berlin, January 2017.
• Drew Wardle at Far Out Magazine looks at David Bowie and Iggy Pop’s trip to Berlin, January 2021.
• Daniel Dylan Wray at Vice offers an oral history of the development and production of Trainspotting, March 2016.
• Irvine Welsh talks to The Guardian about the initial reception to his novel Trainspotting, August 2018.
• Alan Bissett at The Guardian looks at the various controversies over how the Man Booker Prize has treated Scottish fiction, July 2012.
• Douglas Stuart talks to The Guardian about winning the Man Booker Prize for his debut Shuggie Bain, November 2020.
• Ian Bell reviews Trainspotting for The Guardian, August 1993.
• Caroline Westbrook at Empire looks at the behind-the-scenes production history of Trainspotting, February 2021.
• Jay Glennie at The Guardian looks behind-the-scenes on the development of Trainspotting, October 2021.
• Alex Ritman at The Hollywood Reporter offers an oral history of Trainspotting, February 2017.
• Colin Welland collects his Academy Award for Chariots of Fire, boasting that “the British are coming!”, November 2015.
• Ed Power looks back at the troubled production of Revolution for The Independent, December 2020.
• Matt Glasby at The BFI looks at the state of British cinema in the nineties, July 2019.
• Dylan Jones at GQ looks at the context and meaning of Ghost Town, January 2021.
• Robert Saunders at The New Statesman looks back on Thatcher’s argument that there is “no such thing as society”, March 2020.
• Kirsty McKenzie at Glasgow Live argues hat Trainspotting belongs as much to Glasgow as to Edinburgh, July 2021.
• John Harris at The New Statesman looks back on the trend of “Cool Britannia”, May 2017.
• Milly Jenkins at The Independent offers an introduction to Trainspotting for Americans, May 1996.
• The cast and crew of Trainspotting talk about the edits made to the American cut of Trainspotting, March 2017.
• Hilary Mitchell at Buzzfeed reports on some of the cuts and alterations made to Trainspotting for the American market, September 2016.
• Ben Arnold at Yahoo reports on the mysterious dubbed version of Trainspotting, Ferbruary 2017.
• Aida Edemariam and Kirsty Scott at The Guardian report on the history of opium in Scotland, August 2009.
• Allison McCann and Mary Turner at The New York Times discuss the so-called “Trainspotting generation”, August 2019.
• The Scotsman looks at how Scotland repelled the Romans, August 2016.
• Allan Little at The BBC reports on Scotland’s historical colonial ambitions, May 2014.
• Leslie Bennetts at The New York Times looks at how middle-class people are also affected by heroin addiction, February 1982.
• Colm Meaney says “bollocks!” on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, May 1998.
• Anatole Broyard at The New York Times looks a “logotherapy“, November 1975.
• Paul O’Callaghan at The BFI looks back at Trainspotting as a “coming of age” tale, June 2016.
• David Futrelle at We Hunted the Mammoth reports on Lou Reed’s misogyny, October 2015.
• Howard Sounes talks to NME about publishing Notes From the Velvet Underground, October 2015.
• John Hugar at Uproxx offers a glimpse of Lou Reed’s history of misogyny and anti-semitism, October 2015.
• Rene Chun at The Atlantic offers a portrait of Bobby Fischer, December 2002.
• Ben Beaumont-Thomas at The Guardian reports on Neil Young’s principled stance, February 2022.
• The trailer for Recipe for Seduction, December 2020.
• Glen and Friends Cooking looks at the unique Irish relationship to Kentucky Fried Chicken, January 2021.
• Andrew Macdonald talks to The Herald Scotland about the controversy surrounding the release of Transpotting, February 2000.
• Adam Nagourney at The New York Times reports on Bob Dole’s attacks on the entertainment industry, September 1996.
• The Tampa Bay Times explores whether Bob Dole had even seen Trainspotting when he was criticising it, October 1996.
• John Kruzel at Poltifact reports on the claims that Mike Pence calls his wife “mother”, March 2018.
• Kelly Macdonald discusses her life and career with The Guardian, March 2021.
• Kevin McKidd talks to The Scotsman about his complicated relationship with Trainspotting, October 2021.
• Kevin McKidd talks to Queen Margaret University about not pursuing stardom after Trainspotting, March 2021.
• Meredith Nardino at Us Magazine reports on the complicated evolution of the relationship between Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, April 2022.
• Tom Murray at Business Insider on the infamous graph of comparing Leonardo DiCaprio’s age to that of his girlfriends, March 2019.
• James Frey talks to The Guardian about fabricating extended sections of his memoir A Million Pieces, September 2006.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: 1990s, addiction, britain, choose life, cool britannia, danny boyle, drugs, Edinburgh, emma kiely, ewan bremner, ewan mcgregor, heroin, irvine welsh, johnny lee miller, Kelly Macdonald, new labour, nineties, podcast, robert carlyle, Scotland, thatcher, The 250 |