I love books. I do. For me, reading is a passion, something I can’t imagine life without.

But sometimes, when it’s really super-summer hot, the thought of focusing your sweat-brimmed eyes enough to read a novel is just plain agonizing. Not to mention those dreadful rainy days when you are forced to stick it out indoors.

So here, for your viewing pleasure, I propose some alternative summer rentals (film = another love of my life). Some of these are weird and some are, well, weirder. But hopefully you’ll enjoy at least some of them as much as I have.

Oldboy

Okay, don’t watch this if you don’t like to feel very, very uncomfortable. (I do want to say, however, that this is my favorite movie of all time.)

Oldboy is a Korean film (director Chan-wook Park, for whom Oldboy is part of a trilogy; Park also directed the lovely I’m a Cyborg and That’s Okay), part of the wave of innovative Korean filmmakers that was going on a few years ago. It’s the story of a man who is suddenly kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years. By the time he gets out, the only thing he cares about is finding out who imprisoned him and why–and getting revenge.

Oh yeah, and it’s based on a comic book, so it’s extremely graphic. You’ve been warned. Read More »

Trainspotting is the movie that introduced me to independent and foreign cinema, not to mention the amazing music of Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. And, of course, two of my most persistent celebrity lovers, Jonny Lee Miller and Ewan McGregor.

It was my favorite movie in high school, because it made me feel somehow cooler by association. Now I can appreciate it with a little more nuance, but that doesn’t take away from its intense cool and the nostalgia it inspires within me.

Ewan McGregor plays Scottish heroin addict and general ne’er do well Renton in the film, an adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel of the same name. In the face of his addiction and the destructive relationships he forms with his similarly worthless friends, Renton decides to Choose Life after an almost fatal overdose and a series of horrible misfortunes that befall his friends.

The movie shows the ill effects of drug use without ever letting the film become overly maudlin. It is a hyper-realized world that Renton and his friends live in, and director Danny Boyle (who has gone on to make 28 Days Later and A Life Less Ordinary) negotiates this with a really innovative visual style that reflects the frenzy of addiction juxtaposed with the banality of everyday life. Read More »