Slacker 1991

Presents a day in the life in Austin Texas among its social outcasts and misfits predominantly the twentysomething set using a series of linear vignettes. These characters who in some manner just dont fit into the establishment norms move seamlessly from one scene to the next randomly coming and going into one anothers lives. Highlights include a UFO buff who adamantly insists that the U.S. has been on the moon since the 1950s a woman who produces a glass slide purportedly of Madonnas pap smear and an old anarchist who sympathetically shares his philosophy of life with a robber.

Review

I walked into Richard Linklaters SLACKER not knowing for sure what to expect. I think that is the best way to experience this film. I wouldnt exactly put this film under Comedy if I ran my own video store. I would invent the category PostFilm School Experimental Piece and place it under that. Because that is just what it is but dont let that repulse you. It is very interesting and has the power to warp you in what seems like one shot throughout a day and night in a college town of Austin Texas.

The true life preserver of this film is the sure directorial hand and witty script of Linklater. I enjoy the matteroffact philosophy within the dialogue of Linklater movies (DAZED & CONFUSED BEFORE SUNRISE)it is especially heavy here. Its fun watching the weirdos in this movie like the videoobsessed droid who prefers taped sequences over reality or the chick with Madonnas pap smear (eewww!!) But its almost frightening when you come upon a character very much like yourself.

But the movie most successfully gives us a town populated by characters we actually believe are living their aimless life in front of us. Minutebyminute plays that intricately connect into a long string of slacker beads. These characters belong to the counterculture where neurosis comes naturally and there are hardly skeptics anywhere. Where conversations find the metaphysical levels of funny postcards.

Later in the future we will trip upon this movie again and find it more as being a time capsule of the early 90s than a semiexperimental comedy by a director most known for his insights of the subculture living inside their own heads.