Slacker
(R, 1:40:26, Released 1991)
| Provider: | Hulu |
| Genres: | Art House & International, Comedy |
| Released: | Dec 31, 1991 |
| DVD Released: | Sep 14, 2004 |
| Starring: | Jan Hockey, Jean Caffeine, John Slater, Louis Mackey, Marc James, Richard Linklater, Rudy Basquez, Stella Weir |
| Directed by: | Richard Linklater |
| Synopsis: | Richard Linklater's 1991 cult classic gives viewers surreal slices of what it's like to be a twenty-something in the college town of Austin, Texas. Told through a series of vignettes starring Linklater himself, Rudy Basquez, Keith McCormack, Jean Caffeine, Stephan and Jan Hockey, Bob Boyd and Mark James, the film includes a strange meditation on Madonna's pap smear; a conspiracy theorist riffing on the United States government; and more. |
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Other Top Reviews
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October 21, 2008Fascinating film. The hooks in this film is great, like the only use of character name was one of the best hooks in a film like this, of free association, the use of terms like 'Madonna's pap smear' and how assassins are still alive and so on. I believe that Paul is the same missing guy and his intent is to use that stolen rare Marquis de Sade book when he was supposed to steal a TV, most American, as opposed to Marquis de Sade, most and utterly European, and by using it to launch that war with his secret European radical terrorist cell. I believe that.
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September 2, 2008
Working on Same Painting: Sorry, I'm late.
Having a Breakthrough Day: That's okay, time doesn't exist.
The first film written and directed by Richard Linklater, this is a uniquely-structured and plotless film, following a single day in the life of an ensemble of mostly twenty-somethings in Austin. The film follows various characters and scenes, never staying with one character or conversation for more than a few minutes before picking up someone else in the scene and following them.
Old Anarchist: And remember: the passion for destruction is also a creative passion.
The movie is literally about nothing. We meet a whole assortment of characters, never see them again after their scenes consisting of either banter or dialog, and the movie eventually ends without having any standard structure. This is the kind of things some cult films are made of.
Disgruntled Grad Student: Every action is a positive action, even if it has a negative result.
Obviously done very cheaply and with no professional actors, the movie still manages to work due to the fact that the dialog is interesting, sometimes funny, but consistently approached in some sort of surrealist manner.
Hitchhiker: Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death!
This was one of the several films in the 90s that brought in the wave of independent films to wider audiences. It is also the film that inspired Kevin Smith to become a filmmaker. These points do not necessarily mean anything, but in terms of relating it somehow to someone, this is the kind of movie it is.
Nothing happens, but it is filled with conversations that are interesting and intriguing. Yep, that is what will pass as a recommendation.
Has Conquered Fear of Rejection: Do you have a car?
S-T-E-V-E with a Van: Do you have a car, I have *a van*, lets go! -
August 26, 2008I turned it off about 1hr 10mins in which according to IMDb.com is better then most, If you liked Waking Life by the same director you are going to love it, but it was rediculously dull for me and annoying seeing as i was told this was similar to Dazed and Confused of which it was nothing alike.
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July 12, 2008For a plotless movie this was actually nice. The constant flow of characters and conversations give many cool moments (the JFK conspiracy theorist, the woman trying to sell a Madonna memorabilia, elderly anarchist who befriends a man trying to burglarize his house, to name a few). It's one of the first indie movies along with "Sex, Lies and Videotape".
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June 27, 2008
I you liked the sprawling narrative of "Waking Life", you will love "Slacker" which takes mid 20's early 90's Texas collegiate aimlessness and makes it into minimalist cinematic poetry. Some vignettes don't work as well as other's, but taken all together it's a phenomenal film.
However I bought the Criterion Collection version of this because it came with Linklater's first unreleased film "You Can't Learn To Plow By Reading Books", which is without a doubt the most boring thing I have ever seen. It's pretty much just the director staring out of some windows as he takes a trip around Texas. Do not watch it, and do not pay the extra price for it. Rent it, not worth it.
That being said "Slacker" is one of my favorite films, and one which helped start the "indie" film revolution of the 90's. Great smart, hip, poetic, funny stuff, that was and is emblematic of a generation. "Wanna see something cool....it's like...a... Madonna Pap Smear...man the real thing....the real Madonna!" -
June 15, 2008
My only problem with this film is that a lot of the characters talk like stoned intellectual art students and it gets a bit samey. However, there's so many little stories in here that your bound to like SOME of it
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June 15, 2008What to do with a camera and some time to kill in Austin, Texas...make a classic and top it with some Super-8!!
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June 8, 2008
this is film as art. absolutely wonderful & miraculous. the performances in this film blow my mind. a definitive gen-x masterpiece.
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June 7, 2008
One of Richard Linklater's first movies, this was a movie with no plot, but based on conversation. It starts with a guy getting into a taxi and talking about his dreams, and he gets out of the cab and see's a girl get hit by a car, the camera then follows a person in another car who tries to help them, then follows the next person and the whole movie just moves from one person to the next. Film quality was average, and I thought that Waking Life was much better at doing the conversational thing without having much of a plot, so this one only got a 5.5. Most of the time I just listened to the movie because all the people were doing was walking around or sitting down talking.
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May 11, 2008
I may completely forget about this or it may become one of my favorite movies ever. There's really no in between. We'll see.
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March 27, 2008
The premise of the movie rocks. Richard Linklater is a little too in love with his pseudo-philosophical babble.
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March 9, 2008
I will bet hard-earned cash that there is no way this movie holds up to my memory of it. I was 18, this was indie, and that's all I cared about.
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March 3, 2008I get the historical importance of this film in the 90's indie movement...but the film itself? Painful!
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February 18, 2008
A debut as refreshing as Jean-Luc Godard's "Breathless"(1960). The little-to-no production values on this tiny film by Austin TX HERO Richard Linklater will turn off most average moviegoers, but cinephiles and young filmmakers will embrace it's brave unconventional narrative and it's gung-ho D.I.Y. mentality. Like "American Graffiti"(1973) and "Medium Cool"(1968) - "Slacker"(1991) captures the spirit of a time and a place in American history. No other film has depicted Austin's drop-out culture with more sincerity and wit than Linklater's feature film debut..
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December 1, 2007
In Slacker, Linklater has crafted his ultimate indie opus. His film is a portrait of a certain type of people living on the back roads and travelling through the main streets of Austin, Texas. We explore Linklater's Generation X style subjects by jumping from one person to the next, never focusing on one for more than a few minutes before we meet the next on our journey. It's a compelling style, no plot and no main characters, and bold as well; long takes and smooth camera sweeps are prevolant, and pulled off really perfectly. Audacity isn't enough to motivate a 100 minute movie though, and Linklater keeps us watching with a series of humorously presented plights, from absurd television collectors to everday car fanatics to fanatic conspiracists. The color in the people of Slacker is enough to paint the screen completely. Linklater claims he wasn't out to make a portrait of a generation, but it's hard to deny it now. Not only did his film held define the next decade for independent cinema, it helped show us the positive side of the word Slacker, and grow to love these twenty-something faux-philosophers in a way... even if we still absolutely loath a few of the self-indulgent fucks.
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November 24, 2007
When I first saw Slacker, I knew I was seeing quite possibly the best film about the United States I ever saw. Austin is used as a microcosm between an incredible cast of characters living within the same social setting with radically different views of the world. In breakneck speed, Linklater whisks us through dialogues about life, philosophy, politics, and the US that define paradigms of generations. A daring debut by Linklater and his classic.
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November 23, 2007Richard Linklater's first film....a collection of really deep, really awesome conversations. Don't look for much plot, just.....take it in. Quite awesome as well as its "sequel" WAKING LIFE.
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October 29, 2007
Innovative and daring. While the film doesn't always work as well as you'd hope, Linklater is fearless in showing the make-up of a small slice of Austin.
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October 26, 2007
Watching it straight through is kind of draining, but damn I love this movie. Pretentious? Yes. Meandering? Yes. Slack-y? Yes. I think I can place a lot of the blame for my lack of ambition on discovering this movie in high school. For the longest time I had no goal in life beyond being one of these flannel wearing, coffeehouse misanthropes.
Yes, the overnight part of the movie drags, but good God!!! The ending is just transcendent. Epic, even. -
August 22, 2007
The American independent film of the 1990's. A disjointed series of Americans talking about their beliefs and philosophies all thrown together into one film makes this into one strange, intriguing watch.
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June 23, 2007
Waking Life is definitely the spiritual sequel to this movie. This is a great glimpse into the philosophy of the lazy college kid.
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June 17, 2007
I don't remember much about this movie but it seemed good at the time and I enjoy Linklater a lot. Check it out. Maybe I'll watch it again.
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June 13, 2007Great concept, but leaves you wondering what is the rest of the cast doing when they leave the screen. Introduces a lot of concepts and is up to the viewer to bring closure to the subjects.
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June 6, 2007
a good independant film, but i wasn't amazed by it. This movie gets credit because it brought back interest in independant films during the early ninties, but there are much better one's out there that blow it away.
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June 3, 2007
Slacker is a label, just like hippy or beatnik, of a generation of people who are doing the unexpected and not caring or believing that its wrong. this film captures that. although no real slacker will admit to being one, its the pre-grundge state of mind. abstract, enlightening, and hilarious. watch this movie today.
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June 2, 2007
A masterpiece that brilliantly captures what it was like to grow up as a teenager in the 90s. There was a reason for that "whatever" attitude.
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April 14, 2007
I really love this picture. Inspirational to all aspireling filmmakers. Dazed & Confused may be the most rewatchable Linklater movie, but Slacker is without a doubt the most daring.
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March 20, 2007
This film nearly beats Altman's 'Nashville' to best portrait of a city, but it is more content on being a portrait of a sub-group within Austin, Texas - that of the slacker, those people who just don't want ot play by the rules, just don't want to conform, just don't want to be anything but a slacker. The camera meanders around like a sociology student who only needs to hear several words of a conversation before knowing that they are the people that they are looking for. Ideas fly around from one corner of the city to the next, from one bedroom to another, as day slowly turns to night, and the amazement of any single day anywhere on earth is brought to the fore, as we start to realise that every single moment in time is frought with incidents, ideas, encounters and more besides. It almost seems to be a film in defence of this sub-group of society, where the word slacker is usually used insultingly, but the film shows just how wrong people are to dismiss them, with their wacky creatice ideas and their passive buddha-like approach to life. It is astonishing that this was all made for $25000 dollars, and it sounded the cinematic trumpet call for the no-budget film that would soon take shape in the indie filmmaking landscape. Inspiring!
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March 17, 2007
This movie is so good. It completely changed what I thought a film could be and introduced me to the world of independent cinema. The whole thing is dreamlike in its narrative [in fact Richard Linklater would go on to use the same style in the outstanding Waking Life- a freeflowing study of dreams] and the ideas and philosphies expressed range from poignant to irrelevant. There's a spark in this movie that shines from the beginning to the end and is detectable in all areas, be it direction, production or even just the acting. This is a beautiful and essential movie...
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March 16, 2007
Follow the lives of disenchanted teens in Austin documentary-style & "don't forget to eat a green thing everyday"
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March 15, 2007
It seems this film sort of made the way for independent movies. I can see why it's an important film. I did like some of it - the deadpan humour, the narrative style, the characters. BUT, it really didn't do it for me. I found it lacking something and to be honest I think it went up its own ass a little. Especially at the end. To be fair there were some really cool parts too, like the pixelated camera scene and even though I thought it was a little full of itself, the steadycam sequence at the end.
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February 13, 2007
far fucking out, a real treat this, full of ace philosophies and one liners, the perfect student film!
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February 7, 2007
you might end up seeing all of linklaters films on this list. I was a slacker when this came out so i could relate.
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January 9, 2007
Richard Linklater's hypnotic Gen-X debut, documenting a day in the life in Austin, Texas among its social outcasts and misfits.
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January 6, 2007
By not sticking to one story line or one set of characters, Linklater gives us a taste for the general feel of the times in the university district in Austin during the late 80's and early 90's by introducing us to a stream of very interesting everyday people.
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December 30, 2006
By not sticking to one story line or one set of characters, Linklater gives us a taste for the general feel of the times in the university district in Austin during the late 80's and early 90's by introducing us to a stream of very interesting everyday people.
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December 6, 2006
Its interesting if you like seeing one loser after another talking about their stupid lives.For some reason though,I couldn't take my eyes off it ! A good precursor to Linklater's classic "Dazed and Confused"
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November 23, 2006
This insightful flick which follows Austin "slackers" around with comedy and conversation wasn't the first indie film, but certainly inspired many indie film makers upon its release in 1991 (one being Kevin Smith, who regularly notes in interviews that "Slacker" inspired him to make "Clerks"). This film uses a "seamless" story line style, a style of which Richard Linklater would come to revisit later on in films such as "Before Sunrise" and "Waking Life".
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October 2, 2006I've heard great things about Linklater, Slacker, and his approach to work, rest and cinema. I want, I want...
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July 29, 2006
A glorious view into the philisophic 'slacker' generation.
A group of people I gladly claim to be a part of. -
May 29, 2006
One of those rare films that shows you what can be done when the director throws the rule book out the window. Having the camera skip from following one person to another, showing tiny slices of lives rather than one big story, gives an overall image of a generation of folks in Austin, Texas. A wonderful, quirky immersion into american alternative community that cemented the word Slacker into popular vocabulary.
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April 25, 2006
A slick film that delivers such concrete observations, one could be led to believe that there is a stalker following these people around. The film is not only holds a message (our slacker generation is capable of great things) but can be viewed as a freewrite by Linklater, a contemplative man.
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March 28, 2006
Det är häpnadsväckande att regissören till praktpekoralet Before Sunrise bara några år tidigare lyckades prestera ett stycke riktigt hyggligt filmhantverk. Den rapsodiska berättarstrukturen - kronologin och geografin är egentligen filmens enda sammanhållande element - hindrar tittaren från att bli alltför indragen i de enskilda händelserna och inbjuder i stället till reflektion över det samhälle som skildras.
