Slacker (The Criterion Collection)
List Price:
Our Price: $24.95
You Save: $15.00 (38%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $19.94 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Bob Boyd, Brecht Andersch, Jean Caffeine, Jerry Delony, Rudy BasquezBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
Published: 2004-09-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-14
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Slacker (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: "It's like premeditated fun."
Summary: 5 Stars
Slacker (1991) One who shirks work or responsibility: "In terms of their outlook on the future, slackers regard tomorrow with a studied cynicism or... don't even conceive of one" (Julie Caniglia). So you're a disenfranchised, overeducated, out of work (perhaps never worked) individual in the latter 20th century...what's to do? Sit around in your blue jeans, torn t-shirt, and well-worn Chuck Connors sneakers, drink coffee, and intensely dissect the most meaningless bit of minutia and effluvia (an example being the relatively non-existent, societal influences of cartoon characters) from the past and present as to preoccupy ones mind as so they won't have to deal with the fact that they have virtually no prospects. Seems like a particularly shallow way to go through life, but then I've been working since I was fifteen, so perhaps I'm just jealous of those who've managed to find a way to avoid the shackles of responsibility and shirk of the conventions of a capitalist culture.
Written a directed by Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life), the film begins as we see a young man on a bus (played by Linklater), arriving in Austin, Texas. From there he takes a cab and proceeds to figuratively hold the driver hostage with non-stop stream of verbal free form, discussing his dreams (dreams are only interesting to the people who actually have them...trying to explain your dream to another who doesn't care is the absolute worst), realities formed from the choices one makes...the passenger is eventually dropped off, makes contact with another individual to which he then begin following that person...and so on, and so on, and so on...there are no central characters, only a seemingly continuous passing of an imaginary baton as we come in contact with a great number of individuals within the Austin area, all living within their particular moment. The film develops into sort of a walking tour of individuals where the viewer is a relative non-existent entity peeping through a window into a culture they may not understand or connected with...personally I found it hard to identify with many of the individuals, but that's not to say they don't exist. Every generation has its ne'er-do-well sub sect (greasers, hippies, etc.) who seek those like themselves, usually converging into an area where the cost of living is relatively cheap (until corporate America realizes the economic potential, starts buying up the properties, basically ousting those who made the area interesting and worthwhile), and every generation has at least one who tries to commit them to film. When I first started watching, I couldn't help feel a sense of pretension within the material, but then I realized it wasn't so much coming from the director, but more so inherent within the some of the subjects themselves. Perhaps this was part of the humor, highlighting the absurdity that can be found within any grouping. The film felt like one, continuous shot, but it wasn't, as there were cuts, but they were pretty well hidden. There was one sequence in the film that summed up this particular generational mindset (for lack of a better term) in that of the young couple in their crummy apartment. The woman wants to do something seemingly, like go to the lake, to which the man then begins to dissect all the elements necessary to proceed on such a venture, his objection being the amount of time needed to prepare for the excursion don't justify the excursion itself, which seemed ironic to me because in the time it took him to relate all of this, they probably could have been to where she wanted to go...which wasn't really the point, I suppose as the guy just didn't want to go because he was lazy. It's like those people you work with who expend great amounts of energy doing whatever they have to in getting out of work, which usually ends up being more work than their actual work. One sequence I really liked was near the beginning, featuring a man on the street that glommed onto another, following him, spewing forth every conspiracy theory you've ever heard of in a tireless, endless barrage. All in all I did enjoy this unconventional film, but I'm unsure who I recommend it to...I guess if you don't have a taste for the experimental side of cinema or a yearning to explore past the boundaries of conventional filmmaking, you should probably pass this one by...
You know, for a film made by a slacker about slackers, there sure seemed un-slacker like effort put into this Criterion Collection DVD release. There are actually two DVDs, as the copious nature of the extras could not be contained on one. The Amazon website does a good job in listing the extras, so I won't bother, but I will say they tie in well with the film giving the viewer more than they probably ever needed (or wanted).
Cookieman108
Summary of Slacker (The Criterion Collection)
SLACKER - DVD MovieRichard Linklater's debut feature is a comic kaleidoscopic portraitof the quirky characters stuck in a college town (it's Austin, Texas, but it could stand for hundreds of such places), a devilishly clever and endlessly inventive film that overcomes its nothing budget with scene after hilarious scene of short, sharp cinematic shots. Structured something like Luis Buñuel's The Phantom of Liberty, Slacker is a comic series of character pieces, each lasting a few minutes before the camera picks up and follows someone, perhaps simply an extra in the scene, to the next conversation. Characters spout off theories on everything from JFK and Charles Whitman (we even get an eerie glimpse of the tower he climbed for his killing spree) to Elvis and UFOs, and more (wanna buy a Madonna pap smear?) on our bohemian tour of a condensed day-in-the-life. Linklater lets the characters set the pace but provides a loose, almost imperceptible rhythm to the film as a whole, giving a kind of structure to what seems like a series of improvisations. But the heart of the film is the freewheeling array of obsessed, self-absorbed, or simply lost souls wandering streets and coffee shops ready to talk your ear off about absolutely nothing. Killing time has never been more fun. --Sean Axmaker
Similar DVD Movies
Paris, Texas (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2010-01-26; DVD
Best price: $23.99
Price in other shops:
The Thin Red LinePENN,SEAN/NOLTE,NI; Release date: 2002-05-21; DVD
Best price: $5.46
Price in other shops:
VideodromeUniversal Studios; Release date: 1998-09-08; DVD
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops:
America Lost & Found: The BBS Story (Head / Easy Rider / Five Easy Pieces / Drive, He Said / The Last Picture Show / The King of Marvin Gardens / A Safe Place) (The Criterion Collection)IMG; Release date: 2010-12-14; DVD
Best price: $59.51
Price in other shops:
Before SunriseHawke; Release date: 1999-11-30; DVD
Best price: $4.14
Price in other shops:
Crumb (Special Edition)Sony; Release date: 2006-04-25; DVD
Best price: $7.98
Price in other shops:
Stranger Than Paradise (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2007-09-04; DVD
Best price: $21.63
Price in other shops:
Dazed & Confused (Widescreen Flashback Edition)UNI DIST CORP. (MCA); Release date: 2004-11-02; Published: 2004-11-01; DVD
Best price: $6.93
Price in other shops:
A Scanner DarklyWarner Brothers; Release date: 2006-12-19; DVD
Best price: $2.78
Price in other shops:
Waking LifeWIGGINS,WILEY; Release date: 2002-05-07; DVD
Best price: $4.28
Price in other shops: