Slacker [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Richard Linklater

Overview

In Richard Linklater's Slacker, a girl tells her boyfriend, "You're just pulling these things from the sh*t you read. You haven't thought it out for yourself. It's like you pasted together these bits and pieces from your authoritative sources. I don't know. I'm beginning to suspect there's nothing in there." Linklater caroms from one character to another in the college community of Austin, TX, moving through an unlinked assortment of people who like to hear themselves talk but don't like to listen very much. The characters include a cab fare (played by Linklater) who expounds to the cab driver about his theory of reality, a robber who ends up getting a tour of Austin from his victim, a man who suspects that one of the Apollo astronauts saw an alien spaceship, and a woman carrying around Madonna's Pap smear in a cloudy container. Linklater's relaxed and ironic tone depicts a collection of post-Reagan lost souls adrift in a sea of shallowness with no direction home. As one character asks a friend, "Do you ever just want to get out of this country?"

Product Details

Release Date:	09/17/2013
UPC:	0715515110419
Original Release:	1991
Rating:	R
Source:	CRITERION
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	1:40:00
Sales rank:	9,274

Special Features

Restored high-definition digital film transfer, supervised by director Richard Linklater and director of photography Lee Daniel, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD master audio soundtrack; Three audio commentaries, featuring Linklater and members of the cast and crew; It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988), Linklater's first feature, with commentary by the director; Woodshock (1985), a 16 mm short by Linklater and Daniel; Casting tapes featuring select "auditions"; Footage from the Slacker tenth-anniversary reunion; Early film treatment; Home movies; Ten-minute trailer for a 2005 documentary about the landmark Austin caf? Les Amis; Deleted scenes and alternate takes; Trailer; ; Plus: a booklet featuring essays by author and filmmaker John Pierson and Sony Pictures Classics copresident Michael Barker; reviews by critics Ron Rosenbaum and Chris Walters; production notes by Linklater; and an introduction to It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books by director Monte Hellman

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Richard Linklater	Should Have Stayed at Bus Station
Rudy Basquez	Taxi Driver
Jean Caffeine	Roadkill
Jan Hockey	Jogger,Running Late
Mark James	Hit-and-Run Son
Samuel Dietert	Grocery Grabber of Death's Bounty
Bob Boyd	Officer Bozzio
Keith McCormack	Street Musician
Terrence Kirk	Officer Love
Jennifer Schaudies	Walking to Coffee Shop
Dan Kratochvil	Espresso Czar/Masonic Malcontent
Maris Strautmanis	Giant Cappuccino
Brecht Andersch	Dostoyevsky Wannabe
Tom Pallotta	Looking for Missing Friend
Jerry Deloney	Been on the Moon Since the 50s
Heather West	Tura Santana Look-Alike
John Spath	Co-op Guy
Ron Marks	Bush Basher
Daniel Dugan	Comb Game Player
Brian Crockett	Sadistic Comb Game Player
Scott Marcus	Ultimate Loser
Stella Weir	Stephanie from Dallas
Teresa Taylor	Papsmear Pushover
Mark Harris	T-Shirt Terrorist
Greg Wilson	Anti-Traveler
Debbie Pastor	Wants to Leave Country
Gina Lalli	Sidewalk Psychic
Sharon Roos	Devoted Follower
Frank Orrall	Happy-Go-Lucky Guy
Skip Fulton Jr.	Two for One Special
Abra Moore	Has Change
Lori Capp	Traumatized Yacht Owner
Gus Vayas	Cranky Cook
Louis Black	Paranoid Paper Reader
Don Stroud	Recluse in Bathrobe
Janelle Coolich	Shut-in Girlfriend
Aleister Barron	Peeping Kid
Albans Benchoff	Coke Machine Robber,Budding Capitalist Youth
Kevin Whitley	Jilted Boyfriend
Steve Anderson	Guy Who Tosses Typewriter
Robert Pierson	Based on Authoritative Sources
Sarah Harmon	Has Faith in Groups
David Haymond	Street Dweller
John Slate	`Conspiracy A-Go-Go' Author
Scott Van Horn	Nova
Lee Daniel	GTO
Charles Gunning	Hitchhiker Awaiting `True Call'
Tamsy Ringler	Video Interviewer
Luke Savisky	Video Cameraman
Meg Brennan	Sitting at Cafe
Phillip Hostak	Hit Up for Cigarettes
D. Angus MacDonald	Video Playing Store Security
Shelly Kristaponis	Shoplifter
Louis Mackey	Old Anarchist
Kathy McCarty	Anarchist's Daughter
Michael Laird	Burglar
Jack Meredith	Get-Away Accomplice
Clark Lee Walker	Cadillac Crook
Kalman Spellitich	Video Backpacker
Siqgouri Wilkovich	Slapping Boyfriend
John Hawkins	Choking Girlfriend
Scott Rhodes	Disgruntled Grad Student
Denise Montgomery	Having a Breakthrough Day
Mimi Vitetta	Teacup Sculpter
Susannah Simone	Working on Same Painting
Bruce Hughes	Card Playing Waiter
Keith Fletcher	Cafe Card Player No. 1
Eric Buehlman	Cafe Card Player No. 2
R. Malice	Scooby Doo Philosopher
Mark Quirk	Papa Smurf
Kim Krizan	Questions Happiness
Annick Souhami	Has Conquered Fear of Rejection
Regina Garza	Smoking Waiter
Stephen Jacobson	S-T-E-V-E with a Van
Eric Lord	Doorman at Club
Kelly Linn	Bike Rider with Nice Shoes
Rachel Reinhardt	Cousin from Greece
Stewart Bennet	Sitting on Ledge
Kevin Thompson	Handstamping Arm Licker
Nick Maffei	Pixi-Visionary
Nolan Morrison	To Be Buried by History
Kyle Rosenblad	Going to Catch a Show
Ed Hall	Band Playing at Club
Lucinda Scott	Dairy Queen Photographer
Wammo	Anti-Artist
Marianne Hyatt	Late Night Pick-Up
Gary Price	Watching Early Morning TV
Joseph Jones	Old Man Recording Thoughts
Kendal Smith	Post-Modern Paul Revere
Sean Coffey	Super 8 Cameraman
Patrice Sullivan	Day Tripper
Jennifer Carroll	All-Night Partier
Charlotte Norris	Convertible Driver
Greg Ward	Tosses Camera Off Cliff
Mike Enright	Bicyclist
Jean Caggeine	Actor
D. Montgomery	Actor
Robert Jacks	Club Owner [uncredited]

Technical Credits

Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater

Producer,Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

History may be written by the winners, but in movies like Slacker we learn that life's lovable losers often have a far more engaging story to tell. The spiritual anomie afflicting the generation of the then-29-year-old director Richard Linklater provides the backdrop for this meandering and essentially plot-less tale. These college-aged people in Austin, Texas have the freedom and resources to do just about anything, but they choose instead to do nothing. There is a morbid attractiveness to their subversiveness. In most cases, their non-participation in life is a well thought-out stance: "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy," as one of the slackers informs us. Like others before them (beatniks, hippies, punks), this generation of twenty-somethings need time to sort things out. The movie's titular characters represent America's subconscious; these are the midnight neuroses that we keep bottled up in our waking hours. Comparisons to such filmmakers as Luis Bunuel and Max Ophuls are apt, as Linklater's stream of consciousness direction follows a winding road that leads to no particular place at all. Ironically, this studied attempt to appear unscripted and spontaneous succeeds mainly because it is so carefully plotted. Thankfully, Linklater clearly identifies with his subjects, and celebrates their wackiness without resorting to a bitterly ironic pose that would have distanced us from the characters. The film's 97 minutes -- made for $23,000 -- provided more filmmaking bang for the buck than just about any film of the early 1990s; Slacker's no-budget breakthrough success prefigured other Sundance discoveries such as Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1992) and Kevin Smith's Clerks (1994).

"An orgy of wacko yammering."—Washington Post

"A generous panoply of magical thinking and cracked metaphysics."—Entertainment Weekly

"A fugue of exuberant ineffectuality, an exploration of the slim possibilities of life before death and after college."—Boston Phoenix

From the Publisher