Slacker (1991)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I bought this movie decades ago when it came out on tape! I cannot tell you why I love this movie. Because I don't know why. Why I never included it in my list I don't know."Slacker" is my go-to-movie when I'm overwhelmed with life or just in a funky mood. So I watch this film and it's like good medicine. It makes me feel good, feel better. It's as if Richard Linklater made this for me. I want to be in the world he created for that 24hrs in Austin.I realize some people cannot tune into what's happening in Slacker but the movie makes sense to me.

Basically a crazy quilt glimpse into a day in the life of a colorfully kooky assortment of fringe folks in Austin, Texas, writer/director Richard Linklater's idiosyncratic cinematic meditation on the endearingly absurd, comical, and sometimes even desperate measures loopy, marginal, and/or disenfranchised people are willing to resort to in order to give their empty and aimless existences some semblance of meaning and purpose displays a genuinely disarming affection for these lovably wayward souls that's both affecting and amusing in equal measure. Moreover, the vivid array of oddballs, deadbeats, dropouts, anarchists, and crackpot conspiracy theorists featured throughout for the most part are a quite funny and engaging bunch. The rambling free-form narrative structure boldly eschews convention and predictability while Lee Daniel's fluid cinematography makes adept and impressive use of long takes and continuous tracking shots. A quirky delight.

Slacker defies categorization. IMDb lists it as Drama and Comedy because they have to put it in a genre. The camera follows one person or group until someone leaves the group thus giving the story the cue to focus on another character that enters the screen. You could say it's a movie about nothing, like how Seinfeld is a show about nothing. It's about normal life, with some of the moments having the potential to be dramatic. These moments are not shot in a dramatic way, however. If Linklater had chosen to do that there would be more emphasis given to one character over another, which the movie is intent on not doing, maintaining a steady pace of moving from one person and situation to another. There is no conflict to be resolved, another reason it makes it hard to consider it a drama. So the movie is more focused on style rather than story. Once you realize that this movie is unconventional you can enjoy it for what it is and what it won't be. As for the comedy aspect, there are moments that I laughed. I couldn't tell whether the moments were meant to be funny, though, which made them even more funny. So it was like my first watching of Napoleon Dynamite, moments I laughed but wasn't sure if they were meant to be funny because it was so weird and unlike anything else I had ever seen. I was impressed with how well they did and how much money they made with the little budget they had. They used hardly anyone with acting experience and yet they were believably real characters. If you like indie or unconventional movies, watch Slacker.

A film that is plot less and based on pure conversations that are incoherent and yet so interesting. This is remarkable filming.This film is an evocative reflection of an American Community based in Texas and it reflects it so aptly and in sync with the title Slacker. "Slacker" refers to a person who lacks work ethic or who avoids work. Most of the characters, just speak and there work is never shown. What they do, why they do that. All this is not mentioned for most characters. They just speak something. For most of the time, there dialogs actually mean nothing and may even some gibberish, unless you pay attention to the subtexts. Indeed, they have a profound meaning underground and they are interesting too. Just have the patience of paying attention and you will be rewarded.Richard Linklater made remarkable films. From the "Before" trilogy to his most provocative and philosophical "Waking Life". I suppose so, that "Slacker" is indeed a prequel to "Waking Life" where conversations mean everything, characters are just real characters, who speak their mind, and there is no coherence to relate the whole film to a story. So those are the similarities of these two films and yet there are many differences too, which I better not discuss here. Linklater's eye for detail and understanding nuances of a whole community and capturing them as if they are all impromptu is indeed wonderful. This sets the film apart and the structure is rather stunning and yet so simple, indeed, the structure is just a flow of characters. One character leaves and other picks it up and sometimes the new character was part of the previous frame or scene too. So the structure could have been new in 1991 for many, but such structure came in 1929 with "Man with a Movie Camera". Now, what's outstanding though is the dialog. Linklater has a gift for provoking thoughts with his dialogs and this perhaps is his earliest instance where he showcased in talent in full flow. This was made on a shoe-string budget of $23000 (courtesy : Wikipedia). Considering that, this is made wonderfully. Also, this film was shot on a span of few days only in Austin, Texas. So, this is a wonderful attempt in Independent films and it has raised the bar for writing and dialog. The production values are not great but manageable. The editing is superb and the cinematography fine. Other aspects of acting are just apt. So all in all technically it was a great attempt with the budget it had.I liked this film but this cannot be visited multiple times as the dialogs are interesting but are limiting with the characters. Thus, I am going with a 3/5 for a good film.