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Southeast Asian Exodus: From Tradition to Resettlement - Understanding Refugees from Laos, Kampuchea, and Vietnam in Canada

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Fifteen years ago, during the hot summer of 1989, a brainy Texas movie buff named Richard Linklater scrounged up a bunch of cameras, credit cards and amateur actors and made "Slacker," a kitchen sink love letter to Austin, free time, pretentiousness, paranoia and about a million other things. I saw it when it was released and felt it could've been set in my own college town, halfway on the other side of the country from Texas.

Since then, Linklater has gone on to make a lot of little movies that really strike a chord with audiences ("Dazed and Confused," "School of Rock") while rarely straying far from his cerebral independent roots ("Waking Life," "Before Sunset"). Meanwhile "Slacker" just got the ultimate cineast validation - it's been released as a ritzy Criterion Collection two-disc DVD.

There's no real plot to the movie. A roving camera simply spends a day eavesdropping on more than 100 students, eccentrics, revolutionaries, thieves, artists, partygoers, nutjobs, et al. It drifts from one conversation to the next and all of them sound, well, like the musings of a brainy Texas movie buff. It's aged better than I thought it might -- I especially enjoyed the brief debate between two characters over the election results of then-Pres. George (H.W.) Bush.

It's rough, a little contrived, sometimes monotonous, basically a love-it-or-hate-it affair; and while I understand why it drives some viewers nuts, I'm firmly in the other camp. This is a film crammed with ideas and inspiration and a sense of life - three elements that rarely bump into one another in the same movie.

The double-disc set also includes a in-depth commentary by Linklater (plus tracks with cast and crew); Linklater's glacially-paced first feature; a rollicking super-8 short about the 1985 Woodshock music fest; a cast reunion and enough other extras to render viewers slack for days on end.

I love this flick. It was made in Austin, Texas when I was originally living there, and it not only has about seven people I used to see around town pretty often, but it showcases a lot of the landmarks there, such as the University of Texas and the downtown area. It's a truly weird little flick, made for less than a shoestring, with a really clever premise: the camera sets upon one person, follows him or her a distance, then branches off to showcase someone else for a bit---and never returns to anyone it's previously showcased. At first this really bugged me, till I figured out that it was saying that life, in all its many weird forms, is happening all at once, everywhere, to us all, and that we all truly connect in that six-degrees-of-separation way. The dialogue is often hilarious: a
JFK-assassination "buff" remarks that he never knew about how much Jack Ruby loved his dogs (even taking one along when he went to shoot Lee Harvey Oswald); a girl tries to sell a bit of Madonna's, erm, medical material -- you'll just have to see it to find out what. Richard Linklater makes really great, brilliant, funny, bizarre, non-linear films, the kind we should be seeing a hell of a lot more of from our film industry, if only they could see past monstrous box-office takes or
gi-normous egos. Check it out, for sure. I like to watch it just to remember what Austin, and some of the people I used to know there, looked like -- pretty damn good, as a matter of fact.

I regret "loaning" this book to another slacker a few years back, who loaned it to yet another slacker, who drifted to the west coast with it et al...never saw it again. But had I kept it I would've memorized many of the passages (Like the UFO conspiricy rant!) - the book is the story behind the making of the brilliant movie, a story which is every bit as entertaining and thought-provoking as the movie itself! It's unfortuante, and a bit odd that the movie is no longer available at the worlds largest shopping mall, Amazon.com. After all, it WAS a watershed movie. Go figure.

How my ratings work:

5 - I really liked/loved it

4 - I liked it/really liked it

3 - Could've been better/worth a look

2 - Just didn't live up to the potential

1 - Simply awful

Richard Linklater's Slacker is a landmark film in that it has inspired future filmmakers like Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, etc) and was part of the Indipendent Film Rennaisance of the 80's and 90's. For me Linklater has made many better movies since this (Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, etc). But for a debut film (though technically it's his 2nd full length film) it's not a bad piece of work. It shows his later traits of offbeat characters and flowing dialogue. Some will complain about certain scenes (like the opening with the director's monologue). But if you listen to the commentary by Linklater he talks about the obsurdity of someone talking to a random person of their theories of life. He's was going for a strange random film. Some scenes in the movie drag too much. But there are scenes that are quite funny (where the girl tries to sell a supposed Madonna pap smear). Other fun characters include a government conspiracy guy who randomly talks to a guy walking down the street. I like that the more normal characters in the movie don't seem phased and or don't judge the more offbeat characters. There are some nice deadpan moments too. And a good deal of the movie manages to pull off scenes in one long take, which isn't easy in any budget aspect of filmmaking.

I myself and 3 of my siblings are from Generation Y (all of us born in the early to late 80's), my oldest brother is of Generation X (born in 1976), and my parents are from the baby boom generation (dad at the beginning and mom towards the end). Thanks to this age diversity in my family I've been able to experience many different aspects of music, movies, etc. I'm writing all this to explain my reasonings for my liking of this film. Seeing this film has given me a better view of the Generation X crowd.

Would I call this movie a masterpiece? No, not really. Would I call it influential? Of course. As said before it's influenced other filmmakers. As an aspiring filmmaker it's inspiring to me in that it shows you don't need a huge budget to make a movie. Also this movie brings up things that seemed crazy at one point but are now coming up and or have already happened (global climate change, terroist bombings, etc). It's definately not for everyone; most likely I wouldn't show this to my friends because it wouldn't be their type of movie. This is for more the eclectic type of movie watchers.

Criterion did a good job on the special features for this dvd. I like the multiple commentaries from Linklater, cast and crew members that talk about the aspect of making the film. The 10 year anniversary meeting of the cast and crew is interesting to see since most of these people haven't seen each other since the movie was made. As for Linklater's real debut film, It's Impossible to Plow by Reading Books; I haven't really been able to finish it. I know I will at some point in the future. There's also a booklet with different essays on the film.

This movie has so many angles and layers to it, that its easy for anyone to get into it. At the same time the fact that there is no defined or traditional story arc may put people off. Give the movie time, and you will com to appreciate it.

One of the things that I really enjoy about the movie is that it physically covers a lot of ground. There are no jump cuts between interiors and exteriors across town. You stay with the character until your "handed off" to another character. At the end of the movie, you almost feel like you've traveled that whole distance.

Just another angle to this fab. film.

-technical point (to someone who said this was "one continuous shot")- The movie is not one continuous shot. There are cuts, but they are not very apparent for the most part, and like I said, they don't dictate the pace of the film.

I am so happy Slacker is finally getting a dvd release, and the fact it's going to be released as a special two disc set, as part of the Criterion collection, is awesome. Dazed and Confused, and Waking Life were great, but Slacker is Richard Linklater's best film. Strange, funny, and sad, it is the most unique film I have ever seen. If you have seen it, then your probably just as stoked as I am. If you haven't seen it, holy cow, your in for a treat. One of the best films of the 90's. I still don't understand why Slacker has been under the radar for so many years, it's a classic. There is a free flowing structure that works perfectly for the characters, (there are about 80) and locations. The only way I can describe this movie, is that it takes place in Texas, bounces from character to character, getting to know a little about each one along the way. Like all Richard Linklater's movies, It has a very dream like quality. This is a great film.

Having recently seen a segment of this film on tv, I recalled my reaction years ago to the whole movie. It's just plain hilarious. Linklater has accurately captured a subculture of post-college self-preoccupied fringe people who rattle on, airing pretentious musings to anyone in earshot including the deaf. Somehow I know these turkeys: the guy in the second hand book store with the most complete collection of self-published books about the assassination of JFK, the juvenile philospher who regails his completely unreactive cabdriver with alternative scenarios had he, the passenger, not chosen to ride in the cab, the blankfaced driver who runs over a pedestrian but doesn't let it completely ruin his mental fog... This is just a brilliant and casual walk through the streets and minds in a late 20th century neighborhood in Austin, Texas-- Greenwich Village for onanists. Linklater revisits this human zoo in "Waking Life", which more cleverly put together than its older cousin. I have only one complaint about Slacker--it's not available on DVD. If it were, I could show it to my film society on my 8 foot wide DLP system. Does anyone know what the story is?

About 6 or 7 years ago, I saw a movie on television called "Suburbia". I even reviewed it way back in the day, and gave it a meager 3-star review, because while I appreciated it as being well-written, it didn't seem to be, well, about much of anything, really. It had some semblance of a plot, but for the most part, it was just a bunch of people sitting around talking. Now, as a high school kid, I at the time found it intriguing, but for the most part it was just kind of over my head. Since then, I've come to gain a greater appreciation for it, and it's a good thing, because otherwise I never would have been prepared for this.

The reason I bring all this up of course is because the aforementioned movie was made by one Richard Linklater, a very talented local director with an affinity for cinematic minimalism. "Slacker", his debut, takes that minimalism to whole new levels. Man, if you thought "Suburbia" was about nothing, wait till you see this! There is no plot, there is no main character, there is no climax, no conflict, no resolution, no nothing. Basically the focal point meanders from one random conversation to another. And that's it. That is the entire movie. 20 or so minutes in, you'll think to yourself, "Ok, this has to be going somewhere". It's not. No character is on camera for more than a couple of minutes, and as quickly as they are introduced, they are gone. Everything sort of connects in this very surreal way. For instance, there'll be a guy talking to one guy, they chat for a few minutes, then one guy will leave and then strike up a conversation with another guy. Then that guy will leave and go talk to someone else. And so on and so forth.

Now many people will see this movie, and undoubtedly consider it a complete waste of time. And you know, I can completely understand that. I'm not even entirely sure why I liked it. Maybe it's because I live in Austin myself, and find it somewhat relatable in an odd way. We've got a lot of interesting and unusual people here, and I think that's what makes it intriguing. This is Linklater's point in making the film, just to show what it's like to be here, and in that sense, I think this film is a success. If you were to make a movie like this taking place in almost any other city, it probably wouldn't be worth it, but because Austin is chock full of weirdos, you just can't stop watching it. You might feel like reaching for the stop button, but you just can't. Well, maybe. Plus, if you're from around here, you get some neat local cameos, including the drummer from the Butthole Surfers, Whammo from the Asylum Street Spankers, Lewis Mackey (an acclaimed philosophy professor at UT, who is sadly no longer with us), and of course Linklater himself.

Anyway, I think this movie is a lot of fun, and I recommend it if you want to see something different. Linklater would go on to create far superior masterpieces, like "A Scanner Darkly" and "Dazed and Confused", but this is the film that really got people's attention. Check it out...if you dare.

This is a terrific Criterion DVD, and for the fan of Slacker, there is seemingly no shortage of resources. For fans of movie-making, though, I thoroughly recommend watching Linklater's "It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books", his first feature (in Super 8).

"Plow" is a meandering look at a meandering life, but when you watch it again with Linklater's commentary, you're treated to a great monologue about the formation of his career that is both inspiring and daunting.

In the "Plow" commentary, Linklater describes his obsession with film, and his initial forays into learning the technical aspects of film. He reminds the listener that he was no overnight success, that he had been "filming" things for nine years before Slacker came out. He says that no one wants to think about how they would have to alter their lives to put out something like Slacker. It's a humbling message!

As commentaries go, this is right up there with the DVD commentaries of Ridley Scott on Alien, Robert Rodriguez on "El Mariachi", and Paul Thomas Anderson on "Sydney" (released as "Hard Eight").

This movie is, for better or worse, the movie that best describes Austin, Texas, one of the most interesting little cities /big towns in the USA. More than anywhere else in the country, Austin has developed a cult following as a city where young people can be young forever, waiting tables and drinking coffee and going to clubs until the day they go to that great coffee house in the sky. Watch the movie and you'll see why.