Richard Linklater directs himself, Louis Black and Kim Krizan in this true shoestring budget American indie where we follow the outsider population of Austin as they meet in the streets and coffee houses sharing ideas and theories in a domino rally of interactions.

Slacker is a very specific time capsule. Generation X. The coolest city in Texas. The wage slave artists and weirdos who dug conspiracy theories and formal experimentation pre-The Internet. Linklater self funded the trivial $23000 budget before kickstarter was a thing and Sundance had yet to break a movie like this… Or Reservoir Dogs, Clerks or even the star laden Sex, Lies And Videotape. The structure is inspired. Find the quirkiest and most compelling figures on the Austin scene. Audition them to do their thing or perform monologues written by Linklater. Then stitch together these diatribes, hook ups and larks on the street. Each conversation or encounter linking like a relay race of ideas. The movie isn’t beholden to one performance or a single human’s availability. The tone is variable. There’s a restrained horniness to nearly all the female / male meet-ups. There’s a freak show dark comedy to the more obsessed street preachers and alt history nuts. Nearly everyone is within their own little bubble – some with no great dramas, others in a moment of genuine tragic emotional jeopardy. Everyday, but unusual. Erudite and literate. Casual yet desperate. Lonely yet part of a community. Slacker can be very light, very inspiring and if you don’t care about one section you kinda know the next encounter around the corner will be something completely different. Which makes it all gravy. The sidewalks of Austin can be a scary place but the scruffy dreamers we meet over this random day acknowledge the nightmare and fantasy of normal existence. For a time capsule, it is a very present film.

9

Perfect Double Bill: A Scanner Darkly (2006)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/