Movies
☆☆☆☆ Excellent: Movies this great are rare, so don't miss it.
☆Good: At least worth the price of admission.
☆Okay: See it if you have nothing better to do.
Bad: If you absolutely have to see it, wait for the DVD.
no stars: Frickin' terrible; give us our two hours back, you director from hell.
Slacker
(Movie: ★★★★,
DVD: ★★★★)
"This town has its share of nuts, but I
wouldn't want to live anywhere else," muses an elderly archist in the relaxed, inviting movie, Slacker. The town is Austin, Texas in the late '80s and Slacker is writer/director Richard Linklater's nobudget, day-in-the-life film about the oddballs and wanderers who live there.
Defiantly plotless, it daisy-chains together dozens of scenes and characters that float in and out
of the story. One guy sits in his dorm room with a television on his back, another is writing a book about JFK called
Conspiracies A-Go-Go. These men and women don't know what they're waiting for, but better to just sit around and be poor than go out and do something you hate. "Why should I work?I?" barks one
man, "I've got less important things to do!"
The marvelous new Criterion DVD has mountains of fun extras. There are casting interviews with the zany locals and essays about what exactly makes a slacker. The best part is Linklater's casual, unpretentious commentary. He deftly shows how unfair it is to call this self-marginalized community lazy or indolent. Just because they're taking
their time finding out what the world offers doesn't mean they don't care.
—Bob Ward
Coffee and Cigarettes
(Movie: ★★★,
DVD: ★★)
Coffee and Cigarettes is unusual. It is not one movie, but actually 11 different short movies, all shot in black and white over a 17-year period. Each short scene is about five minutes long and features such actors as Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Steve Buscemi and Iggy Pop, sitting at a table over coffee and cigarettes, having various conversations about life. While some of the scenes are pointless and ramble, most
are clever with intelligent conversations.
and Tom Waits meeting in a California bar. The conversation they have about smoking is priceless - that it is okay to smoke now because they have quit.
Another scene has musicians Iggy Pop
are clever with intrepid screeners. The first scene of the film was shot in 1986 and has comedian Steven Wright opposite the Italian star most in need of Ritalin, Roberto Benigni. Picture the most deadpan comic ever having a conversation with one of the most hyperactive people in existence — it's an intriguing duo that is hard to stop watching.
Then there's Cate Blanchett playing two roles, herself and her jealous cousin.
The conversation she has with herself is awkward, and she manages to pull off these awkward silences that make you forget that it really is the same person acting this scene out at two different times.
The scene with Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan was the most entertaining. Both are fabulous British actors, and Molina has some news for Coogan - they are actually cousins, which
Coogan just blows off until he sees that the situation could actually work to a professional advantage.
These scenes are able to lift Coffee and Cigarettes and make it an original and unique experiment.
The DVD features are ho-hum and include outtakes, featurettes and inviews.
Jon Ralston
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