247 - Slacker

[captainofbeef]

DISC ONE
- New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound supervised by director Richard Linklater and director of photography Lee Daniel, made from original 16mm film elements
- Three audio commentaries featuring Richard Linklater and members of the cast and crew
- Casting tapes featuring select "auditions" from the over one-hundred-member cast, with an essay from production manager/casting director Anne Walker-McBay
- An early film treatment
- Home movies
- Ten-minute trailer for a documentary about the landmark Austin café, Les Amis, which served as location for several scenes in SLACKER
- Stills gallery featuring hundreds of rare behind-the-scenes production and publicity photos
- English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition

DISC TWO
- IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN TO PLOW BY READING BOOKS(1988), Linklater's first full-length feature, with commentary by the director, available here for the first time on home video
- WOODSHOCK, an early short 16mm film made by Linklater and Lee Daniel in 1985
- "The Roadmap," the working script of SLACKER, including fourteen deleted scenes and alternate takes
- Footage from the SLACKER tenth-anniversary in Austin, Texas, in 2001
- Original theatrical trailer
- Slacker culture essay by Linklater
- Information about the Austin Film Society, founded in 1985 by Linklater with Daniel, including early flyers from screenings
- English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired
- PLUS: A 64 – page booklet featuring essays by author and filmmaker John Pierson (SPIKE MIKE RELOADED: A GUIDED TOUR ACROSS A DECADE OF INDEPENDENT AMERICAN CINEMA) and Michael Barker, head of Sony Pictures Classics, as well as reviews, production notes, a complete cast and crew listing, and an introduction to IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO LEARN TO PLOW BY READING BOOKS by director Monte Hellman (TWO-LANE BLACKTOP, THE SHOOTING

[blackmoses]

GREAT!

[captainofbeef]

Linklater's masterpiece. Dont listen to Criterionmaster. He doesnt know what hes talking about when it comes to this film.

[PTAhole]

I wouldn't say it's his masterpiece, I prefer both Dazed and Confused and Before Sunrise/Sunset, but this is still an excellent piece of work...

[criterionmaster]

Yeah, the film is not that good. It is poorly made with terrible acting and is just pretty pointless. Dazed and Confused is much better. Don't expect ANYTHING from this and you may like it. But if you want anything that is funny and/or good in anyway you will be disappointed. Clerks is SO much better if you want a early 90's independent flick by the way.

[captainofbeef]

Slacker is just as good as Clerks. You just don't know what you are talking about.

[blackmoses]

Slacker is good but not as good as Clerks! Clerks is a masterpiece!

[captainofbeef]

So is Slacker!

[blackmoses]

I highly doubt it. Clerks is WAY better then Slacker but Slacker is still good.

[criterionmaster]

Wow, blackmoses had some excellent posts in this thread.

Anyways, I went on a fucking week-long Slacker marathon. Yes, it took me that long to finish everything in this set, and I still haven't read the booklet, and some of the essays on the disc.

Okay, now before I said the film wasn't any good, but I have come to like the film a little bit more. I still think it isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it does make me want to go out and make films. And, I can respect it. Actually, I think this DVD is what got me into this “chilling phase” I am in right now. There is a deleted scene on the DVD that just blew me away, and it goes like this:

Two guys get out of the theater after seeing a film, the one dude goes “are you going to come over later tonight, I got a new von Sternberg in?” Guy says “yeah, let me go tell this one dude.” He goes to this guy’s place and the guy is working on making a “homemade film”, with a contraption he made using a projector and hand-poked film. He asks "do you want to go see [whatever the new movie was]?" and the one guy is like I just got out of it and what not, but he is thinking of going again. So the guy says, “well let’s watch that von Sternberg at 8:30 so I can catch a showing of that movie,” and the other guy goes, “okay, I am thinking of going back again myself.”

And that scene basically DESCRIBES chilling for me. Gets out of a movie, goes to tell a friend to come over to watch a movie, then wants to go back and see that movie again. His whole day is set around film. That is all he does, and that is just so cool to me. You know what I mean?

Anyways, all the commentaries on the disc were great and made me appreciate the film even more, especially the Linklater one, and also the crew one. Another feature on the disc is the Austin Film Society series of film posters, which made me want to start a film society here actually. I mean it was just a group of friends who loved film, who go out and show films they love and hand make the posters, and just have fun. It sounds like the best possible thing I can think of doing this summer, of course besides filming.

Speaking of filming, watching the It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books on the disc made me want to make a film even more. It is so low-budget, such a simple concept, and seems like I could do something like it. I just loved it.

So, my point is that even if you don't like the film you should still check out the DVD. It is one of the best I have had the pleasure of watching, and gave me days of entertainment. I am getting sad that I finished it, now it feels like I have nothing fun like this to watch, at least until those other Linklater films come out. !

Also, the other film on the DVD, Woodshock, was not very good. Anyone else have this DVD?