Directed by Richard Linklater
1991/USA
Detour Film Production
#840 of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
First Viewing
This is another of those unseen 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die titles on Netflix streaming. I could have lived without this one.
Hitchhiker: Every single commodity you produce is a piece of your own death!
This movie basically follows a whole bunch of twenty-somethings with time on their hands around Austin, Texas for a day. Most of the characters are oddballs with an axe to grind or and a willingness to go on and on about it. There are a few fragments that might be said to tell some sort of story but we leave all of those quickly. The end.
Anti-Artist: Uh, I don’t do much really, I just read, and work here, and, uh, sleep and eat, and, uh, watch movies.
Woman trying to sell Madonna’s pap smear
I would like to get 97 minutes of my time back. But don’t take my word for it. For some reason, this film is in the National Film Registry. Hip people probably get a lot out of it.
Trailer
While I might have enjoyed this one a bit more than you, I agree that it’s a little… um… *cough* boring *cough,* which is surprising given the narrative structure of the film. I like how we move from one person’s little story to someone else’s throughout the whole movie (it’s a type of story-telling I tend to like), but even given that we’re only focusing on one micro-tale for a few minutes, it STILL felt long. And slow. And a bit oblique. Not my favorite, but I didn’t hate it. I guess that’s something…
I think I might be the wrong generation to appreciate the vibe of the thing.