The Frame » Richard Linklater

Dazed and Confused

Jandy — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:07:48 +0000

My experience with other Linklater films had me anticipating this one to a possibly unhealthy degree, and it didn’t live up to my expectations. I think he does better with college and later than with high school, because Dazed and Confused was all right, but not great. Basically it follows a couple of freshmen as they try to survive the hazing given them by the older students and ingratiate themselves into the booze-and-drug ridden high school world. Yay! *eyeroll* It’s not that that story couldn’t work, it’s just that it doesn’t – it doesn’t go anywhere, and in a much less satisfying way than the way, say, Slacker didn’t go anywhere. I think because it felt like it was meant to go somewhere, whereas Slacker fit the meandering style much better. Plus, any movie wherein Matthew McConaughey (who I usually can’t stand) is the most entertaining part? Yeah.
Average

Slacker

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:43:20 +0000

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this early Richard Linklater film, which has gained a good bit of renown in indie film circles, pretty much because I simply didn’t read much about it before I watched it. There’s not a plot at all really, as Linklater simply follows a series of young Austinites (highly educated, but not highly busy) as they walk around and talk. And talk. And talk. But since Linklater is incredibly good at writing really talky scripts (cf Before Sunrise, Waking Life, etc.), it works. Also, the way he moves from character to character is really fluid, as if we, too, are just another Austinite listening in on all these meandering conversations. I actually think I’ll like it better the second time through, when I’m not distracted looking for a plot that isn’t there.
Well Above Average

Before Sunset

Jandy — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:16:46 +0000

In one sense it was very nice to be able to spend more time with Hawke and Delpy’s characters from Before Sunrise. Nine years after they parted in Vienna (and failed to keep their date to meet up again a year later), they run into each other in Paris and wonder if this is their second chance. Again, it’s a long conversation…but this time, instead of having all night, they have only 80 minutes before his plane leaves, and the film plays out nearly in real time. There are a lot of lovely touches here, as in the first film, yet I’m not sure the loss of the ambiguity left by Before Sunrise is worth what we get in Before Sunset. I still enjoyed the film, and both writing and acting are every bit as wonderful as in the earlier film, it just seems a bit…pointless. But not the “I wish I’d never wasted my time on that dreck” sort of pointless; rather, the “I’m glad I saw that, but I think I’ll continue to think about the first one as a standalone film if you don’t mind” sort. Rather like the director’s cut of Cinema Paradiso.
Above Average

Before Sunrise

Jandy — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:12:21 +0000

Beautiful film. Not showy, not spectacular, just very quiet and honest and sweet. Ethan Hawke is an American about to spend his last day in Europe in Vienna when he meets a French girl, Julie Delpy, on her way back to Paris. He convinces her to get off the train with him in Vienna, and they spend all night wandering the streets and talking. And talking. If a film made up almost entirely of snippets of conversation between a man and a woman doesn’t sound attractive to you…you may want to avoid Before Sunrise. But its very simplicity is a large part of the charm, and the conversation is so well-written (by director Richard Linklater), and Hawke and Delpy are so appealing that I found myself unable to look away during the film, and unwilling for it to be over.
Well Above Average