“The thing you choose not to do fractions off and becomes its own reality, you know, and just goes on forever,” Linklater himself says in
Slacker’s opening scene. His character (credited only as “Should Have Stayed at Bus Station”) is monologuing to a taxi driver about an imaginary book he’s just read inside a particularly vivid dream. But really, he’s talking about Austin.
Slacker presents the city as a universe willed into existence by those who chose not to do anything. It’s a liminal way station floating between the places where you’re
supposed to be, which means you can just do whatever you want. Throughout the film, characters express an overarching philosophy of refusal, valorizing idleness as the only truly noble way of life. “Who’s ever written the great work about the immense effort required
It was almost spring last year, and Marian Luntz was hearing all the buzz from the big international winter film festivals. Sydney. Rotterdam. Berlin. As longtime film curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Luntz was doing what she does every year: tracking films she might like to program for the museum. MFAH was off to a strong 2020. They showed all of the nominated Oscar Shorts, as they do every year. âPeople turned out in droves,â Luntz recalled recently over coffee. And the museum did well with
63 Up, the latest documentary from Michael Apted (who died January 7 of this year).
Girl meets carnival ride, girl gets carnival ride in the provocative French film
“Jumbo” (Darkstar Pictures), starring Noémie Merlant (“Portrait of a Lady on Fire”) as a shy young woman who becomes erotically fixated on the bright colors and flashing lights of a Tilt-a-Whirl at the theme park where she works late nights on the cleaning crew. Director Zoé Wittock’s Sundance hit has drawn critical acclaim around the world for its intuitive handling of an unusual love story.
Also available: British comedy greats Rob Brydon and Tamsin Greig co-star in the comedy
“Days of the Bagnold Summer” (Greenwich/Kino Lorber), featuring original music by Belle & Sebastian; Sophie Deraspe’s modern take on