Slacker Got Another Pass
This week on Another Pass, Case and Sam are joined by Xan Sprouse from Gold Standard: The Oscars Podcast to celebrate a film that triumphed despite its production troubles! We look at how creative perseverance, behind-the-scenes chaos, and a little cinematic magic turned a bumpy shoot into a beloved classic.
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Another Pass Full Episode
Originally aired: December 12, 2025
Music by Vin Macri and Matt Brogan
Podcast Edited by Sophia Ricciardi
Certain Point Of View is a podcast network brining you all sorts of nerdy goodness! From Star Wars role playing, to Disney day dreaming, to video game love, we've got the show for you! Learn more on our website: https://www.certainpov.com
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Outline
Introduction and Initial Discussion on Film “Slacker” (00:00 - 07:47)
Introduction to the podcast episode format and deviation to discuss a 'good' rather than a 'flawed' movie.
Introduction of the 1990 Richard Linklater film Slacker and its unconventional narrative structure focusing on small amounts of time with multiple characters.
Deep Dive into Cultural and Generational Impact (07:48 - 18:08)
Discussion on the generational divide (Gen X vs Older Millennials) and how the film captures the directionlessness and creative spirit of early 90s youth culture, especially in Austin, Texas.
The movie’s reflection on mental health, societal roles, and the slacker ethos as a distinct identity with unique struggles and ambitions.
Storytelling Methods and Character Vignettes (18:08 - 33:46)
Exploration of the film’s narrative style: non-linear, vignette-driven, character-focused, with no resolved plot but connected by settings and interactions.
Notable memorable characters and scenes: hit-and-run guy, conspiracy theorist, woman recently discharged from a mental hospital, and the 'you should quit' mantra.
Film Production Context and Cultural Legacy (33:47 - 50:34)
Examination of the extremely low $23,000 shooting budget using film stock, guerrilla filmmaking style, and unpaid or deferred payment cast and crew.
Discussion on Austin’s artistic community’s role in the movie’s creation and legacy. The film as a time capsule and cultural snapshot of Austin’s 1990 scene.
Comparison to Other Films and Audience Engagement (50:35 - 01:00:49)
Comparison with contemporaneous movies, e.g., Dances with Wolves, Misery and other 'weird' indie films, and Linklater’s other work like Dazed and Confused.
The film’s thematic core of human connection and authentic interaction despite being a clear time capsule.
️ Personal Experiences and Generational Nostalgia (01:00:50 - 01:07:45)
Hosts share personal anecdotes about high school experiences, alternative schools, and the value of finding ‘freak’ communities.
Reflection on generational transitions and the continuation of youth culture patterns despite changing technology and social tools.
Accessibility and Appeal of “Slacker” Today (01:07:46 - 01:14:15)
Discussion on how the film’s reputation preceded the viewing experience, yet it remains accessible and enjoyable regardless of familiarity or age.
Analysis of the film’s tightly scripted dialogue despite its casual and naturalistic style, and comparison with mumblecore movies and shows like Seinfeld.
Closing Remarks, Promotions, and Actionable Content for Audience (01:14:15 - 01:20:16)
Guest Xan Sprouse promotes her podcasts Gold Standard and Drunk Cinema and her social media (udinax19).
Case and Sam promote the Certain POV network, including Patreon tiers, Discord, YouTube channel growth, and new shows like Trade School.
Announcement of next episode covering Highlander 2: The Quickening and closing credits.
Transcription
00:00
Xan
We obviously had the attention span for something like this that is not linear, that is not plot driven. You know, we can, you know. Yes, it's, you know, five minutes here, five minutes there. Five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes with everybody. It's not just five minutes, but it's just small amounts of time.
00:17
Case
Right.
00:18
Xan
But we can follow that it's a different type of storytelling that the core audience for this movie had no trouble following. And that was one thing we talked about, because, like I said, when I saw this movie, I did see it with a class. And we discussed it as a class the next day after went to theater to see it. And one of the questions we asked ourselves was, when did we stop hoping for a plot? It's like, when did we realize there wasn't a plot and when stop hoping for one.
00:56
Case
Welcome to Certain POVs, another past podcast with Case and Sam.
01:00
Xan
This week is a fifth episode.
01:02
Case
So we're talking about a movie that overcame adversity.
01:05
Xan
Let's celebrate the creativity of the filmmakers.
01:10
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the Another Pass podcast. I'm Case Aiken, and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.
01:17
Xan
Hi.
01:19
Case
Hey, Sam. Welcome back to the show.
01:22
Sam
Yay.
01:24
Case
So today we are doing a fifth episode, which means that we are talking about a movie that is not the usual format of the show of talking about a movie that is fascinating but flawed. Today we are talking about a movie that is good. And so that means that we are talking about a movie that doesn't normally fit the kind of format that we would do on the show. Today's entry is a really weird one, I would say. It doesn't normally fit what people would describe as normal movies because today we are Talking about the 1990 Richard Linklater film Slacker. And to have that conversation from Gold Standard and Drunk Cinema, we're joined by Xan Sprouse and her cat.
02:03
Xan
I apologize if you can hear him. Thanks for having me. I love this movie. So I'm excited to talk about it.
02:10
Case
Yeah, I'm excited to talk about this movie, too. I have owned this movie, I think, since college. Like, I think that's when I got the dvd. I have not watched it until getting ready for this podcast.
02:23
Xan
Okay.
02:23
Case
And I don't know fully why, but I think it has something to do with it just being this sort of, like, legendary movie in my mind. Like, it was a movie that inspired Kevin Smith, and he was, like, very vocal about that being an inspirational movie for him. I was a big fan of other Linklater movies, and it was just like, I don't. I don't know if I want to go back and see the prototype. Like, I'm good with where he is, and I guess I was just, like, a little bit scared. And so it was fun for me to go and actually watch this, but it's just so weird that I hadn't.
03:02
Xan
I can see that, though, because there are times when a movie is so built up in your mind that you feel like you need to be in the absolute right mood to watch it, and all of the variables have to be perfect. You have to be awake enough and comfortable enough, and nothing else is on your mind, and everything just has to be perfect for you to feel like you can sit and give it the attention that the buildup makes you feel like it probably deserves.
03:35
Case
Exactly. Yeah. The buildup is exactly right. Like, this is a heavy movie from the perspective of, oh, it's got this, like, cache of cultural power behind it all. Always was a little intimidated by it, and that's interesting. It's sort of. I don't know. What are your experiences? Sam, you're our co host. What were your normal experiences with this movie?
04:01
Sam
You know, actually, this is one of those movies that kind of, like, slipped through the cracks for me. I think that I was, like, a little too young when it came out, but then, you know, it was something that I heard talked about, but it wasn't something that I felt that I had to go back and watch. You know, like, I just. And watching this for. In preparation for this podcast, it was really like, kind of this weird, fun, depressing trip down memory lane, thinking of the generation that was just a little bit older than me, you know, like my friends, like brothers and sisters, and this, like, generation that just kind of felt lost in this recession. And unfortunately, feeling the parallels of our world today and feeling like we never. We haven't really gotten very far.
04:50
Sam
We just have more ways of meeting up with people, but then maybe not connecting with them in real life. So this was, like, a really trippy experiment for me because it felt like something I had always known, even though I didn't grow up, like, anywhere in a small town in Texas. Right. But it felt like something like I had known because I lived through the era, but I was too young to feel as directionless as the people in the film may have felt, as, well, as hopeful as they had felt. And then feeling a little bit of like, oh, God, we've not been. We've not gotten that far.
05:32
Xan
So there Was like a little bit of, like. No.
05:36
Case
Yeah, no.
05:37
Sam
This feels very fresh. This feels very present. This feels like something we're still examining just in different context a little bit.
05:48
Case
Yeah. No, it sounds like you had a similar experience to me where this movie feels like nostalgia. This is the thing that Linklater does. He has a way of making you nostalgic for a time that you didn't necessarily live, but it's one that he was nostalgic for in his own way and does a really good job of capturing moments. So I think you and I are in similar beats here. Zan, how about you? You're a guest. What was exposure to this movie?
06:13
Xan
You guys are making me feel old, which I knew was going to happen when I came on this podcast with you. I saw this when it came out. I saw it in theater, and I'm about five to 10 years younger than the characters we see in the movie here. I saw this in high school, and a group of us went to see this movie with an English class were taking at the time of subversive literature and writers and that type of different story, different ways of storytelling. So we all went as a class after. After school. And I remember all of us watching it and having the reaction of not fully relating to it because these are older kids, they are in college, they're on their own, they live in their own apartments and have more adult problems than we did.
07:17
Xan
But we definitely got it. Living where I live in Columbus, Ohio, in a university town, this idea of being able to walk down the street at any given time and see any given number of different types of young people with different types of ambitions and opinions and interests and different levels of weirdness and even criminality, if you think about the hit and run guy.
07:48
Case
Yeah, yeah.
07:51
Xan
That aspect of this movie definitely resonated with us because even as high schoolers, it was so cool to hang out on campus and go into the independent bookstores and see bands, all the stuff that they do in this movie. But also, as I look back on this movie, and you're right, this is something that Linklater is very good at. The. The fact that this movie takes place at the time that it is being filmed. Unlike something like, say, Dazed and Confused that was released, we always. I've always thought Dazed and Confused is very interesting because it was released the same year that the kids who were born, the year the movie took place, are now the age of the kids in the movie.
08:42
Xan
So kids who were born in 1976 were leaving their junior year going into their senior year, just like the kids in the movie when it was in 1993 when it happened. Okay, so that was an interesting parallel. But this movie takes place in 1989, 1990, and it's filmed at that time as well. And it does a very good job of. Of capturing this era of Gen X, because we had previously seen the things that we sort of tend to think of with Gen X as kids, things like ET And Goonies and that kind of thing.
09:22
Xan
But then there was also that elder Gen X, younger boomer era of like Bret Easton Ellis and Tamma Janowitz and those types of characters, those sort of kids in college who are going to business school to be millionaires, but also doing too much cocaine, but they're still kind of directionless. But then you get to this early 90s, late 80s period where the cocaine is sort of burned out, and now what do we do? And this is an interesting time period in history, too, because we're right on the cusp of. Of what we consider the 90s. You know, the 80s have ended, and we're still, every decade, as soon as it ends, tries to find its way of where it's going to go next.
10:11
Xan
And I think a lot of us who are Gen X and who grew up in this time period think that the 90s kind of began when Nirvana's Nevermind was released, when that kind of gave us this whole slackery, grungy type of mainstream exposure. And so the fact that this movie does such a good job of it.
10:34
Case
Gave the zeitgeist animal.
10:36
Sam
It did.
10:36
Xan
It really did. And it just. And it's sort of a demarcation period of like this. You know, up until then, were sort of floating around ideas, but then, no, boom, this is where were going. And so we really got how this movie was. Trying to show that directionlessness isn't. Isn't. I'm trying to even think of the word directionless isn't necessarily idleness. You know, all of these people who seem to have no direction and no jobs and no idea of what to do, their minds are still constantly moving. They're still constantly trying to do things and doing things and figuring things out and trying to be creative and trying to go from there. Even the people who are just laying around their apartment together are constantly talking and constantly having theories and ideas about the world.
11:34
Xan
And so that even with what looks to the outside to be a generation of slackers, they can still be incredibly fascinating and interesting and entertaining people. And this movie really showed Us that and really kind of gave us not just a visual for an identity, but also a cautionary tale. You know, you don't. You don't want to be jobless trying to get people to come to your band, and you don't want to be the girl that everybody knows just got out of the mental hospital, and you don't want to be the guy that does the hit and run, and you don't want to have a roommate that just leaves and puts cryptic postcards on the floor, and you don't want the boyfriend that is just contrarian.
12:23
Xan
And if you're going to write a book about Kennedy, write it, don't talk about it for six years. That kind of cautionary tale. But at the same time, creating this visibility of, we're not the worst thing in the world. We just don't know what's next. And it's okay to not know what's next. Sorry. I know I said a lot there.
12:43
Case
Yeah, yeah, no, you did. I'm like having. I'm trying to think about, like, the. The best place to respond here, you know, because I knew that we would have this sort of specific generational divide, like you pointed out now, like, not. It's not that extreme. We should know. Sam and I are Both in our 40s. Yeah, but. But in terms of. But we're. We're firmly in the elder millennial camp, as opposed to the Gen X.
13:06
Xan
That's the thing. We're all in our 40s. But I still could have babysat you guys.
13:10
Case
Right? Exactly. It's that break. It's the Gen X to millennial break right there that we're apparently butting up in a way that I don't normally see happen in our conversations.
13:22
Sam
To be fair, we're usually on the older side.
13:25
Case
Yes.
13:25
Sam
Chase and I are usually the people who are going well in our day.
13:30
Xan
Well, I don't even necessarily feel that much older. It's just more that I saw this movie when it came out is what makes me. And you keep talking about. I was a little young when it first came out, and I was like, no, I went with school dud.
13:43
Sam
You know, I think it's also interesting because there. There is this thing, like, when you are, you know, between grade school, junior high, and high school, like, it's such a vastly different world for you as a kid. Right. So when it's four years, two years even, is a vast difference between people until you get older. Right. Oscar Wilde said everyone's the same age after 25.
14:07
Xan
Absolutely. I mean, now two years feels like last week. Whereas when I was 12, years was.
14:14
Case
Was a huge amount of time, amount.
14:16
Xan
Of growth and learning and knowing about who I am and just even the expectations of. Of who I was. You know, two years ago you were a kid, and now they're trying to tell you that you need to pick colleges. Yeah, it's a big deal for a kid, those, you know, two year marks.
14:35
Case
I want to point out that this type of conversation is exactly the kind of conversation I want to be having when we're discussing Slacker. Because it's not like the kind of movie where we can have like a whole conversation about like, well, here's the plot of this movie. Like it's. It's structure more than anything else. It's. And so it's really interesting the. The generational kind of aspect that it awakens in our conversation. Just because the whole point of this movie is just to like, open up weird conversations and. And just be kind of, kind of weird and fun for the sake of. Of doing something kind of interesting and cool. The way that Linklater likes to do movies that are like, interesting and cool when you talk about it.
15:14
Xan
Exactly. This is not a movie that we can talk about from beginning, middle to end. It just spirals in on itself. And so this movie is more about how it makes you feel and who resonates with you and what seems familiar and what seems outlandish. And one of the best things about it is that none of it seemed unrealistic to me, that even the people I don't necessarily relate to, I still find them extremely realistic because I've either known or known somebody who knew somebody exactly like everybody in this movie.
15:53
Case
Yeah, no, it's definitely like this, like nouveau cinema verite kind of going on here. We are presenting as realistic a world that we are all going to experience, even though it's just weird as the conversations that we have, the people that are there. I had this slogan in my mind, which is that this movie is Keep Austin Weird the movie kind of.
16:18
Xan
Absolutely. That's what this is. Because even when you think about Keep Austin Weird being a playoff of. Of course, Keep Portland Weird. And you think about something like Portlandia when you watch the first episode of Portlandia and they have that song, the dream of the 90s is alive in Portland. This is the dream of the 90s that they're talking about at the beginning of Portlandia. It's this where we don't actually have to do anything. We just have to be our weird Selves. This movie is that dream that Fred Armisen was talking about when he did that song.
16:52
Case
Yeah, yeah. And. And part of that is the culture of Austin that we should talk about in terms of like the. I feel like the circumstances that created this movie almost explain the movie itself. Like, so Richard Linklater was part of this community of. I don't want to say near do wells, like slackers. Like that's. That's the term here. This was a period where in Austin it wasn't particularly expensive to live. And so people had reasonably like it was a recession, but it created a situation where there was a lot of like underemployment as opposed to unemployment, but they could still pay rent, which sort of created this. This community of like artists and so forth that were. Was living in this overlapping space on top of a college town, on top of people who had like professional lives.
17:45
Case
And then they also note that there was a mental ward not too far from all of this. So you never really knew where people were coming from. Is sort of the. The whole like spiel about Austin at. I'm sorry, I lost my thread there. Sorry.
18:00
Sam
I felt like you were onto something too.
18:02
Case
I thought so too. And then I just completely checked back my notes and I was like, what the fuck was I saying? I'm sorry.
18:08
Sam
It's kind of like the movie.
18:10
Xan
I was going to say that this is the perfect theme for this particular conversation.
18:15
Case
Yeah, no, it's kind of like our Groundhogs Day episode where Sam just kept getting disconnected throughout and us restarting the episode every single time. Fifth episodes are weird in that way. Yeah. So Slacker is like a movie that doesn't have a plot because it's a movie about a time and a place that didn't have necessarily like inciting incident or anything. It was just sort of an ethos, man. Like it was a place where people could kind of work and kind of do their thing they could kind of do. It's similar for like my. My equated experience would be like the hipster movement in Brooklyn where people were employed but like also just doing like their stuff.
18:53
Case
The whole, the whole period there was so Linklater comes up in the, in this environment and it always brings up like he started the Austin Film Society, which until I watched this movie and like was like watching behind the scenes stuff I didn't like understand. This was just the guy and his friends like renting out like a Super 8 player or like a 16 millimeter player and like watching movies on like the Weekends or like during off hours kind of things at a theater. It's wild to sort of see the amount of gravitas that is thrown on this because Linklater has this huge reputation that he would then go on from like. And in addition to Linklater himself, like there's the knock on effects that we talk about, like the various people who were inspired by Linklater.
19:38
Case
This is part of that early 90s Miramax kind of wave. I don't think this was Miramax though. This was the Criterion Collection is on the release. What is this? Sony, sorry, who actually picked it up and released it. So it's a scrappy I think I can kind of movie that was created by a bunch of scrappy, I think I can kind of people is. I guess what I'm trying to get at as the final thesis about this. The environment that created this movie feels really fucking young and really inspiring. I think back to my theater days doing off Broadway theater with. We weren't really making any money on our show, but we just wanted to do art for the sake doing art. And this movie is like kind of an example of it.
20:29
Case
And then it's successful because it has like a hundred fucking people in the cast. And so word of mouth was like crazy good for this whole thing. And it got a lot of bodies in the seats to see the movie that they were all in and that their friends were in. And so it did really well in that regard. Telling the story of like 100 people just sort of doing their thing, existing in a really weird time and place.
20:53
Xan
That's exactly what it is. And I think this movie for me at least gave me an appreciation for these sort of smaller scale movies about just people and just weirdos. And I think it definitely set a tone for the 90s for that, you know, because, you know, you go along and you go on and you have movies like say something like Motorama or Reuben and Ed, where it's just, you're just coming in contact with just weird eccentric people. And yeah, there's sort of a common thread to it. But the interesting part is the people that 10, 20 years ago you would pitch like, let's make a movie about this kind of person. And they would say, what is, what the hell are you talking about?
21:49
Xan
You know, when you think about something like back in the 70s, you know, we started to have movies like this with something like Midnight Cowboy where you just have, you know, weird people doing their thing in their weird little small world. And you know, we kind of get excited about that. And then, and then we're like, no, let's, you know, it wins an Oscar. And then we're like, no, let's go back. Let's go back to. To. To normal movies. Either, you know, epics or action or. Or war movies or dramas. You know, it's. It's hard to stomach this. I think sometimes for a. A bigger audience who is interested in, you know, movies as a. As an escape, it isn't release. And to have just, you know, your. Your weirdo idiot kid neighbors on screen probably isn't all that interesting for everybody.
22:46
Xan
But it started to become interesting, like I said, in the 90s, where you had movies like this. Like, you know, you think about something like Clerks. That's a day in the life of a guy that works at a convenience store.
22:56
Case
Yep.
22:58
Xan
Because you were talking earlier about this movie, inspiring Kevin Smith, and it is interesting to watch that movie. These are, These are entertaining people, and this is entertaining. That's entertaining stuff that happens. And this movie shows us that audiences will watch stories like that. And also a plot is not necessary. I mean, this is so character driven, but not in a way that we usually think of something as being character driven because it's just a bunch of characters and you get maybe three to five minutes with them, and then you see how they go from one person to another and how, first of all, you know, the. Even. Even back then, the world is kind of small. You know, you start with one guy, and by the end, you're completely different place. And you've gone through this.
24:01
Xan
This is a day in this town, right, that you're walking through with this, and you're getting so many different experiences and so many things going on in this day. And the movie tells you at the beginning that life is based on every single little, tiny, seemingly insignificant choice that we make in our everyday lives. That if I had just done this could have been different. And if I had done that, I would have never met this person. And, oh, man, I should have stayed back at the bus station. I love that. But he sort of tells you that life is a meandering series of choices and characters. And here's an entertaining slice of that.
24:50
Case
Yeah, and we haven't called enough attention to the structure of the movie. And you brought this up. The fact that it's a day and some change in the life of just the. The city of Austin. It kind of reminds me of those, like, cityscape kind of movies that were Popular in the silent going into the early talkies movies. That would be just like, here's what a city looks like. Just in case you're ever wondering what Berlin was like as a movie kind of things. But instead of being focused on the architecture and the sort of hustle and bustle of the city, it's focused on the weird people. It's each of these, like, little vignettes and snippets that we move on from, are structured to be, you know, there's supposed to be some kind of a handoff.
25:36
Case
It's like a herald to a certain degree, except it never comes around. So I don't want to make too strong a comparison to a herald on that one. You don't, you don't bring it back together in this one on purpose. Like, this movie is just an endless marathon or a relay race of just like, handing off the scene to the next one and go and go. In some cases, more abstract ways. But in some ways it's just very simple. Like, a person enters a scene and then someone else in the scene exits. And we follow that person kind of stuff. And in doing so, we get all these various vignettes, like you said, Zan. Like, it's hard to say necessarily, like, what the structure is.
26:18
Case
It's just here are the ones that I liked in it and, like, the ones that stand out to me. Like the weird dude talking about how were on Mars in the 60s. I really enjoyed that guy, the guy with the screen on his back. I really enjoyed that guy. You know, like, all of these elements of it just sort of like, pop out. Like, I found that rewatching the trailer today was, like, really fun just to be like, yeah, all of these weird fuckers. Like, that's fun.
26:46
Xan
Little things that just resonate with you and stick with you because of the absurdity of it. For example, after we saw this movie in, you know, I was just, I was a sophomore, I think, when I saw this, and sophomore or freshman, I can't remember which, but we walked around school, all of us going, you should quit. You should quit. You should quit. You should quit. You should quit. I should know. I am a medical doctor. I own a mansion and a yacht. We said that all the time. And then there are the, the ones that, that sort of resonate with young people that are trying to find meaning and ceremony with everything, you know, I, I, I absolutely adore the guys on the bridge as much as I hate that they're throwing stuff in the water. It. They crack me up so much.
27:40
Xan
You know, they have the one guy who is angrier than his broken up friend is about the situation and they're just trying to add ceremony to everything. I don't want to get rid of the typewriting. You have to. That's why we brought it. And just, you know, everything that every little piece of meaning that they're. That they're adding to these items, you know, she. A lot of guys in these tent. She's not going to any more guys in this tent. And it's just all so ridiculous. Like, it's a perfectly fine typewriter intent. Just keep it, dude. It's fine. Or then even when you. I think a lot of us had known somebody like this and I. And I went on to know several people like this.
28:21
Xan
The one of the guys from the group on the bridge who goes and then meets his girlfriend and they're about to go see a movie and then she just winds up yelling at him for being a contrarian. Yeah, I love that scene so much because I've known so many people who are like that are just, you know, his whole. We're taught to believe that suffering is bad. Well, what if it isn't? It's like, shut up. Oh, my God. And the way she tells him to shut up. And it's like you just regurgitate all this stupid that you read and you think that you're deep. And I'm like, thank you. Thank you for telling him off. We want to tell everyone that we've ever known like this off in the exact same way.
28:56
Sam
Yeah, she's my favorite.
28:58
Xan
Yeah, she's definitely my favorite as well. And even, you know, her interaction with the JFK conspiracy guy, you know, where he's, you know, I, He's. He's got this amazing title for his book, Profiles and Cowardice, this book that he has been talking about writing for like six years. And you just. He's like, well, and none of these are as thorough as my book, which is blah, blah. And she's like, oh, you wrote one of these. Like, perfectly willing to read his book. Perfectly willing to listen. He's like, not yet. You're like, oh, my God. Then shut up. Apparently that's another.
29:34
Case
That guy.
29:35
Xan
I'm sorry, was.
29:37
Case
Apparently that guy was actually a JFK conspiracy theorist and, like, was just riffing. Like, was. Was like, this is like early mumble core in terms of just like. It was like. And go.
29:49
Xan
Have you guys have either one of you ever been to Daily Plaza on a weekend?
29:53
Case
Cannot say that I have.
29:53
Xan
Oh, dear God. It is. I was there over a weekend and it was, you know, it was the first time that I. That I had been to Dallas, so I wanted to see it. It's, you know, historic. There's also the. One of the. One of the filming locations for Phantom of the paradise is right across the street, so I had to go see that. And there were dozens of conspiracy theorists with their handmade zines and their poster boards with all of their research and information. And this guy is perfect in his description of what these conspiracy theorists will go off on and their desperation for an audience. And that's another aspect of this movie that I think Linklater gets perfectly.
30:41
Xan
That so many of us are desperate for an audience, but at the same time, so many of us are also desperate for authenticity and something genuine that we are happy to be an audience. You know, the amount of patient people listening. You know, everything from the cab driver to the guy that's walking with the guy talking about the guy in the Batman shirt talking about Mars and the woman listening to the guy talking about his book that he hasn't written yet, and the. The. The thief that gets invited over to the house of the old man.
31:27
Case
You know, I freaking love that guy.
31:30
Xan
And it's. And you're like, everybody either wants an audience or they want to be told something they haven't heard before. And when one. Each of those people get together, it's very satisfying. There's something very satisfying about this movie in that aspect. And for me, there's something very sweet about the fact that the people who seem to want an audience always meet up with the people who seem to want to listen to something original. Yeah. And that's the best part about the, you know, the bridge guy and. And his ex girlfriend, I'm assuming. Ex girlfriend. Now, is that what he wants? An audience? But he's not saying anything original.
32:15
Xan
All he's saying is something contrary to somebody else's original concept, which is why she yells at him and tells him off about it and tells him how disingenuous he's actually being by thinking he's deep by just regurgitating something that he read and then saying the opposite. And I just. I. Yeah, she. She's. She's my favorite throughout this whole thing. And I also very much do like the girl who did just get out of the mental hospital who is talking to the guy who has the band and the woman whose name I can't think off the top of my head, but the one who strangely became the face of this movie, her name is Teresa Taylor.
33:01
Case
Oh, is this the Madonna pastner one?
33:03
Xan
Yeah, her name's Teresa Taylor, and she had been a drummer with the Butthole Surfers and. Yeah, the Madonna Pabst Mirror. And my. My friend Johnny and I, whenever we say the word stole, we always say stolt, you know, in. In reference to some asshole stole one from me. So for whatever reason, she became the face of this movie. When you look at the, you know, the COVID of the. The movie poster, the COVID of the videotape to the COVID of the. Of the Criterion DVD to the COVID of the book, and the book is interesting because it, like, turns this into a script. And, you know, you're reading it thinking you're gonna find a plot somewhere. But no, it's still. It's still just the script for this.
33:47
Case
Still slacker.
33:48
Xan
It's her. It's Theresa. And so, you know, and as much as I love her and I love the girl who comes out of the mental hospital, because, first of all, when I was a kid, she had what I thought was the absolute perfect hairdo. I tried for that hairdo so many times. It's just really hard to do when you have glasses. And I. I loved her groundedness of being back in the real world and just being so willing to absorb the real world again after going through whatever it is she went through. And we don't know. We don't know exactly what it was. And I love how everyone talks about where she's been as just a fact. There's no judgment. There's no making fun of her. There's just, oh, yeah, I heard you were. I heard you were at this place. Okay.
34:40
Xan
And then everybody just sort of moves on with that. And I. And I love that for her, that she's in a world like that's not gonna hear, oh, you were in the mental hospital, then stop talking to her. There's something about that I just really love for that character.
34:57
Case
I feel like I am forming a thesis about this movie as we talk, that the movie itself expresses a desire for an authenticity and for a conversation that is sort of the basic appeal of the movie unto itself, that it is so authentic and so perfectly quotable. It's exactly what a culture that was desperate for a meme culture was looking for, as you pointed out, in terms of, like, just how quotable it was. And it was. A movie that was here is just people to relate to and just to sort of vibe with over the course of it in a way that, like, I think that art is currently looking for in the form of like, things like podcasts and so forth. Like, why are people tuning in to this episode of this show?
35:45
Case
It's because they kind of want to just vibe with us probably to a certain degree, because we've been doing this for 180 episodes at this point. Hopefully part of the reason is because people kind of enjoy the sort of the energy of the show. And I would argue that Slacker is sort of being like, do you sort of enjoy this energy? We've got an hour and a half of it. Here you go. And that the movie itself is presenting a world where the characters long for that the same way as we, the audience, do.
36:18
Xan
Right, exactly. And we find out too that sometimes what we're looking for is authenticity, and sometimes what we're looking for is just a way to connect to another person on a new level. Because if you go back to the thief and the old man, you know, and they get back to the house and the daughter's like, so did he tell you this story? Like, he's just telling stories. They're not always true. But that's not always the point. The point is that someone connected with somebody else that wouldn't necessarily be someone that you would assume that the other would connect with. You wouldn't necessarily think, oh, I'm going to talk to the, you know, I'm going to expect that the person who is being robbed is going to just take a walk with the person robbing.
37:17
Sam
Yeah.
37:17
Xan
The absurdity of that. There's, there's a human authenticity to that where it's like, hey, here's something you can take. These stories I have, they're, you know, they're about as valuable as whatever stupid crap I might have in my house that has newspaper clippings paste to the walls. You know, it's, you know, you may not be able to sell this for money, but you are going to have an experience. And sometimes a genuine experience is priceless. You know, what does Cameron Crow say in Almost Famous? The Lesser Bank? You know, he wrote, lester Banks is the only true currency in this world is what two people share when they're uncool.
37:58
Xan
You know, just there's, you know, an experience with another person is actually valuable, especially the ones that you wouldn't expect to have when you have, you know, young slacker dude and older man that you would think in Other movies would not get along or one would hate the other one, but that just. They have a genuine five minute interaction that is going to be memorable for all of us.
38:25
Case
There's this part of me that wants to be like far out deep man, because that's sort of like the vibe of this movie to a certain degree. But it's true. The dynamics between these characters are why we come to this movie, to sort of see these. These strange pairings that are snippets of time that are intentional. Like this movie is shot on. I mean, it's shot on a bunch of different formats, but it's shot on film. And it was shot for not a lot of fucking money. It was shot like most of the people were working for free with the. With deferred payments basically, if the movie ever got purchased, which it did. And so a lot of people got paid ultimately to. To work on it. But the initial shooting budget was only $23,000.
39:09
Xan
And that doesn't. And this is back in the day when we're shooting on film and you have to get film developed and that free. This is not digital video. This is not, hey, let's make a movie on my phone. This is not, hey, let's make a movie on even high eight digital tape or something like that. We're talking film. Get it developed. I mean, that's why Clerks was in black and white at the time. Black and white film was cheaper than color and cheaper to develop.
39:35
Case
Right.
39:36
Xan
So there is a lot of technical cost for this. So you notice everybody's probably just wearing their own clothes. There's probably no hair, makeup, budget. The budget probably went to like catering and film development.
39:53
Case
Yeah, I mean, it was an incredibly frugal movie. And that meant that again, just to sort of close out the point on the conversations, like that meant that there was a labor of love going into every single moment of the movie because every second literally costs money. This movie was an incredibly tight budget on that one. So all of those scenes mattered enough to Linklater to include them in this movie and to shoot them in the first place. It's not like modern mumblecore movies where you can just let the DV tape or let your phone just continue recording for odd infinitum amounts of time and then cut it down. Like this was as long and lethargic and sort of like easygoing as a style of movie as it was. Everything had to be considered because it is extremely expensive when you're doing film.
40:46
Sam
Yeah.
40:47
Case
Now that said, they got like, once the movie was picked up. They certainly were able to blow it up from 16 to 35 millimeter and not have, you know, that other people paid for it all. So the process, it's the same situation as, like, El Mariachi, where it's like, yeah, there's a budget that everyone talks about as being like, yeah, this was. He paid for it all with just donating blood at his local blood banks or having experiments done on him. In this scenario, it's like, yeah, he put this budget together of $23,000 and shot this movie. A lot of people were, like, very explicitly being held off on getting paid, and a lot of services were not being paid for, and a lot of stuff was being shot very guerrilla. This is the fun thing about talking about movies like this.
41:32
Case
They didn't have permits for the majority of what they shot. They just sort of, like, were there and just filmed. And if anyone got in the way, they just sort of, like, talk their way out of it or, like, moved until, like, they. Until they could come back and shoot later, which I have done those kind of guerrilla filmmaking situations. And they're fun and they're exciting, and they're also not the kind of thing that, like, you know, is particularly professional. But it's. It's what you do when you're trying to make a movie on $23,000.
42:02
Xan
Yeah, that's not a lot. That's not a lot of being able to come back to it. That's not a lot of, you know, paid a lot of editors or cinematographers or, you know, crane shots or anything like that. That's not a lot of money. And sometimes when you have a small budget, you. You sort of start small, but in the case of this movie, it starts small. But then, as you can see, that it just completely branches out. You know, if you think about all the other paths that everybody could have taken or stayed at the bus station and wherever this movie could have gone, you start thinking about that after this movie. You think, okay, what if he did stay at the bus station? What if. What if went to that show? What if we had robbed somebody? I love that.
42:44
Xan
Where, you know, just throws the. Throws the gun back at his friend. This doesn't work.
42:49
Sam
Yeah.
42:50
Xan
You know, what if all these things would have happened? You know, what did happen to Paul, who moved out? What if we followed Paul? You know, those kinds of questions stick with you after this movie. Along with the quotes, along with who was your favorite. Along with what was your favorite little vignette? I mean, because these are almost just Little. Little vignettes here that just kind of, you know, little. 6. They 6° themselves throughout the entire movie.
43:23
Case
Oh, yeah.
43:24
Xan
Who's your favorite? What's your favorite. What's. What are you. What are you quoting? And who are you still thinking about? And it's. It's just. It's a hard question. What is this movie about? Is an incredibly difficult question. And it is about living at this time at a certain age. And there's not even one age in here. You know, we have the. We have the. The. The older guy who was being robbed, and then you have the young kids who are selling the sodas. You know, there's various ages throughout this. I mean, it is mostly people from, like 18 to maybe 25. It's mostly those people, but it's people at this time, at this age, in this place, living their lives. And there's nothing extraordinary about their lives, but there's also nothing particularly ordinary about their lives either. You know, it's.
44:16
Xan
What is, you know, what does Doctor who say? You know, I've. I've traveled the galaxy, and I've never met anybody who wasn't important. And this movie sort of shows us that. That, you know, even the most ordinary life can be fascinating and entertaining. You know, we don't often think about people who are unemployed students that are deciding whether or not they should try to find a job or where they should go or if they should go back to school as the most fascinating people. But they are fascinating in this, and they do keep us entertained, and we do stick with this. You know, and there's part of me that wonders how much of a commentary Linklater was making at the time, because at the time, people talked a lot about how Generation X, being the MTV generation, had no attention span.
45:15
Xan
But we obviously had the attention span for something like this that is not linear, that is not plot driven. You know, we can, you know, yes, it's, you know, five minutes here, five minutes there. Five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes with everybody. It's not just five minutes, but it's just small amounts of time.
45:34
Case
Right.
45:35
Xan
But we can follow that it's a different type of storytelling that. That the core audience for this movie had no trouble following. And that was one thing we talked about, because, like I said, when I saw this movie, I did see it with a class, and we discussed it as a class. Then, you know, the next day after went to theater to see it, and one of the questions we asked ourselves was, when did we stop hoping for a plot? It's like, when did we realize there wasn't going to be a plot and when stop hoping for one. And once we realized that this was going to be something different because I'd never seen anything like this before.
46:18
Xan
And once we realized that there wasn't going to be a plot, that person A is going to interact with person B and then person C and person C, by the time we get to person G, that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to wind up back at person B. You know, like you were saying, Case. This movie does not come full circle. This, this just, you know, it's a. It's an arbitrary wake up and go to sleep point. You know, and so we realized that we did not, once we knew to stop expecting it, were perfectly fine without wanting it. We didn't feel like we needed the plot. We didn't feel like. We felt like were missing out on not having a plot. We were just so interested in what's going to be next and who are we going to meet next.
47:13
Xan
Not necessarily what's going to happen next, but who are we going to meet next. And it was very quick. It was very quick for all of us. You know, it was probably. I'm trying to. I'm trying to think of probably around the time that the hit and run guy gets arrested and then we, like, never see him again. So, you know, we realize that this movie is not about this hit and run because it seems like it's going to be, you know, we. This, this guy gets let off of a cab and then boom, there's a hit and run. And you're thinking, oh, is that what this movie is going to be all about? But no, it's not.
47:49
Xan
And once we realize that there's traditional storytelling elements here that aren't going in a traditional way, were like, oh, okay, there's nothing to expect, so there's nothing to predict. And we can just let the movie happen. And were all very happy with that. We were all really interested in this type of thing because I don't think a lot of us had ever seen anything like this before. I know I certainly hadn't.
48:17
Case
Well, I mean, and there aren't a lot of movies like that. And I'm kind of surprised when I look at it that this movie didn't benefit from some sort of technological shift in terms of making it popular. There's oftentimes a moment where the democratization of creativity is linked to a means becoming available to people. And while there's certainly a degree of it in terms of film cameras were getting less expensive, and you could borrow one or lease one or things like that.
48:48
Case
While making this movie, I'm surprised that there wasn't a release part of it that, like, this seems like a perfect movie for DVDs with chapters, you know, like, you can just like, skip to the scenes that you really want to watch, if you want to watch it that particular way, which I'm sure is why the Criterion Collection exists and why people really, like, purchased it. It just interests. It just is interesting to me, you know, because, like, this movie has such. This, like, flowing kind of structure to it and, like, we've alluded to, like, such a large, like, cast of people involved in cast and crew. It made sense why it thrived in its small scale.
49:26
Case
Like, when it first was released in Austin, it ran at the Dobie Theater, and it just ran continuously because there were just, like, people who wanted to see it because they were in it. And this is before, like, you could have, like, YouTube or something like that, where it's just, like, a hosting site for it. Like, you needed a place to show it. Hell, I mean, it's like, not even, like. Like, physical home media existed, but, like, not in the way that, like, people had easy ability to generate, like, en masse, like, lots of copies for everyone at this point. So, like, showing it in a theater was honestly one of the ways for it to work. Where it surprises me is that it continued to be popular when it was picked up. I mean, it goes to Sundance. It.
50:07
Case
Or not Sundance, it goes to south by Southwest, Pardon me. And it does really like it. It blows up, but it's. It's just fascinating, I guess, is what I keep coming around to. Like, it's such a weird movie, and it's one that I enjoy, but it is so weird. And, like, I can't quite put my finger on why. Why it was a hit. But it. But I get it, you know, like, is what I'm trying to say.
50:35
Xan
Yeah. It doesn't seem like it would be something that was a. That was a hit movie. When you're thinking about, like, what the hit movies were at the time. Things like Dances with Wolves was huge and everywhere at the time. And when you think, like, of those two things compared to each other, you're like, how. You know.
50:58
Case
But it.
50:58
Sam
It.
50:59
Xan
It's because, as this movie shows us, there's. There's space for so many different types of stories out there in the world, you know, that there were. There were other movies this year that were just Sort of, like I said, stories about weirdos. You know, Wild at Heart came out the same year as well. And then you also had John Waters. Crybaby was another one. But, you know, we also had, I think, like, Goodfellas and Back to the Future 3 and stuff. So it was kind of all over the place as to what, you know, what were. What were hits. But even. Even one of the biggest movies that came out in 1990 was misery, which is, again, a very small movie about two people. And, you know, we.
51:54
Xan
We just sort of started proving that movies do not have to be grandiose to be grand, I guess, for lack of a better term. I don't mean to say that. Right, yeah, just a lack of a better term.
52:05
Sam
Yeah. I. I think also this. This film, I think, and we've touched on this before, I think, being about a little bit about human connection. Right. Like, this is like the. The most thematic thing in it is. Is, like, these connections, like, kind of bringing everyone together. I. I think, like, in general, like, even now, I feel like watching it this many years later, I think that automatically kept me drawn to the film.
52:35
Case
Right.
52:36
Sam
Like, it's like there's something interesting in just watching people connect with each other. And so, like, even though it is a time capsule, right? Like. Like, if you. There's some movies that you're like, oh, this is, like, timeless. It's not really dated. No, no, this movie. This movie is filled with references, and it's very much a time capsule of its time, but it's still. There's still something there at the core, because it's just about people. It's about humanity. And so it's very easy to kind of latch on to one person or another and kind of go through the journey with it. And so that. That, in its own way, makes it kind of timeless, even though it is so specific to its time.
53:19
Case
Yeah, it plays to Linklater's ability to always just capture a moment and. And have you feel like you belong in that moment in. In the movie. You know, he really loves structure and he really loves temporal settings for things, so he loves period pieces. And the. The things that are contemporary are always, like, so of their time as opposed to being. As opposed to being timeless. But they feel so inviting in a way that, like, you just feel like you're a part of it.
53:53
Xan
Exactly. Like I said, I felt at the age that I saw this movie, when this came out, I was not the age of a lot of the kids in this, but there were. Was a lot of Us, you know, a lot of them in us. You know, we could see ourselves in them. We could see ourselves being them. We could see our older brothers and sisters in them. We can see the people that we'd, you know, the upperclassmen in them, people we'd met on campus in them. And so there's something relatable about these people, even if their situations aren't exactly like yours.
54:30
Case
Yeah, yeah. Like it doesn't matter that the, that you can't relate necessarily to any individual person one to one. What matters is that you feel like you should be able to especially like the, the general vibe of the people in this thing. And vibe is kind of a good word for, to describe a lot of this movie. Like the, you come away from it being like, yeah, I understand these freaks. These are some weird fuckers that I get. It's the way to sort of approach this movie. And Linklater is really good at doing that. Like, like Zanz. Your experience of this movie, it resonates for me in terms of my experience of Dazed Confused. And I know that's sort of like my Go to is like my favorite Linklater movie, but like, it's one where I was too.
55:14
Case
Like, I was like a sophomore in high school and I was cognizant of the fact that like it was a different era and a different location than where I was growing up with like the sort of like strict household. Like I went to a prep school. Like I, you know, it's a very different kind of vibe. But like I felt like very like envious and like welcomed by the people of Dazedkin Confused. And it sort of, it resonates to me like that was. That was my link later movie that had that sort of vibe that is similar to how this movie was. Was that to you, Zan?
55:43
Xan
Yeah, it was. And that's not to say that I didn't. That the vibe of Dazed and Confused did not also resonate with me because 93, like I said, 93. I was the same age as the seniors were in Dazed and Confused, even though I was born the same year that it took place. And there really hadn't been that much of a change in how kids interact with each other by that point. You know, we had computers and were starting to get email and we had video games in, you know, at home as opposed to the video arcade. But you know, we didn't have social media, we didn't have texting, we didn't have cell phones, anything like that we, most of us wouldn't even think about having cell phones until, you know, X Files premiered.
56:42
Xan
You know, my friend Shelly and I literally referred to cell phones as molder phones when they first came out.
56:49
Sam
I love that.
56:50
Xan
And so were still, you know, had to connect with our friends in person in that same way. And Sam, you were saying earlier that. Young people still sort of connect with each other in similar ways, even if it's in different. If it's in different mediums. And that's very true that, you know, we think about, you know, us older generation people think about, you know, how we don't see kids in parks anymore and how, you know, I have kids in my neighborhood, but I don't see them, like, walking around with each other. I don't see them congregating a lot of places, but they're definitely congregating on headsets, on video games, things like that. It's just a different arena for them. It doesn't mean they're not congregating. It doesn't mean they're not talking. It doesn't mean they're not sharing things.
57:49
Xan
But at the time, you know, in 93, 94 is the year I graduated high school. And you really would go to parties because somebody said, hey, did you hear that we're gonna, you know, party at the moon tower type of a situation, right? That still pretty much happened. You could still.
58:08
Case
Well, and like, that was still sort of the way for us. Like, I, like, I was early cell phone era. Like, Like, I don't want to like, present this as being like, such a generational leap, but it was just like one where, like, I knew that, like, me come, like, me growing up in like, the like, cusp of the millennia in terms of, like, when I got my driver's license and everything, like, yeah, we had cell phones with some texting, but it was just that, like, my parents were more restrictive and like, we. We didn't have, like, I grew up outside of the D.C. area. Like, we didn't have places to go to, like, party that way. Also, I was not cool. We should be very clear about that detail. So I wasn't like being invited to the parties at the moon tower.
58:52
Xan
I was. I was being invited to parties with other non cool kids. I went to. Well, I mean, non cool in a cultural sense. You know, I went to. I. I grew up as a nerdy geek. Back before nerdy geekdom was fun and popular. So I went to alternative high school and I did theater. So. And you know, we had our own parties, but it wasn't, you know, weren't. We weren't hanging out on the football field with the. With the football player who had to sign their sobriety contract.
59:23
Case
Just let me tell. Just let me say that you were cooler than me in high school.
59:29
Xan
Gotcha. Well, was I cooler?
59:32
Sam
Not a competition, case. It's not a competition.
59:35
Xan
Was I able to find other weirdos more easily? Possibly.
59:40
Case
That's probably true because again, I went to a private all boys school, so that usually is why I didn't really find that many freaks of my. Of my ilk. And the few that I did, I kept. Kept close to my chest.
59:52
Sam
Yeah, I was lucky because I went to an art school for high school, so I went to LaGuardia. So everyone was kind of someone that would have been beat up in their zone. School. That's kind of.
01:00:05
Xan
I went to an alternative high school that was like, that. It was not just artists and creative types, but it was also, like super math geeks and computer nerds that, like, created the entire computer network system for my high school. So it was all of the gamut of the. The. The not jock cheerleader crowd. It was all of us.
01:00:27
Sam
Yeah. I mean, like, teams weren't even popular in my school. Like, the basketball team was begging people to show up. I think it was like the senior year, one of my friends was like, I'm in fencing. Can you come to our match? And I was like, we have a fencing team. Like, I had no idea you had a fencing team.
01:00:48
Xan
Yeah, we should be.
01:00:49
Sam
I was like, what? There are sports at this school? Like, I remember, like, this, like, the small percentage of people who were, like, athletic being like, hey, do you want to join the track team? And I'm like, no, I'm going to join the musical theater club. What are you talking about?
01:01:09
Xan
Like.
01:01:13
Sam
Like, why are you doing. Like. He was like, no, but we need, like four more people so it can actually exist. Like, that's. That's the kind of school like, I. I went to. So finding weirdos, very easy.
01:01:25
Xan
Yeah, that sounds very similar to my experience as well.
01:01:28
Sam
Yeah, No, I remember one kid ruined his clothes because he decided it would be hilarious if he came in. If he came into school and he was dressed in duct tape, but he taped it to his actual clothes, and then he couldn't get it off.
01:01:43
Xan
He's wearing those again. Oh, my gosh, that's hilarious.
01:01:47
Case
But to be fair, his skin is not ripped raw, so maybe a smarter plan.
01:01:52
Sam
He did. Yes. Putting on his clothes is Much better than that. And. And he did. He did make a point. I mean, like. And he did it in response to a bunch of other kids who decided to come in. Two guys came in dressed as Girl Scouts so that they could basically promote their other friend as, like, an amazing person. I don't know why. All I know is my. My school was filled with weirdos.
01:02:21
Xan
Yeah, my school was filled with weirdos, too. So, yeah, it's all about access to other weirdos. Not necessarily your level of coolness.
01:02:27
Case
No, it's. It's true. I. I went to literally the same high school as Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Oh, yeah. Like, in terms of, like, it's a miracle that I got out with the sanity that I did.
01:02:40
Xan
You have all your calendars, too.
01:02:46
Case
Who keeps.
01:02:47
Sam
It was required in that high school.
01:02:49
Case
I know. Weird shit on that one. But, yeah. So, long story short, I was not as cool as y'.
01:02:57
Sam
All.
01:02:57
Case
Or at least I didn't find my nerds. And it's important to find. Find the freaks to let your flag fly with. That, I think, is really important. And Austin was a great community in the 90s for that. It was a really strong, vibrant community of artists who supported a local artist in creating this movie on the cheap. And then when it got picked up and it launched this man's career, there seems to be a consistent love for this movie. Like, consistent screenings and periodic annual kind of, like. Like, venue releases in Austin. So it's a movie that has a lot of legs to it. You know, it's. It's in the Criterion Collection. Like, it's. It's a beloved movie, and I'm really glad I finally watched it. Like, it, like, I can't get over that. I hadn't.
01:03:40
Case
Like, I said, it was just, like, kind of Titanic in, like, my. My. In my mind palace, and I wasn't sure how to, like, approach it, but. But, Zan, you gave me the inspiration to, like, finally, like, sit down and watch it. And I do really appreciate it that I'm.
01:03:54
Xan
I'm happy you did, and I'm happy you enjoyed it. And. And again, it. It is that sometimes a movie's reputation precedes it, but that doesn't mean it's inaccessible, if that makes sense. It doesn't mean you have to. This is definitely a movie that shows you that not everything has to be perfect and where you think it needs to be for it to be something special.
01:04:24
Case
Yeah. Raw is a really good word to describe this movie. Like, it. Even though it is surprisingly well scripted, considering the weird format for, like, again, it wouldn't exist like the movie.
01:04:36
Xan
I mean, it is. It is a script.
01:04:38
Case
It is, yes. Yeah. Like, that's. That's the thing. You would think that this is a modern mumblecore movie from the way that it is structured and the way that characters talk in it, but it is actually, like, fully scripted and, like, really well rehearsed, which we didn't really talk about because this is more of a movie about Vibes, and this has been a call about Vibes, which I am all about. So, yeah, it was a movie that. That put a lot of effort into making it look so casual.
01:05:04
Xan
Yeah, definitely. It takes a lot to look this nonchalant, frankly. But I think that's a. That's a. That's a genius of it. You know, there. There were, you know, baby steps getting to this of the whole, you know, it doesn't have to be a bombastic hero story to mean something, and Rocky taught us that. And it doesn't have to be linear to have stories about the types of weirdos we might have met in something like Midnight Cowboy. You know, there's. There have been hints of this kind of. Ordinary storytelling, you know? You know, I. No, I don't. And it's not even ordinary. Just the lives of regular, ordinary people, you know, Ordinary people. Of course, a movie in itself of ordinary people going through an unfortunately, extraordinarily tragic situation. It doesn't even take that to make ordinary People an interesting.
01:06:14
Xan
To be, you know, lowercase ordinary people interesting in the way that the movie uppercase ordinary people needs to make that story go through. You know, you. You compare what the characters in that go through talking about mental health compared to what the characters in this go through talking about mental health. You know, you have a lot of people who obviously have mental health issues. You know, you have somebody that we are talking to that has gotten out of mental hospital. And, you know, the. The. I. I'm pretty sure that the you should quit lady is not, in fact, a medical doctor.
01:06:50
Case
No, I never took that to be.
01:06:52
Xan
I don't think she actually. Don't think she actually. But she's allowed to just exist in the same space as other people. And I think that's a main thing in this movie is just that, you know, the. The. A Simple story has a place to exist, just like every other story does. That, you know, it's a. It should be allowed to exist. And that's one of the. That's one of the coolest things about this movie. Is just that it's. You know, even when you think of something like Seinfeld, it's a show about nothing. Yeah, but it's a show about nothing. And how rich people interact with each other, you know, and interact with each.
01:07:40
Case
Other, like bringing up Seinfeld. Seinfeld has that kind of structure at the beginning, but it always comes back around.
01:07:46
Xan
Right? It always comes back around.
01:07:47
Case
Yeah. This is a movie where it doesn't come full circle. This movie just keeps on going, and you have wormed your way through the entirety of the populace of Austin.
01:07:54
Xan
Right.
01:07:55
Case
But it is. You are never meeting back up with Richard Linklater at the start of that movie.
01:07:58
Xan
No, you're never meeting back up with it again. And, you know, yes, it doesn't. You don't have to have a linear plot to be an interesting story, but, you know, you also don't have to have famous people either. You can.
01:08:17
Case
Right.
01:08:18
Xan
Just ordinary people who just happen to live in Austin at this period of time, who some of them do eventually become. Richard Linklater, which is an amazing feat. But that's not where we started. I mean, it kind of is where we started in this movie, but you know what I'm trying to say.
01:08:33
Case
Yeah, we start the movie with Richard.
01:08:37
Xan
Linksletter, but that's not what I mean when I say we're not starting with Richard Linklett.
01:08:42
Case
Right? No, I get you on that one. No, it's a movie which, I mean, it launched him to a career success, and it. I mean, it helps with, like, making Austin such a weird place that it became and has kind of lost some of that luster at this point, as people talk about it. But this was certainly part of creating. Creating that allure the same way that, like, Rent is, like, part of making, like, the Lower east side and, like, Apple, like, Alphabet City, like, have this, like, cool kind of vibe to it, like, because it exists, like, this kind of exists to sort of create that. That vibe for Austin and that allure for it all. So, again, I'm really glad to have watched it. Sam, how this rank on your chore scale? Like, would you. Would.
01:09:27
Case
Would you put this on and do. Do some chores or. Or where are you feeling on that one?
01:09:32
Xan
Oh, that is.
01:09:32
Sam
You know what I feel? Yeah, I have a chore scale.
01:09:35
Xan
Did you say. I'm sorry, did you say Zan, or did you say Sam?
01:09:39
Case
I said Sam.
01:09:39
Xan
Okay. Sorry about that. I will shut up. Yeah, I misheard that. I will shut up. And. Sam, please talk. My.
01:09:48
Sam
My scale on this is actually, like, I I actually don't think this is a great movie for doing chores, too. Not because you couldn't just have it in the background and watch your favorite moments, which you definitely could. But I definitely think that it's possibly an incredibly distracting film. I think that you'd probably be distracted, and so I don't think you'd get anything done because it's actually quirky and sweet and deep and. Yeah. So, no. No chores with this. Just watch it. Just watch this film.
01:10:23
Case
I think that's incredibly fair. I think the only scenario where it could be a chores movie is if you had it, like, completely memorized and, like, had specific ones you cared about and didn't care about.
01:10:32
Sam
Yeah, yeah, you'd have to know. Yeah, you'd have to know rhythm. Like, it would be like, you know how, like, when you ride the same commute every day so you can fall asleep and wake up still just before your stop? Like, that's how you'd have to know this film in order to actually do chores to it. So I'm saying no chores. No chores. Unless you've seen it over a hundred times and have memorized everything that every ridiculous person in this movie and not ridiculous person in this movie has to say. Yeah, just watch the film. Enjoy it. Have a snack. Put your phone away. This is not a movie for phones.
01:11:12
Case
That is true. This is not the kind of movie.
01:11:15
Sam
That'S the time capsule. And just enjoy.
01:11:18
Case
Enjoy the journey, indeed. Well, I enjoyed this journey. Xan, thank you for taking us on this journey. I very much appreciate it.
01:11:27
Sam
Yeah, I do, too. Thank you so much.
01:11:29
Xan
Thank you for coming along with this whim of mine here, because it is definitely. I do. As much as I love this movie, it is not one that I pick up that often because Sam's right. If you try to put this on while you're doing chores, you're gonna stop doing chores and you're gonna find yourself watching this, like, oh, so's about to come up and, oh, that guy's about to show up. And, oh, it's Madonna pap smear time. And you're going to get sucked into it. Even though there's no plot to get sucked into, you're gonna get sucked into the people. So it's not one that I watch a ton of the time, but I always relish the opportunities I have to watch this one. So I'm glad. I'm glad you guys had me for this. I appreciate it.
01:12:15
Case
Yeah, no, thank you. This was always, like, one of the ones that I wanted to Talk about just because of the reputation for it, like the fact that it was like such a micro budget movie that inspired Kevin Smith, like was always a reason I wanted to talk about it. So I'm really glad that we had this excuse and that were able to get you on for this. Where can people find you and follow you? If you, if they enjoyed listening to the words that came out of your.
01:12:38
Xan
Mouth, if they enjoyed me, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. And if you would like to hear more of my ramblings about cinema, you can join me and my podcasting partners DJ Nick and Rachel Friend on our podcast Gold Standard the Oscars Podcast. We had an idea to do all of the best picture winners from the inception of the award with Wings up to our most recent one. We are caught up. We did an episode for Anora and as we wait for best picture of 2025 to be announced, we are just going through our list of what we think are quintessential cinema gems and what our listeners think are quintessential cinema. So you know, we started out as a once a year we're an Oscars podcast and then the rest of the time we are a. We are a quintessential cinema.
01:13:33
Xan
Maybe should have won an Oscars podcast. And then on a completely different on a completely 180 of discussing cinema. My other podcasting partner Charles Skaggs and I do a podcast called Drunk Cinema where we watch our favorite movies, which are usually culty type weird movies, and we watch them over our favorite adult beverages and discuss them and record that discussion for your entertainment. And those can be found wherever podcasts are found. And if you are looking to find me on any social media outlets, your best bets would be Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky or Substack. And on all of those my handle is udinax19.
01:14:19
Case
Yes, because we all love Xanadu over here. Wonderful stuff. So yeah, no people should check out your shows. Gold Standard I've been on, which is how this conversation started because I was on talking about Everybody Wants Some. We were talking about Linklater there and how it's a movie that I really like even though it's like empirically not his best movie.
01:14:37
Xan
It was weird to have like even though it is that way. And we talked about this, even though we do see those characters in Dazed and Confused. It was kind of weird to have a Linklater movie that was all jocks. That was very different for me and that was the first time I'd seen that. So I was glad that you had brought that one, so I got a chance to watch that one as well.
01:14:57
Case
Yeah. So we're introducing each other to movies and it's a fun time. At one point, a friend of the show, Mitch Pompayak, and I had talked about doing a Richard Linklater podcast called Linkla Tours. And so every now and then I get to like live up a little bit of that. Of that aspiration. So I do very much appreciate you coming on. Zan.
01:15:17
Xan
Thank you so much for having me.
01:15:19
Case
Sam, where can people find you and follow you?
01:15:22
Sam
They can find me here every time we drop an episode and I am lurking on our discord. You may not see me, I may not respond to you, but I see everything you're saying. So definitely there. And other than that, if you have any complaints about anything I said otherwise, I think today I was brilliant and I didn't say anything to offend anyone. But should you find that I am incorrect on that, you can find case at.
01:15:50
Case
Well, you can find me on most social platforms, Aace Aiken. Except for Instagram where I'm holding on for dear life to my aim screen name from high school and that is quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o a T L5 because I was pretentious in high school as well. But yeah, you can find me on most of those social platforms, Aiken. You can find me on the Discord Aesakin as well. That is a really great place to come chat with us. So, so come to the Discord. You can also find me on the Patreon for certain pov. That is a really cool place that we're doing all kinds of content.
01:16:26
Case
I'm putting out essays weekly on just random thoughts and on D and D topics twice a week, two essays a week as well as getting sneak previews and getting shout outs on our shows. Sh. It's like the people who are on our executive producer list. So let me give those names right now. And that is Micah McCaw, Carter Hallett, Sean Muir Lee, Gregor Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Letinen. These are wonderful people who joined at the executive producer tier. We would appreciate if you joined at that tier. That would be wonderful. But even if you don't, even at the free tier, we are putting out a lot of really cool material. So even at the free tier, come join the Patreon.
01:17:09
Case
It's a really great time and I really appreciate you all and just wanted to shout them out. Otherwise, we've got a ton of great stuff going on the Certain POV network. You should check out all the stuff that's going up on our YouTube channel. As of the time of this recording, we just cracked 30,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel, which is a ridiculous number of people from considering where were just a few months ago. So that's a really cool milestone for us. So statistically, you're probably watching this on YouTube. You should check out the sister shows that are part of the Certain Point of View podcast network.
01:17:44
Case
A big one that I want to shout out right now is a new show that we just launched, and that is Trade School, which is a show where every episode a guest host comes on and for five to 15 minutes talks about a comic book that they loved and why they loved it. And so it could be the idea is that a trade paperback, but it could be an arc that is available online. Regardless, the goal is here's a trade paperback, here's why I love it. And go. And that's the show. So you should check out Trade School. It's running weekly every Wednesday, and it is a really fun time. I would highly recommend it. It's really fun just listening to why people have these deep, passionate feelings about particular content comic books.
01:18:26
Case
But on that note, I think that kind of covers everything that we have to talk about. Sam, what have we got going on? Next time?
01:18:35
Sam
Next time we'll be talking about Highlander 2, the Quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.
01:18:47
Xan
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of Views, another past podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on itunes.
01:18:56
Sam
Just go to certainpov.com Netherpass is a certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam Alicea and Case Aiken. The show is edited by Sophia Ricciardi. Our logo and episode art is by Case Aiken. Our intro theme is by Vin Macri. And our outro theme is by Matt Brogan.
01:19:18
Xan
All right, Josue, let's go through our new Comic Day stack.
01:19:20
Case
We have a lot to review. I know.
01:19:22
Xan
Maybe we've gone too far. Let's see. Marvel, of course, dc, I got Image, Dark Horse, Black Mask, Boom.
01:19:31
Case
Idw, Aftershock, Vault, of course. Mad Cave, Oni, Valiant, Scout, Magma, Behemoth. Wow, that's a lot.
01:19:42
Sam
Oh.
01:19:42
Xan
All we need now is a name for our show. We need a name for a show about reviewing comic books every week.
01:19:48
Case
Something clever, but not too clever, like a pun.
01:19:52
Xan
It's kind of cheesy.
01:19:54
Case
Yeah, something that seems funny at first, but we might regret later on as an impulsive decision. A few dozen episodes in yeah, we'll think of something.
01:20:01
Xan
Join Keith and Osway for we have Issues, a weekly show reviewing almost every new comic released each week, available on Geekly Media and wherever you listen to your podcast.
01:20:12
Case
Cpov certain pov.com.