Slacker

Slacker (Criterion #247).
1991 Detour Filmproduction and Orion Classics.
Starring: Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan, Marc James, Stella Weir, John Slate, Louis Mackey, Teresa Taylor, and many others
Written, produced and directed by Richard Linklater
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Along with sex, lies and videotape, this film is considered the genesis of the independent film movement of the 1990s, and it was a major influence on Kevin Smith, who has often stated Slacker was the inspiration for Clerks. Also, this movie supposedly popularized the term "slacker" to describe any person "characterized by apathy, aimlessness, and lack of ambition".

Over a 24 hour period in Austin, Texas, Linklater showcases dozens of mostly twenty-somethings all doing their part in keeping Austin weird. We see one or two characters converse about just about everything for a few minutes before we start to follow someone completely different and unrelated to the previous characters. The only common thing all of the movie's players have is that they might pass by one another on the streets during their daily routine, or perhaps, their lack of routine.

Highlights include Linklater as a chatty taxi passenger who just completed a long bus trip, the UFO "expert" in the Batman T-shirt trying to convince a complete stranger that the United States has really been traveling to the moon since the 1950s, yet another JFK conspiracy buff, someone who is really into collecting television sets (he even walks around with one strapped to his back!), an elderly anarchist who talks a younger man out of robbing his home with stories about where he was during Charles Whitman's rampage in 1966, and most bizarrely, the odd woman (Taylor) who walks up to a random couple offering to sell them a genuine "Madonna pap smear".

Highly recommended.