Change Your Image
ylt_trader
Reviews
It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books (1988)
Great for Linklater fans and film students.
Given its restraints - shot on the cheap with no crew - this is nevertheless a fascinating movie and a good film to study, although many will find it tedious and technically amateurish (particularly the sound). Stylistically it is nothing like Slacker. Every shot in Plow is static, I don't recall a single camera movement. In Slacker the camera was in constant motion. In Plow there is almost no dialog, and what little dialog there is banal and tedious. Slacker is constant conversation, each character revealed not by plot (there is no plot) but by what they say.
The film itself has a simple premise - a college student (played by Linklater) blows off school to travel, visiting friends and family along the way, first by train (to Montana), then by car through the South. We see Linklater climbing a glacier with friends, watching Thanksgiving Day football with his family, and doing other mundane things like cooking, brushing his teeth, sleeping on trains, and trying to find a good station on the radio. If this sounds boring, you probably won't like this film but you probably wouldn't like Slacker either, and you certainly wouldn't be buying the special edition of Slacker...
Woodshock (1985)
Amusing
This short film - a documentary of a local Austin rock festival and co-directed with Linklater's friend Lee Daniel - is little more than some hand held footage and short interviews with festival goers, mostly potheads and drunks. It is an interesting document of the times, and perhaps the most interesting aspect for most people is comparing these children of hippies and hippie culture in the light of the original Woodstock. For me, it was nostalgic to see this film - like Linklater, I am a Texan and grew up with kids like these. But I don't see much appeal for other people, it reveals very little about Linklater or his style. Mike Judge (another Texan) no doubt found his inspiration for Beavis and Butthead from these types of concert-goers.