Linklater wasted no time. Here immediately is his penchant for a large cast of near-caricatures, drawn with bold outlines but colored with believability. He depicts them honestly, making no excuse for their naive and immature flaws, but with love and sympathy. It's comedic, pensive, quirky, and treats its own bit of pretentiousness with self-aware irony. A film for the young and young-at-heart.

This is not too far off from hipsters in Brooklyn. Linklater gets points for predicting the future.

My life story, really

Might have been good if more than one of the characters were actually likable, but they weren't so it isn't.

Absolutely terrible! The only bit of it that was remotely interesting was when an old man started wandering around with the man who was trying to rob him regailing the youth with tales of the war which was kind of amusing and a bit charming. The rest of the film consisted of incredibly annoying and thoroughly uninteresting characters speaking irritating nonsense. Unfunny and utterly infuriating.

captures the 1990s and Generation X

Linklater writes character interaction better than almost anyone, and this is 100 minutes of it; a ton of interesting characters with great stories.

Austin is presented as an oasis in the middle of a red state, perfect for aimless but harmless weirdos, with the world outside related only in tales of mental hospitals, high-speed chases, hostage situations, conspiracies, and other unpleasantness. It's a utopian film; when the characters go out of their way to complain it's because they have no real problems, and when they speculate pointlessly it's because their lives are blissfully stagnant.

Hazy, addled, softly paranoid, characters drifting like a swarm of gnats. Linklater conveys simultaneous empathy for and dismissal of his characters, while quietly, humorously toying with verity and viewer expectation. The meandering camera works well at underpinning all the emotionally stagnant weirdo discourse into an oddly lulling brew, and while the final segment isn't a violent revolution, it does provide a fitting catharsis, a tumbling swirl of film and the joy we've been lacking.

Fantastic portrait of the sheer recklessness and out of control nature of Austin's counter-cultural ambitions.

Some cool people, some intelligent, some boring and some really stupid. Just as life.

An inventive film told through entertaining vignettes. The film feels free and expansive, though it doesn't get too disjointed or lose sight of it's goals and themes. While it's obvious at times that Linklater is new to the game, he manages to construct a hilarious, creative mural of popular culture.

82.750

Immediately after watching this, I was a bit disappointed, but looking back on it, it doesn't seem that bad. I may have to rewatch it.

A film with no beginning, no middle and no end. No storyline or plot and no remarkable characters to speak off. It does however feature some very fresh and original dialogue and is entertaining and funny all the way through. I thought the novelty of the style of the film would wear off after about 45 minutes but it did'nt. I was fully engrossed in the "action" the whole way through. Very funny, very original and very clever. The atmosphere of this film is great, very summery and breezy.

A disjointed and bizarre film that portrays the hayday of the Texan counter-culture in the 90's.