Slacker Now on Hulu

From guest blogger Kevin Smith, writer/director, Zack and Miri Make a Porno:

August 2, 1991. The day of my 21st birthday. Most folks elect to cut loose and enjoy the freedom that turning 21 affords. I, however — being a total loser — opted, instead, to take the 50-mile drive up the Jersey Turnpike with my friend Vincent Pereira so we could peep a film reviewed, quite favorably, by J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. It was unheard of in my neck of the woods to drive that far to see a movie (let alone a movie with zero movie stars in it), but the promise of a scene centered on a Madonna pap smear of questionable authenticity was bait enough to lure us from the Jersey ‘burbs into the wilds of Manhattan-after-dark.

After overpaying for both parking and popcorn, we settled into what seats we could find together in the packed theater of a midnight screening. And once the trailer for Hal Hartley’s Trust concluded, the Orion Classics logo lit up the screen and introduced me to my future. For the next 100 minutes or so, I was agog. My jaw literally hung open as this shaggy paean to those who follow the road not taken unspooled, offering me a glimpse into a free-associative world of ideas instead of plot, people instead of characters, and Nowheresville, Texas, instead of the usual California or New York settings most movies elected to feature (that “Nowheresville” was really Austin speaks volumes on how culturally bereft I was at the time). That night, director Richard Linklater and his film not only captured my imagination, he (and it) captured my heart — not to mention kick-started my ambition. On the hour-long drive home from the theater that night, I realized what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to be a filmmaker. That’s the power of Slacker: if you let it, it’ll change your life. It certainly changed mine.

So if you hate me and my films, blame Richard Linklater’s Slacker. And if you love me and my films, thank Richard Linklater for Slacker. Either way, do yourself a favor and watch Richard Linklater’s Slacker here on Hulu. Right now.

Kevin Smith
Writer/Director, Zack and Miri Make a Porno (opening October 31)