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Linklater's my favorite of the first wave of American Indie directors of the 90s, and these are my favorite of his films in order of preference:
Before Sunset - best film of its year IMO; and to think I'd always wished for an American Eric Rohmer.
Slacker - for me, this is the one that really started it all (that is, not "Sex lies and videotape"). I was an undergraduate in Texas when this film was made/premiered and so it's something of a personal sociological tract for me, not unlike a filmed college yearbook. It distills those times and that sense of place to their very essence - put it in the time capsule should anyone else ever care to know. I'd been placing "Slacker" at the top of my list in the many "What movie should Criterion release next?" threads over the years, but I never expected a release that was as amazing and comprehensive as the one we finally got. Keep your Soderberghs and Kevin Smiths, but leave me the Linklater!
Dazed and Confused - I sorta hesitate to place this one so high on the list, given that Slacker, Before Sunrise/Before Sunset, and Waking Life are the key films in Linklater's ouevre IMO. It rates as great mainstream entertainment a la "School of Rock", but it also falls somewhat within the context of the auteur-autobiography that the other films I mention reflect so well. And since I also went to high school in Texas (though in the early to mid-80s rather than the 1970s), this film also has something of a personal connection for me, and really works the nostalgia gland in acceptably unsentimental ways though not to the same extent as "Slacker".
Before Sunrise - jesus, is this guy following me or what? I also had a brief and memorable fling with a woman in Vienna the summer after my first year in law school. And, yes, I was probably a callow know-it-all, too. Like "Slacker", the film rings true in ways that aren't always flattering, and better yet never falls into the trap of sentimentalizing either youth or youthful romance. Everything from the "meet cute" to the "sweet poem that perfectly distills" is subverted and deconstructed, revealing them to be not only illusions, but illusions that our two young protagonists recognize as such... and yet nonetheless pine for.
Waking Life - basically a rotoscoped sequel to "Slacker", with roughly the same narrative form, setting (save a brief excursion to NYC, etc.), and even a few characters (not to mention Jesse and Celine from "Before Sunrise/Sunset"). I think a strong argument could be made that this is Linklater's best film (or perhaps second best after "Before Sunset"), but I'm listing in order of my preference!
School of Rock - Linklater in his director-for-hire role delivering mainstream fare that somehow manages to be just a little more subversive than it appears on the surface with a hero who's just a little less than likeable and certainly a far cry from heroic... aw hell, those kids are so damn cute.
Tape - without presuming some breakthrough in simplicity or "chastity" (dogme 95) or leaning on any particular cinema/theatrical tradition (the chamber dramas of Bergman), Linklater limits the action to three characters and a dingy hotel room, and oodles of anger, regret and recrimination. It's no surprise that perception and truth are invariably at odds, but to see this in an American film where emotional truth is generally a hackneyed explication of the conventional wisdom (vis "date rape", for example)? Almost astonishing.
It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books - hey, everybody has to start somewhere! Odd that a director who's made some of the "talkiest" films of the last decade began with a near wordless reverie like this.
I haven't seen any of the others except for Suburbia and The Newton Boys, both of which I'd previously dismissed as "not sufficiently Linklaterish". I've been meaning to give them both another viewing soon, and I hope to see whatever merit I missed the first time. Or not. I doubt they'd ever crack the list of favorites.
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