Waking Life

Director: Richard Linklater
Year Released: 2001
Rating: 3.0

Fluctuates somewhere between insightful and pretentious, with enough of the former to make me forgive it for the latter. I profess to really enjoying the 'look at these wackos' portrait of lost society in Slacker, but Linklater's choice of speakers has really gotten deeper these days, so instead of a conversation about selling Madonna's pubic hair, you get theories about auditory processing and elaborate comparisons between humans and ants. Our tour guide through the collective unconscious, Wiley Wiggins, doesn't engage in much of a debate with these people - he's content to sit there and nod obediently - but then again Wallace Shawn had to sit through everything Andre Gregory had to say in My Dinner with Andre too. The animation is absolutely wild (reminds me of the A-ha video for "Take On Me") and the 'project' itself is warmly experimental.