SubUrbia
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenplay: Eric Bogosian
Minutes: 121
Year: 1996
Score: 5.64
Release: Warner Archive
This film is neither the best Linklater, nor is it the best Bogosian and if you watch it as someone whose formative years were in the 90s then you are going to wonder if you were as much as a self-centered prick as these characters are portrayed.
From WBShop.com:
A group of twenty-somethings hang out at a local convenience store complaining the night away, until the arrival of an old classmate, now a rock star.
I have never watched a bad Linklater film and this did not change that and I think that Bogosian’s Talk Radio is a stone-cold masterpiece of writing. This film, in comparison to Talk Radio or other Linklater pictures, is not very good. I am a product of the mid-90s and I remember when this movie came out but I hadn’t watched it until the Warner Archive re-released this DVD.
I unfortunately said DVD, they did not think to upgrate to Blu-ray, and I guess that is alright.
However, it is a rather poinient film and there is a throughline to today, especially with the Bee-Bee character in regards to addiction. We all know somebody who is, or has been, an adict. It wasn’t until recently that we are more and more comfortable with talking about it, but we can still get better and maybe this film can help with that. While we are all self-centered we typically all are ready to jump in when a crisis occurs.
But you would better off watching Dazed and Confused or Talk Radio.
Director: 5 – Cinematography: 5 – Edit: 5 – Parity: 5 – Main performance: 6 – Else performance: 5 – Score: 10 – Sound: 5 – Story: 4 – Script: 6 – Effects: NA – Design: 5 – Costumes: 4 – Keeps interest: 9 – Lasting: 5