Slacker (1990)
Drama, Comedy • 1h 37m
Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Richard Linklater, Rudy Basquez, Jean Caffeine, Jan Hockey, Stephan Hockey, Mark James, Samuel Dietert, Bob Boyd, Terrence Kirk, Keith McCormack, Jennifer Schaudies, Dan Kratochvil, Maris Strautmanis, Brecht Andersch, Tommy Pallotta, Jerry Delony, Heather West, John Spath, Ron Marks, Daniel Dugan, Brian Crockett, Scott Marcus, Stella Weir, Teresa Taylor, Mark Harris, Greg Wilson, Deborah Pastor, Gina Lalli, Sharon Roos, Frank Orrall, Skip Fulton Jr., Abra Moore, Lori Capp, Gus Vayas, Louis Black, Don Stroud, Janelle Coolich, Aleister Barron, Albans Benchoff, Nigel Benchoff, Zara Barron, Kevin Whitley, Steven Anderson, Robert Pierson, Sarah Harmon, David Haymond, John Slate, Scott Van Horn, Lee Daniel, Charles Gunning, Tamsy Ringler, Luke Savisky, Meg Brennan, Phillip Hostak, D. Angus MacDonald, Shelly Kristaponis, Louis Mackey, Kathy McCarty, Michael Laird, Jack Meredith, Clark Walker, Kalman Spelletich, Siqgouri Wilkovich, John Hawkins, Scott Rhodes, D. Montgomery, Mimi Vitetta, Susannah Simone, Bruce Hughes, Keith Fletcher, Eric Buehlman, Seth Maxwell Malice, Mark Quirk, Kim Krizan, Annick Souhami, Regina Garza, Stephen Jacobson, Eric Lord, Kelly Linn, Athina Rachel Tsangari, Stewart Bennet, Kevin Thomson, Nick Maffei, Nolan Morrison, Kyle Rosenblad, Ed Hall, Lucinda Scott, Wammo, Marianne Hyatt, Gary Price, Joseph Jones, Kendall Smith, Sean Coffey, Jennifer Carroll, Patrice Sullivan, Greg Ward, Mike Enright, Robert Jacks
About the film
Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.
- Featured Lists
- National Film Registry
Year of Induction: 2012
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
Director: Elaine May
Cinématographe 4K Blu-ray > MoC > Olive Films. From nicolas:
The master is good but it’s not that big an upgrade from the Olive Films disc and Vinegar Syndrome’ encode has some blocky highlights. A shame that they didn’t hire David Mackenzie here.
Cinématographe has unnecessary noise gating not present on the previous releases.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
1.85:1: Kino Lorber 4K / Capelight 4K
1.66:1: Criterion 4K but low pass filtered
Comparison between the 4Ks, Criterion on the AR choice
Other discs have unnecessary filtering and sound worse, the difference isn't substantial but audible
Director: Dennis Hopper
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Flicker Alley 4K confirmed for 2027 https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24404584&postcount=1
MoC audio is better https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=225532&page=3
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the Universal release without the filtering.
DTS:X mix on Universal 4K Blu-ray most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD and Universal 4K Blu-ray has additional features not found on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
WB 4K
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
An undeniably significant improvement from the BD yet still severely flawed. See DFIC's review.
Director: Richard Linklater
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Director: Richard Linklater
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Director: Richard Linklater
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Criterion Blu-ray uses the same transfer as Sony but the encoding is slightly worse than Sony and barely noticeable see caps
Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray in viewing looks very similar to both the Criterion and Sony caps, but no side by side comparison available
Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray is part of a 3-film box set like the Criterion
Director: Richard Linklater
Criterion has English subtitles burned in for the entire film, stylized to look like an old film print.
Director: Richard Linklater
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
WB 2007 Blu-ray
Subsequent re-releases post 2007 remove an extra
Director: Richard Linklater
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Janus and thus Criterion likely to release 4K Blu-ray in 2027
Director: Hal Ashby
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
See caps https://slow.pics/c/lVdZaG0W
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal's 4K release is similar in encode quality, but has significant glitches in multiple frames. See comparisons 9-16 here: https://slow.pics/c/YkSVb3Ey
The pitch of the StudioCanal 4K's English audio is too high
Criterion has more extras than StudioCanal.
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Criterion/StudioCanal Blu-ray > BFI. New restoration unreleased.
Old R2 DVD 1.0
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
2014 StudioCanal Blu-ray
The UHD is slightly cropped in.
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