The Rick-trospective: subUrbia
A salute to Richard Linklater’s body of work, one film at a time
In honor of the November 7 release of Paste Movies Editor Michael Dunaway’s documentary 21 Years: Richard Linklater (in which Paste is the media partner), we’re going through the indie master’s entire oeuvre in order, film by amazing film.
Richard Linklater’s always been something of a modern day documentarian, dredging that banal everyday which is formed by technology and culture, and unearthing the explorative, self-reflecting fossils of the individual adrift in the societal sea. Linklater’s first few movies, Slacker and Dazed and Confused, were tales of youth and the young muddling about—full of ennui, little forward motion and unpromising future prospects. Granted, Before Sunrise hit theaters in 1995, but it’s subUrbia, released a year later, that’s the apt conclusion to what one might call Linklater’s Austin slacker trilogy.
subUrbia, however, was not penned by Linklater, but playwright, social satirist andLaw & Order regular, Eric Bogosian. Linklater’s transposition from Bogosian’s Woburn, Mass., roots and New Jersey set, to sleepy Burnfield, Texas, a neighborhood of Austin where five young people occupy the limbo after high school by loitering outside a convenience store, drinking and grousing about the ruts they’ve become stuck in, aligns seamlessly with where Dazed and Confused left off. As any of the five would have it, the American Dream that evades them has been hijacked by the Pakistani couple who own and operate the store as a stepping stone to higher education and a happy white-collar existence. Continue reading
When we catch up with Mr. Wick, he’s just lost his wife and gotten a beagle puppy to fill the emotional void. He lives in some pretty impressive digs in Northern New Jersey and has a thing for vintage muscle cars. It’s one of Wick’s purring icons of American automotive might from the emission-control-free era that draws the attention of Iosef, a Russian mafioso punk (Alfie Allen, from “Game of Thrones”) who, in the process of home invading and carjacking Wick, offs the yipping pup. Of course Iosef and his lot make the mistake of leaving Wick alive and, unbeknownst to them, it was Wick’s gun that put Iosef’s pa, Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist, from the Swedish version of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) on top. There’s some attempt to make amends, but Wick has none of it, so between employer and former employee the gloves come off. It’s a grudge match Viggo does not relish, explaining to his sniveling son while knocking back a stiff vodka that “Wick is the guy you call to kill the bogeyman.” 
That’s the jumping-off point for “Birdman,” which boasts the catchy subtitle, “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance.” Michael Keaton, who not-so-coincidentally played Tim Burton’s “Batman” in the ’80s and ’90s, plays Riggan Thomson, a Hollywood actor who found fame as the star of the titled superhero franchise. Since its shelving some 20 years ago, he now seeks thespian cred by producing, starring in and directing a Broadway adaptation of Raymond Carver’s taut “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” When we catch up with Riggan the play is just days from opening, and much teeters on a precipice. The good people of Times Square are more than happy to have the “Birdman” in their midst, but not so much the theater crowd. Co-star and “serious actor” Mike Shiner refers to Hollywood-produced films as a form of “cultural genocide” while “Times” critic Tabitha Dickinson (a lethal Lindsay Duncan) just can’t stand the notion of art being hijacked by overpaid, under-talented dilettantes from yonder west. 
For What it's Worth 