Page 4 The Battalion Tuesday, July 30, i| 'Slackers' depicts society's rejects NEW YORK (AP) - Call them passive subversives, mas ters of mellow, emperors of en nui. They don't have suits or ties or 9-to-5 jobs. They're into books and coffee and seeing bands on Friday night. In Austin, they're known as "slackers," laid-back pariahs of the private sector, low-rent versions of New York intellec tuals, idolaters of idling who dare to be indifferent. Slackers have seen the fu ture and looked the other way, scurried back into their holes like groundhogs in wintertime. They've turned off and tuned out. They're through with col lege, but still in school indefi nitely. Hanging out is the major industry, alienation a way of life. "You see wha t your options are in the world and if none of them looks appealing, then they're not worth all the time and effort," explained director- slacker Richard Linklater, 28, who captures this languid lifestyle m "Slacker," his new feature film. "You just retreat into your own thing. I like that because it's you rejecting society before society rejects you. "I thinkmoreand morepeople are getting away from the old thoughts about how to change things, the old, 'Oh, if you don't like the way things are, then why don't you change things.' People know what they don't want to do, but they don't have anything that they're definitely onto. That's what I see the slacker period as, know ing what doesn't work but having nothing to replace it with yet." "Slacker" was filmed in Aus tin two summers ago and cost about $23,000. Funding came from friends, relatives and the National Endowment for the Arts among others. It looks like a documentaiy, with the camera drifting from slacker to slacker, but the film is actually a carefully scripted, well- rehearsed dramatization of a typi cal day. About 100 people are seen, most of them real slackers playing themselves. Included are an aging ex-anarchist, a JFK assassination expert, a video fanatic, a woman selling an "authentic" Madonna souvenir and a hitchhiker who rea sons, "I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it." "We were real serious and pro fessional," Linklater said. "We just said, 'Hey, we're making a movie this summer. It should be fun, kind of loose. Within this I'm really hoping we can work up something that's fun, creative, the summer art project.' And it was like, 'Oh cool, it'll be fun.'" Linklater, the son of an in surance man and a speech pa thologist, was bom in Houston and began his road to slackerdom in high school, where his acute "anti-any thing" attitude was bom. Two years of college were all he could take. He dropped out of Sam Houston State Uni versity, saved some money by working on an offshore oil rig and fell into the lazily out stretched arms of Austin's slacker community. "I was going to movies all the time, but I just noticed friends who were going into coffee shops every day. I don't smoke or drink coffee or any thing, but I could always ap preciate what was going on. It seemed kind of neat, ultimately kind of optimistic, a world of ideas," he said. "I had worked in the world and there were people with their myopic, special-interest view.” Postal Service releases ’92 Olympic stamps Hympic Games aren't far off and collectors are looking forward to the wide variety of stamps with Olympics themes from countries all over the world. The U.S. Postal Service is off and running with five 29-cent Olympic Track and Field stamps released July 12 in Los Angeles in conjunction with the 1991 Olym pic Festival. Each stamp shows a competi tor in an Olympic event pole vault, discus throw, sprint, javelin throw and hurdles. The background of each stamp is a different color and corresponds to one of the five col ors of the Olympic rings blue, yel low, black, green and red. First-day cancellations are available until Aug. 11 in either of two ways: Customers are encouraged to buy the stamp at a local post office, affix it to a self-addressed cover and mail in a larger envelope ad dressed to: Customer-Affixed En velopes, Olympic Track and Field Stamps, Postmaster, 7001 S. Cen tral Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90052- 9991. The Postal Service will affix a single stamp or a strip of all five stamps. However, keep in mind that it will affix only random single stamps and will not honor requests for a specific stamp. For each cover requested, send >pe or larger for strip orders) and pay ment m check or money order (29 cents for one stamp, $1.45 for a strip of five) to: Single Olympic Track and Field Stamps (or Five Olympic Track and Field Stamps), Postmaster, 7001 S. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90052-9992 (use ZIP code90052-9993 for five-stamp strip orders). •New Priority Mail Stamp A new Priority Mail stamp from the U.S. Postal Service fea tures a closeup profile of a bald eagle against a black background, and red lettering. The $2.90 stamp is designed for use on Priority Mail pieces weighing up to 2 pounds. r > Rodriguez records comedy special in California prison Nerd House ’Mobsters’ makes no judgment of evil gangster life Continued from page 3 Although its lack of critical commentary on its characters' materialistic, murderous lifestyle is rather disturbing in this age of increasing gang violence, the film preserves a kind of amoral integ rity in its sympathetic, unflinching portrayal of the way it was in the xill-or-be-killed heyday of gangsterism. "Mobsters" evinces a certain nostalgia for the good old days of Prohibition, before drugs and goodfellas, when loyalty to friends and family came before everything, and a Mafioso would sooner die than betray that trust. For all its apparent superfici ality, this movie, like the young criminals it depicts, gets better and cleverer as it goes along. Michael Mahern and Nicholas Kazan's screenplay dwells mostly on the friendship and "business" dealings of the four young men, only toucr ing on their relationships with the women in their lives. It also wisely avoids trying to give all four equa 1 prom inence a nd screen time, instead focusing on Luciano and Lansky, and their quest for revenge against the un scrupulous dons and anyone else who dares cross them. Veteran actors Abraham, as the Jewish financial wizard reputed to have fixed the World Series, and Quinn, as a gluttonous don, lend colorful support to the surprisingly convincing young actors. All involved, from production designer Richard Sylbert and cos tume designer Ellen Mirojnick to former commercial director Michael Karbelnikoff, and espe cially cinematographer Lajos Koltai, seem to be having a mar velous time bringing the story of these cheerfully ruthless criminals to the screen. In a movie where the good guys are only slightly less evil than the bad guys, the beautifully styl ized images artfully lull viewers into sympathizing with Luciano's gang, but the audience is probably having too much fun to care. by Tom A. Madison NEW YORK (AP) - Paul Rodriguez conducts the interview in an exercise yard at San Quentin g rison. "Who do you blame for eingin here?" he asks. The imme diate reply from the convict: "My self." Rodriguez: "Not society? Not 'causeyou'reblack?Not 'cause the world is run by whites?" No, the convict says, smiling: "1 mean, if I'm into crime. I'm into crime. If I'm into a peaceful life, that's how I'm going to live." A documentary? Sort of. But few prison documentaries include a stage show in which the program's maker Rodriguez, in this case gets a roar of knowing laughter by telling a crowd of cons: "You miss it out there, right? Well, they don't miss you." But then, "Paul Rodriguez: Behind Bars," a one-hour special airing next Sunday night, is a dif ferent kind of show, a hybrid that Fox Broadcasting calls a "docu- Supermodel Carol Alt launches singing career NEW YORK (AP) - Let the critics beware. Former supermodel Carol Alt is launching her singing career and wants them to know she won't be intimidated. "I don't care what the critics say because I'm out there and I'm vulnerable and I'm open to criti cism," Alt said in an interview on Fox Television's "A Current Af fair." Alt quit full-time modeling in 1985 to pursue acting. "If I listen to what everybody says, and I stop doing what I want to do and stop living and working, I would die," she said in the inter view being broadcast Tuesday. "For me, this (a singing career) is my fantasy." Alt said models take a lot of heat. "The most challenging thing I've faced in my career is other people's prejudice," she said. comedy." A stocky, direct man bom 36 years ago in Mazatlan, Mexico, Rodriguez is a comedian by trade, and one with a little more human ity and social commentary than usually emitted by those touring TV's standup comedy circuit. Not for him the usual "I just broke up with my girfriend" or L.A. freeway jokes, or audience- rapport openers like, "So, where ya mom?" Barrio humor is an integral part of his act. It helped him land his first starring role, in Norman Lear's short-lived "a.k.a. Pablo." He was spotted in 1978 while working ama teur night at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. His routine included these thoughts after a neighbor lady was shot by Los Angeles cops: 'The only white people in my neighbor hood are Jesus and the police de partment. 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