This Linklater film looks like a winner
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DVD Talk Limited Edition
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I copied and pasted this from Ebert's article in today's suntimes:
Sounds like a movie I'd definitely wanna check out.
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Richard Linklater's "Waking Life" is a technical breakthrough and an amazing film, both in the same package. It charts the odyssey of a hero seeking the truth about dreams and reality, and uses an artistic approach that takes live-action footage and transforms it into breathtaking animation.
There was a standing ovation after the Tuesday night premiere here, from a savvy audience that had already been briefed about the film's technical side by articles in Wired and Res magazines. What they were perhaps not ready for was how good the film was, entirely apart from its animation wizardry.
Linklater is the Austin, Texas-based filmmaker who is fascinated by big questions and answers. His "Before Sunrise" had Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke as two strangers who meet on a train and wander around Vienna for a long night of philosophy and flirtation. His first film, "Slackers," jumped from one set of characters to another, never doubling back as it eavesdropped on conversations all over Austin.
Now here is "Waking Life," with Wiley Wiggins (or his animated avatar) arriving in town and finding himself launched, through bizarre events, into a series of conversations with people who speak profoundly but engagingly on life, death, free will, existentialism, dreams and the nature of reality (Hawke and Delpy even turn up to continue their conversation).
All the scenes were shot live-action and then transformed into shimmering, magical, seductive animation. Tommy Pallotta and Bob Sabiston, two Austin computer animation wizards, led a team of 60 artists, each one assigned to a different character, as they used Sabiston's RotoShop software to transform reality into graphic artistry.
It was not lost on the Sundance audience, which contained many indie filmmakers with more ideas than money, that this gorgeous film was made with hand-held digital cameras, and the animation was done on Macs, not expensive workstations. "Waking Life" points the way for independents to play in the same league as major Hollywood animators.
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Sounds like a movie I'd definitely wanna check out.