Splendid credits sequence: car-window tracking shots around a forlorn Nowheresville of strip malls, middle-class housing developments, trailer park, construction site, etc. (On the soundtrack, "Town without Pity" by Gene Pitney: "How can we keep love alive,/ How can anything survive,/ When these little minds tear you in two?") Then filmmaker Richard Linklater is back among the deadbeats: a quintet of post-highschoolers awaiting the homecoming of a former crony and overnight rock star called Pony. The dawn-to-dawn duration of the Eric Bogosian screenplay (based on his own stage play), most of whose action is set in a convenience-store parking lot, allows the director of Slacker, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise to keep intact his string of unity-of-time exercises. But Bogosian is a sterner, harsher, bleaker observer than Linklater, and he operates under the crushing pressure to Say Something. Preferably to Shout Something. Preferably to Scream Something. With Giovanni Ribisi, Steve Zahn, Amie Carey, Nicky Katt, Dina Spybey, Jayce Bartok, Parker Posey, and Ajay Naidu. (1997) — Duncan Shepherd
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