Somewhat OT: Alex Jones excellent cameo rant in "Waking Life"

Has anyone else seen this excellent, disturbing film by Richard Linklater? It is a surreal meditation about dreams and "real life." It is filmed in a technique called "rotoscope" (I think that's its name) in which the movie was shot with real actors and then the frames were "drawn" by various artists. This gives it the effect of looking like animation but also very realistic. I found it so strange and compelling that when I got the DVD I watched it five or six times in a row. I highly recommmend it.

In the early part of the film, the unnamed main character appears to be a college aged young man wandering into college lectures, intellectual conversations, coffee house chats and so on. But he "wakes up" from these events into increasingly more bizarre conversations and episodes, until he begins to think that he is having false awakenings and is dreaming but cannot wake up.

The lectures and conversations are actually by real academics, writers, film critics, actors and other "personalities," and their speeches represent their own views. In other words, Linklater did not "write" what they had to say. I have rarely been as unnerved by a film than I have by these mere words and conversations. If you see it, watch in particular for the extremely unnerving monologue by Richard Linklater himself as a character playing pinball and discussing the nature of dreams and Christianity. He discusses a dream he actually had that was apparently the inspiration for the entire project.

At any rate, at one point, Alex Jones is seen driving a truck around the city with a speaker on top ranting about the enslavement of mankind by the corporate system. At one point he says something like, "democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, their all just competing management committees for the enslavement of humanity."

I just thought it was one of the funniest scenes in the movie and at least helped me understand a bit more about what Jones libertarian views were.

Looking forward to this one!

the episode with alex jones is also available at youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aEaxa187B0

I thought the funniest scene was the one in the bar where the customer was telling the story about the theft of tires at a gas station.

If you liked the dialog in that movie, you should check out his earlier film Slacker. (There were quite a few actors in Waking Life that appeared in Slacker first.) It has some strange stuff in it, but it definitely was a precursor to Waking Life. The scene at the beginning where Linklater is in the cab talking about dreams and reality certain shows that he had been thinking about these things for quite some time. (Slacker was released ten years before Waking Life.)

I'm a big fan of his - he usually makes me see things from a different perspective.

- Make7

I found that scene funny and then disturbing as well. From one review, I understand that that was a true story that Linklater had heard or read. He put it in the movie to ridicule gun rights nuts.

...is almost certainly an allusion to one of linklater's earlier films, Slacker. In that film, one character is shown driving through neighborhoods in a car festooned with loudspeakers.

The driver is a psychotic, announcing his intention to create a "free... motherfuckin'... weapons giveaway" program in order to better foment the downfall of civilization.

I laughed until tears were coming from my eyes at that scene.

I disagree that this segment is in any way representative of any offical thoery. That's some good revolutiony independent frustration and speaks to the tradional "American" values of personal independence, and public oversight of government authority. You can view this clip bringing into your assessment everything you know about Alex Jones and his political interests. That's very different from viewing it as did most of the people seeing the movie, who simply see someone speaking his mind. Alex Jones was speaking his mind long before 9/11, and there's been nothing 'offical' about it.

I believe the OT was meant to indicate that this was not really related to 9/11, rather it was just a little bit of interesting background information on Alex Jones.

I really don't see how this movie could have anything to do with 9/11 - considering the fact that it was completed before September 11, 2001.

- Make7

Sorry if I was unclear. I certainly did not mean that Alex Jones' rant supports the official theory and I could not understand what the poster above meant till your (Make7's) post.

OT means "off topic" and just means that the OP is not directly related to 9/11. But it does give some insight into Alex Jones beliefs.

Generally on this forum, when people are referring to the official theory the use the term "official conspiracy theory" or the abbreviation OCT or OCTA (official conspiracy theory apologist), OCTer (someone who pushes the official conspiracy theory) or OCTabot (those posters who seem automatically and robotically to appear in swarms at any hour of the day or night to mindlessly attack any questioning of the official conspiracy theory).

Whoops. My bad. Carry on, carry on.