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People are voting emotionally.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The acting in this movie is really good.

There was a post in Facebook about real Van Gogh paintings coming alive as a movie. I responded how this movie was similar to the animation. I watched it on cable when I was 10. Back then HBO likes to show movies over and over and over and everytime I see it by chance, I watched it. I was so captivated by it. But, I never got to start it! I never knew the title, nor the beginning of the movie. Thankfully that random stranger on Facebook knew which movie I was talking about. Then and there I bought a digital copy on Amazon. I was so happy! When I was 10 I never really understood everything, I probably don't even know anything about drugs then but I was very familiar with lucid dreams. When the movie Inception came out, I thought that movie sucked because this movie was THE dream in a dream in a dream movie. When I saw the comments, and reviews, man.. these people probably never saw the coming of superhero movies. Lol. Now it's all heroes, and galaxies, comics.. I wish another movie like this comes out soon now that I'm an adult!

In the early 90's, Richard Linklater gave us the amusingly quirky philosophical comedy "Slacker". In the 2000's, when Linklater was a much more established filmmaker, he semi-updated this older work, but, instead of focusing on the daytime that defined "Slacker", Linklater seems to have trapped "Waking Life" in the midst of the night. Even when daylight floods the lens, our protagonist and guide through his own mind is as aware as we are that he is trapped within his own dream...and the dream layers are stacking up. He awakens only to be stranded in another subsection of his growing, energetic subconscious, and many serious discussions of and questions concerning deep philosophical thought are explored in depth. The tone is certainly more serious and less self mocking than "Slacker", but the entertainment value is still there, and many little moments of clever comedy are perfectly placed throughout (a talking monkey, an uproariously absurd encounter between the protagonist and an eccentric clerk he believes to have seen earlier in the dream); however, there is also plenty of fuel and food for extreme existentialist thought dealing with death and, even more prominently and uniquely, dreams. Is life a dream? Is life not life, but really death? Is anyone really here, or is it all just one's mind? Questions, questions, questions...no real answers. Moments, swirling, moving....movements...the whole film flows like a river, it feels like an actual DREAM! There are reoccurring themes, ideas, and faces, but there is no real narrative, at least not in a remotely conventional sense. It is scene after scene of discussion and discourse, characters come and go out of nowhere, some even die outrageously, while others take on new personalities and minds as the tale trails along...there are appearances from professors, philosophers, doctors...the likes of Ethan Hawke, Alex Jones (?!), and Steven Soderbergh have brief splashes of screen time in which they spew brief speeches jam packed with rigorous insight into all sorts of topics...stories are told, political rants are screamed, theories are deeply analyzed, love is discussed, hate is expressed...and it all culminates in one of the greatest, most totally chilling and thought provoking monologues I've ever heard, performed with grace, humor, realism, emotion, and intelligence by the man behind the camera himself, Richard Linklater.

Richard Linklater is a well respected and renowned director in Hollywood, but when he feels he has something to say, he says it with artistic integrity and never talks down to his audience.This is one of the most inspired works of art i've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. the rotoscope feature of the film only enhances the philosophical and sociological ideologies. Linklater also explored rotoscoping to a more impressive degree with A Scanner Darkly some years later. i like to watch this film as often as i can, and completely recommend it.

I always go down with the quote of Toni Morrison: "If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it." It perfectly fits with "Waking Life". Richard Linklater did an amazing job by putting all the pieces of this giant philosophical puzzle, in the correct order, and gave birth to a masterpiece. I totally enjoyed it! I'd like to watch another movie(this time not as an animation),with philosophical scripts and daring ideas, of many other philosophers who were not mentioned in this work of art, to explore even more the brilliant question that has many answers but non of them true(because there is not one): "What is the meaning of life?" If I were a director, it would be one of my goals. 10/10