Idler movie mailbag 2

Here are more reader submissions for a list of great idler movies.

Mimi L. votes for Wes Anderson's "Bottle Rocket" and also "The Brown Bunny," writing, about the latter:

Vince Gallo's gorgeous (if onanistic) tour de force about a young man's cross-country quest for...?. I know, I know, everyone loves to hate the guy, but I think Gallo's bizarrely purposeful intensity -- paradoxically -- makes it sort of an idler manifesto, rather than just a road movie of some sort. And on a meta-level, as a filmmaker he seems to replace the "story arc" with a series of privately meaningful goals, which somehow says 'idler auteur' to me."

I'd like to add that Gallo was born in 1961; he strikes me as a quintessential member of the Jones/Obama/Repo Man generation.

Luc S. suggests: "Boudu Saved from Drowning" and "Celine and Julie Go Boating," noting that "the French wrote the book on idling." He also suggests Jarmusch's "Stranger Than Paradise" and pretty much any of the canonical road movies or tramp movies, from "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" to "Two-Lane Blacktop."

Matthew D. suggests: "Withnail and I," truly a great movie about the pleasures of idling (though, at the end, one of the characters does get a job, I think); "Zardoz," in which Sean Connery stars as the last virile man in an effete and decadent future (kind of a warning to idlers); and "A Boy And His Dog," in which Don Johnson navigates a post-apocalyptic future. (Think of it as "Two-Lane Blacktop" plus telepathic dog.)

Still accepting nominations, but Friday is the cutoff point!

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