If Linklater leaves the big questions of his movies to their audiences, how does he think they'll respond when A Scanner Darkly opens in July and Fast Food Nation in the fall? "You can never prove or predict the cause and effect of anything, whatever its purpose," he says. "When The Jungle was published a hundred years ago, they enacted the FDA. But in today's world, we're more likely to see legislation enacted to prevent us from criticizing the way things are. In Texas, it's against the law to criticize an agricultural productóeven though this [fast food] industry is potentially harming us. I guess Fast Food Nation would be immune to this law for being 'fiction.' Or would it? Kind of interesting, isn't it? I mean, can Fox Searchlight enact legislation to prevent you from writing a bad review of my movie?"