Dazed and Confused (1993)

[Hiyo]

Not just giving us a young Matthew McConaughey and one his more famous catchphrases, this film also has early appearances by Jason London, Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Cole Hauser, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Nicky Katt, Anthony Rapp, Joey Lauren Adams, and Rory Cochrane, among others. Renée Zellweger too!

[Enigma X]

This is one of my favorite movies ever. Definitely in the top three for me.

[Hiyo]

[StatisticalOutlier]

Dazed and Confused plays like a documentary to me because I graduated from high school in a small Texas city in 1975.  Using pliers to zip up your jeans--check.  Parties where everybody just stands in a field or leans on cars--check.  Driving up and down the drag, over and over, all night, drinking beer and smoking weed--check.  Driving to other cities for concerts--check.  (Although we would get our tickets by mail order.) 

The soundtrack was close to perfect, with the known absence of Led Zeppelin.  And for me, I would need some early Queen in there, but props to Linklater for Rick Derringer.  That's authentic.

As if that weren't enough, I'd lived in Austin for years when the movie came out, and recognized many of the places where they shot.  I lived right near Top Notch (which my friends and I always called Tip Top for no good reason at all).  That place was really something.  Actually, it's still there, but I haven't been in years.

Back then, it was family owned.  It was an order-at-the-counter place and the older lady who used to take the orders was surly, but not a charming surly. 

There were all sorts of rules.  There were no trash cans--patrons were prohibited from clearing their own tables when they were finished.  On the menu next to the register, in addition to fountain beverages they had one canned drink--I think a Diet Dr Pepper, for some price.  I've always believed it was because some regular used to bring in their own can of Diet Dr Pepper, probably arguing that it's okay because they don't serve it otherwise, and the family decided to thwart that little scheme.  I never had the courage to ask the lady why it was on there.

The menu also had a notation about beverages, and I can't remember exactly what it was, but it specified a "normal amount of ice." Maybe this was before they had the self-service fountain drinks?  But I've always loved that use of "normal" and, as with the can of Diet Dr Pepper, wondered what led to it.

In that same area is where they filmed the exteriors for the pool hall, and a year after the movie came out, I got my first dial-up internet connection from a company that was located in that shopping center. 

So I have the perfect combination of the experience they had in Dazed and Confused and recognizing the places they were having it. 

I really cherish spending hours driving around with my friends, talking.  I had an 8-track player in my car, which divides albums into four parts, instead of two parts (front and back on an album).  If the songs on the album didn't time out right, when going from track 1 to track 2, for example, the tape would fade a song out and fade it back in after the CA-THUNK of the track changing.  It had a "repeat" button, and one night, after hours of driving around, we realized the Black Sabbath tape had been on "repeat," so we listened to just that 1/4 of the album over and over for hours and didn't even notice.  Only after realizing it did I think, "I thought I'd heard Iron Man an awful lot." 

Fun times, and Dazed and Confused captures them perfectly.

[Enigma X]

I was born in 1975 but have always been a fan of the music of that era. That is one of the reasons why I liked the movie so much.

[Hiyo]

The soundtrack really is great.

[AgathaC]

This movie always fills me with nostalgia — which is odd, since I wasn’t even born yet in 1976. Yet, there’s just something about what it’s depicting that feels so familiar somehow. I usually watch it every summer, so it’s about time for a rewatch.

[festivus]

I love this movie. I graduated in 84 but there were many beats that were still familiar to teens in the 80s. 'Riding around' and being in and out of the gameroom (arcade) as our central spot was the thing. 

[shantown]

This movie is one of the first of my favorite genres of movie: Last day of school and we all end up at the same party.

It's the 70s version of the "last day party" and - along with Can't Hardly Wait for the 90s and Booksmart for the 10s - is such a fascinating look at all the emotions around a huge chapter of life coming to an end and all the big moments everyone wants to have before they separate ways. 

[Hiyo]

Quote

is such a fascinating look at all the emotions around a huge chapter of life coming to an end and all the big moments everyone wants to have before they separate ways. 

Yeah but they weren't graduating in this movie.

[One Imaginary Girl]

Yeah.  A big point of this movie is about how the class of 1977 are now becoming the big cheeses at school (now that the class of 1976 has moved on) and how they treat the new kids, the incoming freshmen.  Do you want to be cruel, like Darla or O'Bannion and the other guys who beat up Mitch and his friends?  Or like Pink, Jodi, and Tony, taking them under your wing?  This is a situation that crops up throughout life, being the new person at work, in the neighborhood, in a social group.

[Hiyo]

This movie also nicely shuns the cliche of how in most teen movies, people from different groups don't hang out together. We see various jocks, stoners, geeks, and freshmen all hanging out together. The movie also nicely keeps it grounded and somewhat more realistic by showing us that now all people are willing to cross over to other groups, and that people within groups might not always get along with each other (or even like each other).