Yet another movie post: Dazed and Confused

[pokerfan]

I avoided watching this for years thinking it was just another dumb movie about highschool kids getting stoned. I finally saw it on cable the other day and was literally blown away.

There's not much of a plot but it totally captures the look and feel of going to highschool in the late seventies, which I did. The acting, mostly from a bunch of young unknowns, was simply amazing.

I got hazed as a freshman and it was very ritualized. The first Friday in the fall was hazing day. No spankings (heh) but I had to crossdress. (I went with; I was damned if I was gonna let any stinking senior know it bothered me.) Others had to wear their underwear outside of their clothes. Shit like that. The detail I liked about the film's take on the hazing was that, once it was over, you were accepted, more or less, into the crowd. They eliminated hazing before I got to give it as a senior (not like I was looking forward to it), but I think it served some sort of purpose as a right of passage thing.

But mostly the film wants to be an American Graffiti for the Seventies and it acheives this, for the most part. God, I know it's un PC of me, but I miss those big ol' cars with the monster V8 engines that ripped giant holes in the ozone layer. The Chargers, SS's and the GTO's especially.

The character closest to me was probably Mike.

Some great quotes too:

Slater: "Behind every good man there is a woman, and that woman was Martha Washington, man, and everyday George would come home, she would have a big fat bowl waiting for him, man, when he come in the door, man, she was a hip, hip, hip lady, man."

Ms. Stroud: "Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."

Wooderson: "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

[Chovexani]

1. Richard Linklater is one of my favorite directors

He has a way of making you forget you're watching a movie.

[pokerfan]

2. That's a good way to put it

That film felt more like a documentary.

Now I need to go rent Slacker.

[driver8]

3. This is a great movie!! It totally captures what it was like to

go to high school in the seventies.

I know this was shot in Texas, but I felt like I was watching my high school in upstate NY. The keg party at the tower was oh so familiar...as was all the pot smoking.

The year this film takes place, I was the age of the eighth grader that was being chased around. Luckily, my high school didn't do much in the way of hazing.


One of my favorite quotes:

Wooderson: Let me tell you what Melba Toast is packin' right here, alright. We got 411 Positrac outback, 750 double pumper Edelbrock intakes, bored over 30, 11 to 1 pop-up pistons, turbo-jet 390 horsepower. We're talkin' some fuckin' muscle.

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[ghostsofgiants]

4. Hey man I know you got this thing out a comic book.

I saw the ad, $2.95, right next to the sea monkeys. You see that over there? That's white lightning. You see the shoes on that thing, you've got to get some tires for this it's a pizza cutter man.

[gmoney]

5. "Some Fockin' MUSCLE"

Don't forget the Edelbrock intakes!

[ghostsofgiants]

8. God damn I love that movie

[gmoney]

9. The role Matt McConooughehyeehay was born to play...

"...they stay the same age."

[ghostsofgiants]

10. Yes they do.

[GOPisEvil]

6. I look for scenes of my hometown.

I actually have been to Top Notch many times. :9

I'm still trying to figure out exactly where the pool hall is.

[gmoney]

7. Very significant movie for me...

Right around this time, I was in the same position as Randall "Pink" Floyd, being pressured to sign something (job related) that was really against my beliefs...except mine would be legally binding. :)

I didn't sign, and in many ways, it was a pivotal decision and I think a good one, looking back.

But it's really a great movie... personally, I'd say it hangs together better than American Graffiti. I need to watch it again, it's been a while. :)

And I don't even smoke!

[Loonman]

11. "Slacker" inspired Kevin Smith to get off his butt and make movies

Linklater proved anybody with means and talent can make entertaining films average people can relate to.

Dazed....is brilliant.

[MsAnthropy]

12. It is absolutely dead-on in portraying the 70s

I graduated in '74 and it is totally accurate. I love that movie!

[Rising Phoenix]

13. ahhh...memories...

every Wednesday, this theatere showed Dazed and Confused for a buck...My friends and I drove all the way out there got BAKED and laughed our asses off...every fucking Wednesday... I know the whole movie by heart...ahh to be 16