Dazed and Confused (The Criterion Collection) [4K UHD]

A classic movie with better visuals and a fantastic case with awesome art if you do the criterion collection movies or just really like this film it's a great purchase.

I like it so much I gave all three I bought, while they were on sale, to friends. I have to buy another one.

Richard Linklater's first picture, SLACKER, made on a shoestring, earned him a lot of attention, and he somehow managed to persuade Universal Pictures to spend $6 million on his sophomore effort, DAZED & CONFUSED, which follows a group of two dozen suburban Texas kids on the last day of high school in 1976. The studio that financed AMERICAN GRAFFITI several years before may have been hoping that lightning would strike again, and indeed there are intriguing similarities between the two movies. Both of them are ensemble pieces introducing a slew of talented young actors; both observe the cruising and dating rituals of a diverse gang of kids on a single afternoon and night; both feature wall-to-wall scores of golden oldies.But the differences between the two movies are striking as well. AMERICAN GRAFFITI, set in 1962, was a chronicle of the last days of innocence. In DAZED & CONFUSED, innocence is already long gone. These kids, some of them as young as 14 or 15, booze it up, smoke dope, search for sex, and speak in a rush of profanities that might make the characters in a Scorsese movie blush, Unlike the idealistic kids in GRAFFITI, these teenage slackers are aimless and nihilistic. The film is more honest than George Lucas's reminiscence in acknowledging the tensions among the different cliques of high school kids, and it's psychologically perceptive about their conflicting impulses toward conformity and defiance. Linklater's alter ego, the incoming freshman Mitch (Wiley Wiggins), is flattered by the attention he gets from the older jocks even while he despises their infantile high jinks.The performances are persuasive down to the smallest part, and Linklater has a fine ear for the unexpectedly loopy turns of phrase that make these teenagers come to life. He renders all of them -- the drugged out space cadet, the vascillating quarterback, the goons who take an almost psychotic relish in paddling freshman, the nerdy intellectual and the budding feminist -- with wit and affection. To anyone from the AMERICAN GRAFFITI generation, the teenagers in DAZED & CONFUSED may seem as alien as a band of Martians, but Linklater's passionate concern for the clan he's conjured should keep everyone mesmerized.

Love this movie....but I don't remember hearing much about it the year that it came out, 1993. It apparently has gained more popularity SINCE it's release. If you grew up in the '70's, as I did, there'll be alot there to bring back memories for you. The director commentary was a bit disappointing for me, as it seemed like the director was reminising more about his own memories from highschool rather than the memories he had of casting/making the film itself. I think that I recognized Renee Zellweger in a scene: at the beer bust at the moontower, she's the girl in the striped shirt sitting in the back of a pickup truck helping the Parker Posey character dring beer from a funnel. Oh, and another Zellweger sighting in the movie takes place shortly before the Wooderson (McConeghy) line, 'that's what I like about these highschool girls....I get older, they stay exactly the same.' It's pretty cool to see actors like Matthew McConeghy and Ben Affleck before they became famous......and even actors like Parker Posey, Milla Jojovich, Rory Cochrane, and Adam Goldberg who have since gained fame in more of a character actor genre. Before there was MTV, video games, cell phones.....pretty much all high school age kids had to do during summer in the '70's was ride around in cars and see what was going on. And the whole plot of this movie takes place the last day of school before summer break. And the rising freshmen boys were running scared from the senior boys who were only interested in their hazing ritual.....paddling them with thick, wooden paddles. And the rising freshmen girls didn't escape, either, they were treated like babies, complete with pacifiers, covered with food, and forced to "propose" to senior boys. It's fun to follow the Mitch and Sabrina characters, each fresh from their hazing rituals, being allowed to follow along with the older kids during the day's/night's events. It's alot of retro fun.....

In some ways this movie reminded me of my high school days in the early 1970's. The music was great and cars are fantastic to see. The story line makes me laugh a lot. A very enjoyable movie to watch. However, some of the things I never saw in high school such as the older kids taking a wood paddle to the younger kids. In my day it was the vice principle who had the wood paddle and in those days the parents, like my own, gave him the authority to use it if he needed to.