#94. Dazed and Confused
(Richard Linklater, 1993)
"All I'm saying is that, if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."
(Richard Linklater, 1993)
"All I'm saying is that, if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."
In making a film based on his experiences as a teenager in 1970s Texas, Linklater didn't set out to make an overly nostalgic vehicle - that a sizeable chunk of the film's runtime is spent on seniors hazing freshmen definitely takes the screws to that idea, to say nothing of the various ways in which it wrings comedy out of the more questionable aspects of the film's milieu (I especially like the liquor store clerk blithely giving parenting advice to a pregnant customer before selling beer to the 14-year-old protagonist - contrast that against a modern imitator like Superbad making its entire plot about a desperate all-night-long odyssey simply to acquire any alcohol). Despite all the ways in which Linklater paints a decidedly unflattering portrayal of his younger years, even he can't avoid giving in to the party vibes he's depicting with a rocking soundtrack and an aimless filmmaking approach as indebted to Altman as American Graffiti that perfectly captures the sensation of wandering from group to group at a party with little in the way of external plot or action driving the various intertwining narratives. Underneath it all, he grounds his vast array of high school stereotypes with just enough depth (or the right lack of it) to make its tale of busting loose for one night (or possibly more) really sing.
2005 ranking: N/A
2013 ranking: #40
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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0
I really just want you all angry and confused the whole time.