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Dazed and Confused
Directed by Richard Linklater
September 24, 1993
This is where the fun begins. Not because I love this movie, but because I've never seen it. Random.org sets me up today with Dazed and Confused - a movie I can only assume is about sex, beer, drugs, and high-pitched McConaughey laughter.
I have heard that it's one of the most underrated movies of all time, so let's hope it lives up to that.
Approx. 103 minutes later:
Dazed and Confused may well be one of the most underrated movies of all time. The reason is precisely because of how it's marketed. Most probably expect a Superbad/Fast Times at Richmond High experience (fun, but overall shallow), and what they get is a carefully thought out coming-of-age story and man, it's smoky in here.
The characters feel so tangible at certain times in the film, it's as if you're watching real people act a fool when they were in high school, a candid camera carefully trained on them. Almost everyone delivers a genuine performance, something that many directors are lucky to have a handful of in their cast. Even McConaughey. I guess. But he totally high-pitch laughed.
One of my favorite things about this movie was that they had so many opportunities to make it shallow, but they didn't. I'll take this time to throw out there - No nudity. I know, surprised me, too.
The protagonist, Pink, throughout the movie, is having internal conflict on whether to "sell out". Taken literally, yes, the particular rebellion itself is petty and stupid. But the symbolism of him standing up to his coach for his "hoodlum friends" is really what the whole movie is about. One of his lines to his coach is "You don't even know them", so the film is careful to make that statement not apply to the audience. We do know them now.
And yes. They're hoodlums.
But we love them for it.
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