Dazed and Confused (film)

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Dazed and Confused
Dazed and Confused film poster
Directed by	Richard Linklater
Produced by	Sean Daniel James Jacks Richard Linklater
Written by	Richard Linklater
Starring	Jason London Matthew McConaughey Ben Affleck Milla Jovovich Rory Cochrane Parker Posey Cole Hauser Joey Lauren Adams
Cinematography	Lee Daniel
Editing by	Sandra Adair
Distributed by	Universal Studios Gramercy Pictures
Release date(s)	September 24, 1993
Running time	102 min
Country	USA
Language	English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Dazed and Confused is a 1993 American film written and directed by Richard Linklater. The movie's large ensemble cast featured a number of future stars.

The movie tells the stories of the last day of school in May 1976 in a Texas suburb. It was shot on location in Austin, Texas. The camera dips in and out of the lives of a variety of students at the school, rather than focusing on a single individual—in a manner reminiscent of, but less extreme than, Linklater's earlier film Slacker, which was likewise shot on location in Austin.

The film took in less than $8 million at the box office, but in recent years has achieved cult film status. Quentin Tarantino included it on his list of the twelve greatest films of all time in voting in the 2002 Sight and Sound poll. It also ranked number 3 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Reception 3 Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (1993) 4 Even More Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (1994) 5 Book 6 Criterion Collection DVD 7 Main cast 8 Reunions of cast members 9 References in popular culture 10 Miscellaneous trivia 11 See Also 12 External links

[edit] Plot

The film takes place on May 28th, 1976, the last day of school at Lee High School in Texas. The seniors are preparing for the annual hazing of incoming freshmen by building paddles and buying cooking supplies; meanwhile, Randall "Pink" Floyd, the school's star football player, is asked to sign a school pledge, promising not to take drugs during the sporting season. When classes end, the freshman boys are hunted down for paddling while the freshman girls are covered in condiments, forced to propose to senior boys and taken through a carwash. During this time, freshman Sabrina strikes a chord with senior Tony.

A major evening plan is ruined when Pickford's parents discover that he is planning to host a keg party that night. Meanwhile, freshman Mitch is violently paddled by the seniors, most of all by O'Bannion, the nastiest and dumbest of the class. Mitch gets a ride home with Pink, who is shown to be sympathetic and offers to take Mitch riding with the others that night. Meanwhile, Tony drives around with his friends Cynthia and Mike, who is uncertain about what to do after high school. Mitch rides with Pink and Wooderson, who graduated years ago but still hangs out with highschoolers.

The three of them stop at the Emporium, a popular pool hall. Mitch is introduced to sophomore Julie, and they seem to be mutually attracted to each other. Mitch goes driving again with some of the seniors. They play mailbox baseball and pretend to steal beer, but an owner of one of the mailboxes catches them and threatens them with a gun before they escape. They return to the Emporium, where Mitch meets up with his freshmen friends. They come up with a plan to get revenge on O'Bannion and dump paint on him in front of everybody else.

A new keg party is planned at the local Moontower, which attracts essentially the entire senior class and several of the freshmen. Mike has a confrontation with toughguy Clint while Tony meets up with Sabrina again and Cynthia exchanges phone numbers with Wooderson. Ben confronts Pink about his refusal to sign the pledge but he is still unsure, believing it violates students' privacy and lifestyles. Mike picks a fight with Clint but ends up getting hurt. Mitch runs into Julie and they hit it off again, and are later shown making out.

As night turns to dawn, Pink, Wooderson, Don, Slater and Simone smoke on the school football field, which the police soon notice. The school football coach is called and tells Pink that his friends are part of a bad crowd. Pink throws the pledge at the coach and leaves with his friends to get tickets to an Aerosmith concert. Meanwhile, Mitch arrives home at sunrise but his mother decides to go easy on him. Tony drops Sabrina off at her house and then kisses her. The film ends with Pink and his friends driving on a highway.

[edit] Reception

When the film was first released on September 24th, 1993, it was not the most prominent or talked-about film of the year, and not many critics were bothered to review it. Indeed, in the years since the film's release, only thirty-seven reviews have been counted on website Rotten Tomatoes. Still, of those reviews, only one of them is negative, and the film has achieved the status of a cult classic over the years. Roger Ebert awarded the film three stars out of four, praising the film as "art crossed with anthropology" with a "painful underside." [1] The film currently holds a 7.3/10 rating on the Internet Movie Database [2] and continues to draw positive notices. However, James Berardinelli is one of the film's detractors, who awarded the film two stars out of four, writing that the "storyline is minimal and the characters' personalities are as hazy as the marijuana-drenched atmosphere." [3]

The film opened in 183 theaters, grossing $918,127 for a per-theater average of $5,017. The film ultimately grossed just under $8 million, collecting back its $6 million production budget.^{[citation needed]} Over the years, however, the film has gained considerable popularity on home video and has been elevated to the status of a cult classic; indeed, the film currently holds a higher rating on IMDb than Fast Times at Ridgemont High [4].

[edit] Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (1993)

1. Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer
2. Slow Ride - Foghat
3. School's Out - Alice Cooper
4. Jim Dandy - Black Oak Arkansas
5. Tush - ZZ Top
6. Love Hurts - Nazareth
7. Stranglehold - Ted Nugent
8. Cherry Bomb - The Runaways
9. Fox on the Run - Sweet
10. Low Rider - War
11. Tuesday's Gone - Lynyrd Skynyrd
12. Highway Star - Deep Purple
13. Rock and Roll All Nite - KISS
14. Paranoid - Black Sabbath

[edit] Even More Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (1994)

1. Free Ride - Edgar Winter Group
2. No More Mr. Nice Guy - Alice Cooper
3. Livin' In The USA - The Steve Miller Band
4. Never Been Any Reason - Head East
5. Why Can't We Be Friends? - War
6. Summer Breeze - Seals and Crofts
7. Right Place, Wrong Time - Dr. John
8. Balinese - ZZ Top
9. Lord Have Mercy On My Soul - Black Oak Arkansas
10. I Just Want To Make Love to You - Foghat
11. Show Me The Way - Peter Frampton
12. Do You Feel Like We Do? - Peter Frampton

[edit] Book

In September of 1993, St. Martin's Press published a 127-page, softcover book (ISBN #0-312-09466-3) that was inspired by the screenplay by Richard Linklater and compiled by Richard Linklater, Denise Montgomery and others. It was presented as a kind of yearbook that contained essays written by characters from the film as well as profiles on the characters, a timeline focusing on the years 1973 to 1977 and various 1970s pop culture charts and quizzes. It also featured dozens of black-and-white photos from the film.

Some of the the material contained in the original 1993 book was reprinted in the 72-page book included with the Criterion DVD release in 2006.

[edit] Criterion Collection DVD

A two-disc Criterion Collection boxed-set edition was released on June 6, 2006, in the USA and Canada only. The set features an audio commentary by Richard Linklater, deleted scenes, the original trailer, the 50 minute "Making Dazed" documentary that aired on the American Movie Classics channel on September 18, 2005, on-set interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, cast auditions and footage from the ten-year anniversary celebration. Also included is a 72-page book featuring new essays by Kent Jones, Jim DeRogatis, and Chuck Klosterman as well as memories from the cast and crew, character profiles (as seen in the original 1993 book) and a mini reproduction of the original film poster designed by Frank Kozik.

The film has also been released on the new High Definition video format called HD DVD.

[edit] Main cast

Actor	Role
Jason London	Randall "Pink" Floyd
Matthew McConaughey	David Wooderson
Sasha Jenson	Don Dawson
Shawn Andrews	Kevin Pickford
Ben Affleck	Fred O'Bannion
Milla Jovovich	Michelle Burroughs
Rory Cochrane	Ron Slater
Anthony Rapp	Tony Olson
Christine Harnos	Kaye Faulkner
Jason O. Smith	Melvin Spivey
Wiley Wiggins	Mitch Kramer
Adam Goldberg	Mike Newhouse
Marissa Ribisi	Cynthia Dunn
Cole Hauser	Benny O'Donnell
Joey Lauren Adams	Simone Kerr
Michelle Burke	Jodi Kramer
Christin Hinojosa	Sabrina Davis
Parker Posey	Darla Marks
Tim Hayes	Tdiddy
Catherine Avril Morris	Julie Simms
Deena Martin	Shavonne Wright
Esteban Powell	Carl Burnett
Mark Vandermeulen	Tommy Houston
Jeremy Fox	John Hirschfelder
Nicky Katt	Clint Bruno
Rick Moser	Assistant Football Coach

[edit] Reunions of cast members

• In the movie Empire Records, a Dazed and Confused sticker can be seen on the cash register. Rory Cochrane and Renée Zellweger, who had an uncredited appearance in this movie, appeared in both films.
• Ben Affleck and Joey Lauren Adams would reunite on screen a number of times in Kevin Smith's movies, including Mallrats, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Chasing Amy, the latter in which they both had lead roles. Coincidentally, the first movie they had roles in, Mallrats, starred Jeremy London, Jason London's twin brother. Affleck would also reunite with Nicky Katt in the film Phantoms.
• Adam Goldberg and Anthony Rapp are once again cast together in the Academy award winning film, A Beautiful Mind, as colleagues of the main character, John Nash, played by Russell Crowe.

[edit] References in popular culture

• Family Guy has re-enacted various scenes of this movie. Chris Griffin gets smacked by Adam West, while cartoon versions of Benny, Melvin, and Don react in the same manner as the original scene when Mitch Kramer is given his hazing, complete with the background music (“No More Mr. Nice Guy” by Alice Cooper).
• In the Family Guy episode “8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter”, Brian Griffin is portrayed as Matthew McConaughey's character and repeats his line about high school girls, and after the Griffin family drives off, the Evil Monkey sits on his bed, puts on headphones playing "Slow Ride" by Foghat, and rolls a joint.
• The movie Grind parodies Matthew McConaughey's character, complete with the line about high school girls. Jason London and Sasha Jenson also have roles in the movie.
• In the film Can't Hardly Wait (1998), which also takes place on the night of the last day of school, a stoned guy at the party says "She was a hip, hip, hip lady," a line spoken by Rory Cochrane in Dazed and Confused.
• In the television series The Office (US TV series), while playing the "desert island game" Pam Beesly cites the movie as her third favorite of all time and Jim Halpert says it's in his "top five."

[edit] Miscellaneous trivia

• Matthew McConaughey's production company's name, "JKL Productions", comes from Wooderson's life motto: 'Just Keep Livin'.
• The song that Milla Jovovich plays on her guitar is an excerpt from "The Alien Song" from her 1994 album The Divine Comedy.
• In October 2004, three of Linklater's former classmates, whose surnames are Wooderson, Slater, and Floyd, filed a defamation lawsuit against Linklater, claiming to be the basis for the similarly named characters on the film. The lawsuit was filed in New Mexico rather than Texas because New Mexico has a longer statute of limitations [5]
• The Top Notch [6] burger joint shown in the film is located at 7525 Burnet Rd. Austin, TX 78757 just up the road from Champion Printing.
• It is revealed in the Criterion Collection DVD documentaries that Ashley Judd read for a role; also, that Vince Vaughn was considered for the role of Benny, but Linklater decided he looked too similar to Ben Affleck, so Cole Hauser was cast instead.
• The pinball machine in the Emporium can also be seen in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life, which stars Wiley Wiggins.

[edit] See Also

• Almost Famous
• Detroit Rock City (film)

[edit] External links

• Dazed and Confused at the Internet Movie Database
• Dazed and Confused at Rotten Tomatoes
• Bummer, Man - Washington Post article on Wooderson, Slater and Floyd suing Linklater for "defamation" and "negligent infliction of emotional distress."
• Radio Interview with Richard Linklater

Films directed by Richard Linklater
It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books • Slacker • Dazed and Confused • Before Sunrise • subUrbia • The Newton Boys • Waking Life • Tape • School of Rock • Before Sunset • Bad News Bears • A Scanner Darkly • Fast Food Nation