Dazed and Confused

Plot synopsis:
It is May 28, 1976, the last day of school at Lee High School in the suburbs of Austin, Texas. The next year's group of seniors are preparing for the annual hazing of incoming freshmen. Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London), the school's star football player, is asked to sign a pledge promising not to take drugs during the summer or do anything that would, "jeopardize the goal of a championship season". When classes end, the incoming freshman boys are hunted down by the seniors and paddled. The incoming freshman girls are also hazed; they are rounded up in the school parking lot by senior girls, covered in mustard, ketchup, flour and raw eggs, and forced to propose to senior boys.
Freshman Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins) escapes the initial hazing with his best friend Carl Burnett (Esteban Powell), but is later cornered after a baseball game and violently paddled. Fred O'Bannion (Ben Affleck), a senior participating in the hazing tradition for a second year after failing to graduate, delights in punishing Mitch. Pink gives the injured Mitch a ride home and offers to take him cruising with friends that night. Plans for the evening are ruined when Kevin Pickford's (Shawn Andrews) parents discover he planned to host a keg party. Elsewhere, the intellectual trio of Cynthia Dunn (Marissa Ribisi), Tony Olson (Anthony Rapp), and Mike Newhouse (Adam Goldberg) decide to participate in the evening's activities. Pink and his friend David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey), a man in his early 20s who still socializes with high school students, pick up Mitch and head for the Emporium, a pool hall frequented by teenagers.
As the evening progresses, students loiter around the Emporium, listen to rock music, cruise the neighborhood and stop at the hamburger drive-in. Mitch is introduced to sophomore Julie Simms (Catherine Avril Morris), with whom he shares a mutual attraction. While cruising again with Pink, Pickford, and Don Dawson (Sasha Jenson), Mitch drinks beer and smokes marijuana for the first time. After a game of mailbox baseball, a neighborhood resident brandishing a gun threatens to call the police. They barely escape after the resident fires at their car. After returning to the Emporium, Mitch runs into his middle school friends. They hatch a plan to get revenge on O'Bannion. The plan culminates with them dumping paint on O'Bannion, who leaves in a fit of rage.
After the Emporium closes, an impromptu keg party is planned in a field under a moonlight tower. Cynthia, Tony and Mike arrive at their first keg party, where Mike is threatened by tough guy, Clint Bruno (Nicky Katt). Tony runs into freshman Sabrina Davis (Christin Hinojosa), whom he met earlier during the hazing, and they begin hanging out together. Cynthia likes Wooderson and exchanges phone numbers with him. Mike, suffering from the humiliation of his confrontation with Clint, decides to make a stand, punches him, and gets tackled. The fight is broken up by Pink and Wooderson. Football player Benny O'Donnell (Cole Hauser) confronts Pink about his refusal to sign the pledge. Pink, the only player not to have signed, believes it violates his individuality and beliefs. Mitch leaves the keg party with Julie. They drive to a nearby hill overlooking town to make out. Tony gives Sabrina a ride home and they kiss good night.
As night turns to dawn, Pink, Wooderson, Don, Ron Slater (Rory Cochrane) and several other friends decide to smoke marijuana on the 50-yard line of the football field. The police arrive, so they ditch the drugs. Recognizing Pink, the police call Coach Conrad, his football coach. Conrad lectures Pink about hanging out with "losers" and insists that he sign the pledge. Pink says that he might play football, but he is not going to sign the pledge. Pink leaves with his friends to get tickets to an Aerosmith concert. Mitch arrives home after sunrise to find his mother has waited up for him. She decides against punishment but warns him about coming home late again. Mitch goes to his bedroom, puts on headphones and listens to "Slow Ride" by Foghat as Pink, Wooderson, Slater and Simone Kerr (Joey Lauren Adams) travel down a highway to purchase their tickets.

Tags: pornographic, cult, revenge, psychedelic

Review:
We didn't have the freshman hazing, and few of us could afford the cars (although we sure knew about them and lusted after them), but the rest of this movie is so dead on about my experience of High School in the 70's that it's scary.
To me it's a toss-up between the opening "Sweet Emotion" GTO in the school parking lot and the Emporium scene with "Hurricane" playing in the background while (The Past) Wooderson, (The Present) Pink and (The Future) Mitch walk into the Emporium while the camera films every little nuance in slow motion.
Geils, Midnight Special, Wings Over America tour, Bad Company - Movin' On, Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes, SD 455 with the Big Bird on the hood, Marshall Tucker Band - Heard It In A Love Song, Emerson, Lake and Palmer - Brain Salad Surgery, Edelbrock Tunnel Ram with Holley Double Pumpers, getting high at dusk while listening to Pink Floyd's "Time" and looking at the Dallas skyscraper skyline against the setting sun.If you do then Dazed and Confused is right up your alley.
And of course this was an early movie for director Richard Linklater, who had made the relatively unknown "Slackers" previously and who would go on to make "School of Rock", which was almost as good as "Dazed and Confused".Taking place on the last day of school in a small suburban town, "Dazed and Confused" is a brilliant ensemble piece rivaling anything done by Robert Altman that covers the broadest spectrum of teenagers imaginable.
The dialogue is fresh and unexpected; lines about George Washington's proclivity for marijuana, why you just gotta love high school girls ("I get older, they stay the same age", as McConaughey's character says), and the herd mentality when a fight breaks out demonstrate how all-over-the-map the dialogue can be, and it's always affecting and usually quite funny.
I never even heard of the film until this year when I saw most of it on TV and promptly decided to pick it up the DVD when I got the chance.To my mind, "Dazed and Confused" is one of the best high school comedy-dramas, along with 1982's "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." The difference between these two films is that "Fast Times" contains more goofy antics whereas "Dazed" is more of a docudrama with amusing flashes.
In other words, although "Fast Times is generally realistic, excepting the over-the-top parts with Spicoli, "Dazed and Confused" is more like a slice from real life.What makes "Dazed" work so well is that it gets the LOOK of the mid-to-late 70s just right, particularly the hair & clothing styles.
Speaking of the actors, you get a few up-and-comers here: Matthew McConaughey, Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck and one or two of lesser note (as far as future popularity goes).All the standard school archetypes are here: the jock who parties on the side, the bullies, the hot sister and her little long-haired brother, the black dude, the hot (feminist) teacher, the streetfighter, the cool guys, the geekier crowd, the babes, the guy who graduated years ago but still hangs around, the mentors & mentees, etc.And then you have the standard school experiences like parties at friend's houses, keg parties, fleeing bullies, dealing with coaches & teachers, flirting, the possibility of sex, hanging out, meaningless conversations, fights, smoking pot at school or in your friend's bedroom, etc.Like "Fast Times," "Dazed and Confused" is a joy to watch -- whatever your age -- because it successfully takes you back to the high school years with all its joys & agonies.Some don't like it because it's more of a slice-of-life film than a plot-driven, contrived story.
But -- really -- this isn't a movie to look for deep messages, its simple purpose is to take you back to the school years -- in this case, 1976 -- and all the fun & painful experiences thereof.No review of "Dazed and Confused" would be complete without noting the excellent soundtrack.
There is a certain innocence about the period that our up-tight and violent world of today could use right now.Our film shows us the trials and tribulations of kids just looking to get high, drunk, or just save their butts from being paddled on the last day of school.
Smith, Ben Affleck, Christin Hinjosa, Parker Posey, Nicky Katt.Directed by Richard Linklater."Dazed and Confused" is one of the best teen films ever made, and for many reasons.
Dazed and Confused has a lot in common with Fast Times at Ridgemont High; both movies contain a lot of future stars playing teenagers, both have lots of terrific Rock tunes on the soundtrack, and both derive laughs from their characters and situations and not through jokes, pratfalls and other typical Hollywood clichés.
One difference between the two films is that Dazed and Confused is a period-piece, filmed in 1993 it takes place in 1976, and directer Richard Linklater does a marvelous job capturing the habits, the styles and the attitudes of the era.
The movie follows a group of high school juniors and another group of 8th graders (next years seniors and freshmen)through the events surrounding the last day of school in Austin, Texas in 1976 (the whole film takes place in approximately 24 hours).
At this point I need to mention Wooderson (McConaughey,in his film debut), a key character, he's that 20-something dude that still hangs with the high school crowd.
so its worth viewing for historical and social aspects as well as its entertainment value.But anyway, I hope you enjoy one of my personal favorites...a really cool, funny and realistic look at what teenage life was like in so many towns in America in the mid-70s.It may be set in Texas, but it could just as easily be Ohio..
And it is likewise plainly obvious in the film just as it was in real life, the senior boys learned this bizarre monkey-like behavior from those bastions of simian progress, their "coaches", roles universally filled by academic failures who represent the Wooderson's of the future.As disturbing as the hazing is, it belongs in the film because it was there, it was real, it was a part of our lives in that time and place, and I felt a delicious satisfaction when that one kid's mom met O'Bannion at the front porch cocking a shotgun.
But if you, like the filmmaker, were a Texas high school student in those amazingly permissive 1970's, and didn't particularly hate your life at the time, I think you'll absolutely love it.
Although, the cast is pretty impressive - maybe not when this movie was made, but, in retrospect, there are a fair few Hollywood A-listers all here in the younger (pre-fame) days.However, as much as I didn't really like it, I had to give it credit for getting the 'look' of the period right on.
Taking the setup from the classic American Graffiti and switching the setting to post-Vietnam in 1976, this is a coming-of-age story about a group of teenagers that for the most part represents what the entire young generation of that time was feeling and going through.
The film covers one last day of school filled with many happenings including, hazing freshmen, playing mailbox baseball and getting shot at, as well as drinking lots of beer and smoking lots of marijuana.
Headlining it are a young Ben Affleck as a crazed senior determined to make the freshmen's summer miserable, Milla Jovovich who I don't think utters more than five lines in the whole movie, and Matthew McConaughey as an older guy who still hangs out with the high schoolers but is so cool and organizes the get-togethers.This movie is very funny in some parts, but it is also very deep.
It's a movie where if you like it you'll watch over and over and over and over again (I think I've seen it 20 times since last year.).
The 1950s has "American Graffiti" and now the 1970s has "Dazed and Confused." Both are well-developed depictions of life in America during those decades with a focus around high school, growing up and making important decisions about what to do and how to live life.
Both also gather a killer soundtrack from each decade and the result is more about evoking nostalgia and showing those too young to know what life was like.Director and writer Richard Linklater does good work with this film about high schoolers (mostly incoming seniors) on the last day of school.
Linklater's focus appears to be showing the many ways that teens handled life and how they felt about it in 1976 through mishaps and comedic moments.The cast is a lot of fun, especially because a lot of actors when they were a bit younger appear in the film: Ben Affleck, Matthew McCounaughy, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams ("Big Daddy"), Anthony Rapp ("RENT") and even more.
Good thing because I probably would've punched anyone who was.The sick feeling I got when watching "Dazed & Confused" was a lot like the sick feeling I got when watching Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange", except that Clockwork is a powerful, intentionally unsettling film with a purpose while D&C is just a mess.
While, yes, these things were known to happen in the 70s, it was only about as frequent as you'd expect today, generally describing the 0.05% bored rich kids whose mommies & daddies were buying them cars while the rest of us were schlepping around in our rusty Dodge Darts because that's all our part-time jobs would cover (minimum wage: $2.35/hr in 1976).It quickly becomes obvious that this movie wasn't trying to give us an accurate portrayal of the 70s so much as it was a series of gratuitous 70s clichés.
It is particularly irritating that the movie would take its title from the great atmospheric Zeppelin song "Dazed & Confused" while not acknowledging it once in the film.
Not mainstream enough, I guess.If you want a cool, nostalgic 70s trip with poignant music (not just the regurgitated radio crap), check out the films of Gabrielle Salvatores with obscure yet awesome songs like Deep Purple "Child in Time" or the movie Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas with Jefferson Airplane's incomparable "White Rabbit" or for you serious 70s rock fans, the movie "Buffalo 66" with great songs by bands like Yes & King Crimson.
Fine performances from mostly unknown cast(and on their way to bigger and better things)  and great soundtrack makes for an authentic , nostalgic addition to the likes of "American Graffiti" and "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
They are members of the incoming freshman class and, as part of a time-honored tradition, they are about to be totally and painfully humiliated by the new seniors.Dazed and Confused explores the beginning of the 1976 summer from the varying perspectives of an unusual group of characters.
But recently I watched it again, only this time it was put on in the beginning stages of a party at a friends, where essentially there was the same mood as in the film which made it more enjoyable (this, and that my friends had a drinking game that whenever Affleck of McConaughey came up on the screen someone had to chug a beer, but that's obviously besides the point).
His film is for people just like in the movie, those who are going through the rites and passages of adolescence, and that can either make people feel pity for the characters, or humor.
Bottom line, Dazed and Confused does the one day, one night time capsule bit to as far as it can go, and it's a very entertaining like that- that, plus a fantastic set of 70's songs...speaking of which, no one should complain that the title track from Zep isn't on the soundtrack since they nearly never give license for their songs to be in movies (the only exceptions I can think of are Small Soldiers which had Communication Breakdown, and Almost Famous which had a few songs, but was only because of Zep's friendship with Crowe)...and this all being said, it becomes a little more compulsively watchable on repeat viewings; perhaps making it Linklater's most accessible film..
Reading some of the comments here, you would think that this film painted an idyllic picture about the transition from childhood to adulthood, as represented by the final days of junior high/high school.Whilst the film does paint a picture of teens frantically trying to have a good time at any expense, the film seems more about bullying, both physical and psychological, and about the sad depths that American teens will go to conform.Supercially, this appears to be a standard teen movie, but I suspect that what at first appears to be a deliberately blasé approach to ritual beatings, is actually a quite subtle way of drawing attention to the "lives of quiet desperation" endured by many of the characters.The director is either a lot smarter or a lot less pleasant than you can tell at first glance.
I give a low score because even if the director was making a social commentary, the film was moderately unpleasant to watch, from a European's point of view.There are some here who doubtless empathise with the jocks and the party lifestyle, but then they were probably the same people who, in their school years, made life miserable for those around them.I don't know if this unpleasant movie really does depict American teen life, then or now, but if it does, it certainly explains a lot....
Linklater manages to keep this teen film, with characters revolving around the end of a school year, very down to earth and authentic feeling.
(about 60 miles north of Austin, where the film is set.) Everything from the kids hanging out by their Pick-up trucks in the parking lot of school, to the Freshmen initiations, to the beer keg party out in the middle of nowhere is SOOOO High School in Texas at that time.
I especially love the soundtrack since it reminds me of how my big sister introduced me to "cool rock & roll" ala "Almost Famous." Change the music and clothes and it was pretty much the same when I entered High School four years later in 1980.
I loved this movie it was amazing.......it brings back awesome memories that i never had.....it makes me wish we were still in those times....the best part is when they are throwing garbage cans.....and in the beginning when Pickford says " Slater-San " that whole scene is great.....I've watched this movie like 20 times within a month of owning it............
The remarkable thing about this movie is that each time you watch it it actually gets better.
I think everything is always about me, but this movie was the closest thing to an autobiographical portrayal of my high school years, and I don't even know Mr. Linklater..
A great cast of yet-to-be stars, a great script and a movie that reflects what it was like to grow up in the '70's as a high school kid.
It was one of the first things that came to me after first watching this movie and while it may not have the same mass appeal for anyone who grew up in the mid-70's it brings back memories of parties, friends, school and of course the music.
Dazed and Confused is a classic teen film depicting life as a high schooler.
Few of them succeed in creating the more valid, profound and honest interpretation of teen life.Dazed and Confused is a film without a story, but that is intentional because the film is about depicting the best years of our lives and when you can just do things in your time and the way you want them.
Yes kiddies..being a High School grad from '76 I will definitely concur on the "spot-on-ness" of Dazed and Confused, especially in the music.(although it takes place in Texas, it was a bit lacking in ZZ Top.."Beer Drinker-Hell Raiser" comes to mind.)Truly a "way-back" machine with attention to detail:those polyester-nylon Little League uniforms still make me cringe and those laughable (sansa-belt?) athletic shorts worn by the football coaches -"yeah,right coach".The acting is fine through-out.Yes there was a fair amount of"sparking a J"(not to mention a laundry list of pills and powders) and cracking a brewski.
I like this movie anyway but the fact that it was filmed in Austin, Texas where I live makes it that much better.
The movie is such a great escape from today, a good study of the 70s for teens in America and I always enjoy it since it froze time for me at the school that I went to back in 1993....
Fast Times at Ridgemont High looks like Shakespeare when compared to this movie..
Dazed and Confused is a great, funny movie that brought back some good memories of my high school days.
So many teen high school films these days are moronic and try way too hard to be funny to immature kids.
But I had my good times too in high school and the qualities this film presents are true of all teenagers, regardless of when they were born.Dazed and Confused chronicles the lives of teenagers in the seventies, a portrayal that seems to suggest a grander and more carefree way of life.
Overall, Dazed and Confused is a real original, a high school movie that really doesn't try to be anything more than an interesting and funny and even poignant portrayal of high school students and their thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
This is one of the greatest high school films of all time for me.
Watching this film recently made me think that maybe I missed out on something in high school.
A lot of the antics in this movie, as well as the characters, remind me of my days growing up.A great cast of relative unknown actors (at the time) are in this film.