Dazed And Confused [1993]

Drama

Director

Richard Linklater

Director Richard Linklater turned his free-range verite sensibility on the 1970s in Dazed and Confused after changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard.

The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?". It's a little too honest to be a light comedy ("If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself.") But it's also way too much fun to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour