Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12234 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-10-05
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 98 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
Richard Linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED takes a hysterical, nostalgic cross-clique look at American high school social development. On the last day of school in May 1976, students at a suburban Texas high school wait, lackadaisically, for classes to end. The restless almost-seniors--an eclectic group of stone-heads, fraternal jocks, and snobby sorority girls--can't wait to haze the incoming freshman, an annual event as harrowing for freshman boys as it is humiliating for girls. Amidst this teenage wasteland of drugs, partying, and rock and roll is football star Pink (Jason London), who saves scrawny pre-frosh Mitch (Wiley Wiggins) from being paddled to oblivion by upper-classmates. But Pink has his own battles: he's struggling over the head coach's demand that football players sign a pledge to abstain from sex and all psychoactive substances. When a wild end-of-the-year party is cancelled, the students end up congregating at a beer-blast in the back woods, organized by aging hang-about Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey). In the same way that George Lucas assembled a cast of fresh young faces for AMERICAN GRAFFITI, Linklater here creates an unforgettable cast of characters that are immediately familiar to anyone who has ever been through high school.

Customer Reviews

Amazed and Amused
Director Richard Linklater's nostalgic 'Dazed and Confused' is a hilarious slice of '70s life. A superb ensemble cast delivers a funny, dead-on portrait of American teenage life in the mid-1970s. Released in 1993, look out for early roles from Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughy, Parker Posey and Milla Jovovich.

'Dazed and Confused' follows the exploits of various groups of high school students on the last day of school in 1976, from their high school, to drug fuelled parties and binge drinking. What separates this film from other high school movies is that although it is inherently a comedy, it offers a deeper, more meaningful message about growing up and the future, as the characters resist the responsibilities that inevitably await them.

Arguably one of the best attributes of this highly enjoyable film is the music that accompanies it, with classic hits from Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, Black Sabbath, Kiss, ZZ Top and War to name but a few.

Definitely a must see and highly recommended!!!

Nostalgia in a $15 quarter bag
Writer-Director Richard Linklatter's head-trip back to the 70s is as nostalgic and feel-good as George Lucas' AMERICAN GRAFITTI without all that innocence of youth crap. It captures a bevy of high school kids in a small Texas town on the last day of school, 1976. From the films opening shot to the closing one the audience is taken back to a time of great guitar rock, pinball machine halls, grass and keg parties, tight hip-huggers and a time where political correctness didn't exist, random drug-screens for high school athletes were unheard of and everything just seemed happier. Linklatter delivers a script that flows with interlocking dialogue so smoothly it may remind some viewers of Robert Altman, as the variety of different characters celebrate two hours of nothing important to the payoff of delightful entertainment. Even if you weren't alive for the 70s, this film will make you appreciate the simplicity of the time without succumbing to the garage sale technique of shoving lava lamps, beaded curtains, and "Have a Nice Day" posters in its audience's face. Terrific performances by Jason London, Joey Lawrence Adams, Ben Affleck, Matthew McConnoghy, Rory Cochrane and Sasha Mitchell. Rater R for profanity, drug use and sexual humor.

Shotgun...
Hello! what a great movie, a real cult classic for the slacker generation. 1976 marked the 200th year since the American declaration of independence and in 1993 this retrospective marked the progress that American society had made over the intervening period. Hmmm. That can't be right, this is a movie about stoners, stoners who hate school and like beer and pool-halls and some sadistic ritual involving sticks and young boys (still not sure what that is all about). Make up your own minds.

O Jason London where art thou? London's understated charisma and cross-allegiance between the jocks and the stoners is the centre piece of this movie as it whirls about the end of school, a busted house-party, a beer-bust by the moontower, riding around in cars smashing post-boxes and talking about Martha Washington's hobby of growing marijuana..?? Who cares what the plot is, just enjoy the ride and the soundtrack and wish you were there. While you're doing it watch out for appearances from Parker Posey, Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck (great hairdo) and Matthew Mconnaughey.

Oh, and next time you go to get in the car and someone else is driving, don't forget to call shotgun....