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Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused
“Melissa Maerz’s brilliant oral history is the definitive account of a cult-classic movie that took a slow ride into the Seventies and defined the Nineties.” –Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone
The definitive oral history of the cult classic Dazed and Confused , featuring behind-the-scenes stories from the cast, crew, and Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater.
Dazed and Confused not only heralded the arrival of filmmaker Richard Linklater, it introduced a cast of unknowns who would become the next generation of movie stars. Embraced as a cultural touchstone, the 1993 film would also make Matthew McConaughey’s famous phrase—alright, alright, alright—ubiquitous. But it started with a simple idea: Linklater thought people might like to watch a movie about high school kids just hanging out and listening to music on the last day of school in 1976.
To some, that might not even sound like a movie. But to a few studio executives, it sounded enough like the next American Graffiti to justify the risk. Dazed and Confused underperformed at the box office and seemed destined to disappear. Then something weird happened: Linklater turned out to be right. This wasn’t the kind of movie everybody liked, but it was the kind of movie certain people loved, with an intensity that felt personal. No matter what their high school experience was like, they thought Dazed and Confused was about them.
Alright, Alright, Alright is the story of how this iconic film came together and why it worked. Combining behind-the-scenes photos and insights from nearly the entire cast, including Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and many others, and with full access to Linklater’s Dazed archives, it offers an inside look at how a budding filmmaker and a cast of newcomers made a period piece that would feel timeless for decades to come.
The definitive oral history of the cult classic Dazed and Confused , featuring behind-the-scenes stories from the cast, crew, and Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater.
Dazed and Confused not only heralded the arrival of filmmaker Richard Linklater, it introduced a cast of unknowns who would become the next generation of movie stars. Embraced as a cultural touchstone, the 1993 film would also make Matthew McConaughey’s famous phrase—alright, alright, alright—ubiquitous. But it started with a simple idea: Linklater thought people might like to watch a movie about high school kids just hanging out and listening to music on the last day of school in 1976.
To some, that might not even sound like a movie. But to a few studio executives, it sounded enough like the next American Graffiti to justify the risk. Dazed and Confused underperformed at the box office and seemed destined to disappear. Then something weird happened: Linklater turned out to be right. This wasn’t the kind of movie everybody liked, but it was the kind of movie certain people loved, with an intensity that felt personal. No matter what their high school experience was like, they thought Dazed and Confused was about them.
Alright, Alright, Alright is the story of how this iconic film came together and why it worked. Combining behind-the-scenes photos and insights from nearly the entire cast, including Matthew McConaughey, Parker Posey, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and many others, and with full access to Linklater’s Dazed archives, it offers an inside look at how a budding filmmaker and a cast of newcomers made a period piece that would feel timeless for decades to come.
441 pages, Hardcover
First published November 17, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 416 reviews
December 26, 2020
A review isn't necessary, I don't think. You already know if this book is for you.
December 23, 2022
"Life imitating art" is a phrase I hear but don't immediately cotton to. Then Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused illustrates all too well what life imitating art means. Published in 2020, Melissa Maerz chronicles filmmaker Richard Linklater, a huge cast of then unknowns and crew members from L.A. and Austin as they dramatized the last day of the 1976 school year for a movie. In doing so, Maerz chronicles what high school is: friendships, rivalries, tests, confrontations with authority, drugs, alcohol, romances, breakups, music, clothes, classmates who graduate to enviable success, classmates who disappear, life, death and the passage of time.
This book was poignant for me because Richard Linklater split his childhood with his mom in Huntsville, Texas and father in Houston in the 1970s and I grew up in Houston in the 1980s. When Dazed and Confused was being shot in Austin in the summer of 1992, I'd just finished my freshman year of college at the University of Texas at Austin. I sometimes wonder what it'd be like to magically visit the set of a classic movie as it was being created but here was a seminal film that literally shot around the corner from me at a time where I might've actually been hired to work on it. Part of me thinks I'm way too introverted to run cable and made better use of my time reading and writing, while another part of me wishes for a do-over. This book was that do-over.
-- Gary Price: Austin was so cheap. Everybody I knew at the time was living in a house where it was like $300, total--to rent the entire house! That's why Austin had so many musicians and artists. It has the University of Texas, which elevates the intellectual pursuits, but it's still a lazy place, because you don't have to make money to live there. People said Stevie Ray Vaughan could play like that because he only had to pay $60 a month in rent. How could he not come up with great songs when he could just play guitar all day and not work?
-- Richard Linklater: I had the indie film success to some degree. And one night, Gus Van Sant was in town, showing My Own Private Idaho, and one of his producers told me, "You're going to say a lot about yourself in your next film. You're going to tell everybody where you see yourself. Are you the weird indie guy, doing weird films? Or do you belong in the studio system?" And I took that to heart. If I was ever going to do that, now might be the right time.
-- Marisa Ribisi: In film, it's always like, "What's your big moment? What's the catalyst? What's it about?" And I think Rick was like, "It's not about anything. It's about people existing." If you look at Dazed and Confused, there was the A-story, which is, "Is Pink gonna take the pledge with the football team?" But really, they're just hanging out. How do you pitch that film? "It's the 1970s, it's the bicentennial, the music is gonna be great"? "Here, let me give you millions of dollars!"
-- Sasha Jenson: For me, talking about that summer feels the same as if you were the schoolyard with your friends many years ago and you just were playing around with a bunch of people, and you never really paid attention to the moment, because it didn't feel special at the time. And then many years later, people were like, "Remember when you were on the swing set? That was so awesome!" And you're just like, "Huh?"
It didn't feel like we were making a movie, you know? It just felt like we were all playing together, and there happened to be cameras there. That's the thing that's so unique about this movie. I go back to other high school movies and the relationships feel contrived. But Rick was trying to build real life chemistry with these kids. And I think he got it.
- Parker Posey: Rick wanted to create an authentic high school experience in 1976, and we were fully committed. High school can be catty. Does that sound sexist? Weren't the '70s sexist? Aren't we still in this patriarchal thinking? Obviously. The pitting against. It's constant and it's catty. Do I think men like to see that? Yes. When will this dialogue get so boring to the point of getting back to interesting and human?
-- Matthew McConaughey: I mean, if we're going to sit here and do any kind of psychoanalysis or objective judgment, if you're gonna try to break Wooderson down, you're already in a different narrative than he is. The everyday world, the manners and social graces, and the way life is supposed to go on and men are supposed to evolve--yeah, he doesn't fit in that. He's on his own frequency. He is living in ignorance.
Wooderson is not the kind of guy who's gonna get conscious of, "Oh, this is creepy." He's just the kind of guy that goes, "I'm sorry you see it that way. Whatever's going on in your life, I hope you get through it." I love characters and people in life with great convictions that are outside of the mainstream. At least you see where they stand.
-- Adam Goldberg: It seemed unknown whether it was going to be a Fast Times-type mainstream success. But from the moment I saw the trailer, which looked like it was actually made in 1976, I was like, Oh, this is an independent movie.
-- Richard Linklater: Before Dazed came out, I thought, maybe I'm one of those directors whose personal films are actually commercial, too. I think that's what the disappointment was. I thought my little whimsical, quirky ideas were totally in sync with the broader public, and then Dazed kind of proved they weren't. This set a template that I've gotten so used to, it hardly bothers me anymore. I learned right then and there not to consider how a film did financially as the barometer of much of anything. It's really not something you can control--it's out of your hands. The deal I made with the film gods was simply to be able to make films. The definition of success wasn't spelled out.
-- Jason London: I did a movie with Susan Sarandon, and she said, "I saw your movie two nights ago, but we didn't realize you needed to smoke a joint first, so we're going to get blazed and go see it again tomorrow." That's when I started to realize, this could be big.
-- Mark Duplass: There's this theory amongst a lot of storytellers right now that if you're creating a television show or a movie, you should set it before the year 2000, because people really want to live in worlds where social media doesn't exist. It's the biggest wish fulfillment you can offer audiences right now. And I think that might relate to the legs on Dazed and Confused, particularly now.
Melissa Maerz was a founding editor of Vulture (the website of New York Magazine) and has served stints as an editor at Spin and Rolling Stone. One of the things I loved about how she compiled this book was letting subjects respond to someone else's versions of events, which don't always correlate when people with egos who enjoyed having a good time try to recall things that happened 25 years ago. An entire chapter is devoted to the legend surrounding the discovery of Matthew McConaughey (at a bar atop the Hyatt Regency in Austin.) See Dazed and Confused if you haven't already. Buy this book if you have.
This book was poignant for me because Richard Linklater split his childhood with his mom in Huntsville, Texas and father in Houston in the 1970s and I grew up in Houston in the 1980s. When Dazed and Confused was being shot in Austin in the summer of 1992, I'd just finished my freshman year of college at the University of Texas at Austin. I sometimes wonder what it'd be like to magically visit the set of a classic movie as it was being created but here was a seminal film that literally shot around the corner from me at a time where I might've actually been hired to work on it. Part of me thinks I'm way too introverted to run cable and made better use of my time reading and writing, while another part of me wishes for a do-over. This book was that do-over.
-- Gary Price: Austin was so cheap. Everybody I knew at the time was living in a house where it was like $300, total--to rent the entire house! That's why Austin had so many musicians and artists. It has the University of Texas, which elevates the intellectual pursuits, but it's still a lazy place, because you don't have to make money to live there. People said Stevie Ray Vaughan could play like that because he only had to pay $60 a month in rent. How could he not come up with great songs when he could just play guitar all day and not work?
-- Richard Linklater: I had the indie film success to some degree. And one night, Gus Van Sant was in town, showing My Own Private Idaho, and one of his producers told me, "You're going to say a lot about yourself in your next film. You're going to tell everybody where you see yourself. Are you the weird indie guy, doing weird films? Or do you belong in the studio system?" And I took that to heart. If I was ever going to do that, now might be the right time.
-- Marisa Ribisi: In film, it's always like, "What's your big moment? What's the catalyst? What's it about?" And I think Rick was like, "It's not about anything. It's about people existing." If you look at Dazed and Confused, there was the A-story, which is, "Is Pink gonna take the pledge with the football team?" But really, they're just hanging out. How do you pitch that film? "It's the 1970s, it's the bicentennial, the music is gonna be great"? "Here, let me give you millions of dollars!"
-- Sasha Jenson: For me, talking about that summer feels the same as if you were the schoolyard with your friends many years ago and you just were playing around with a bunch of people, and you never really paid attention to the moment, because it didn't feel special at the time. And then many years later, people were like, "Remember when you were on the swing set? That was so awesome!" And you're just like, "Huh?"
It didn't feel like we were making a movie, you know? It just felt like we were all playing together, and there happened to be cameras there. That's the thing that's so unique about this movie. I go back to other high school movies and the relationships feel contrived. But Rick was trying to build real life chemistry with these kids. And I think he got it.
- Parker Posey: Rick wanted to create an authentic high school experience in 1976, and we were fully committed. High school can be catty. Does that sound sexist? Weren't the '70s sexist? Aren't we still in this patriarchal thinking? Obviously. The pitting against. It's constant and it's catty. Do I think men like to see that? Yes. When will this dialogue get so boring to the point of getting back to interesting and human?
-- Matthew McConaughey: I mean, if we're going to sit here and do any kind of psychoanalysis or objective judgment, if you're gonna try to break Wooderson down, you're already in a different narrative than he is. The everyday world, the manners and social graces, and the way life is supposed to go on and men are supposed to evolve--yeah, he doesn't fit in that. He's on his own frequency. He is living in ignorance.
Wooderson is not the kind of guy who's gonna get conscious of, "Oh, this is creepy." He's just the kind of guy that goes, "I'm sorry you see it that way. Whatever's going on in your life, I hope you get through it." I love characters and people in life with great convictions that are outside of the mainstream. At least you see where they stand.
-- Adam Goldberg: It seemed unknown whether it was going to be a Fast Times-type mainstream success. But from the moment I saw the trailer, which looked like it was actually made in 1976, I was like, Oh, this is an independent movie.
-- Richard Linklater: Before Dazed came out, I thought, maybe I'm one of those directors whose personal films are actually commercial, too. I think that's what the disappointment was. I thought my little whimsical, quirky ideas were totally in sync with the broader public, and then Dazed kind of proved they weren't. This set a template that I've gotten so used to, it hardly bothers me anymore. I learned right then and there not to consider how a film did financially as the barometer of much of anything. It's really not something you can control--it's out of your hands. The deal I made with the film gods was simply to be able to make films. The definition of success wasn't spelled out.
-- Jason London: I did a movie with Susan Sarandon, and she said, "I saw your movie two nights ago, but we didn't realize you needed to smoke a joint first, so we're going to get blazed and go see it again tomorrow." That's when I started to realize, this could be big.
-- Mark Duplass: There's this theory amongst a lot of storytellers right now that if you're creating a television show or a movie, you should set it before the year 2000, because people really want to live in worlds where social media doesn't exist. It's the biggest wish fulfillment you can offer audiences right now. And I think that might relate to the legs on Dazed and Confused, particularly now.
Melissa Maerz was a founding editor of Vulture (the website of New York Magazine) and has served stints as an editor at Spin and Rolling Stone. One of the things I loved about how she compiled this book was letting subjects respond to someone else's versions of events, which don't always correlate when people with egos who enjoyed having a good time try to recall things that happened 25 years ago. An entire chapter is devoted to the legend surrounding the discovery of Matthew McConaughey (at a bar atop the Hyatt Regency in Austin.) See Dazed and Confused if you haven't already. Buy this book if you have.
December 16, 2020
"In the face of all logic, [director / producer / screenwriter Richard] Linklater emerged with a movie that perfectly captured the moment-to-moment reality of being a teenager, and somehow also achieved precisely what Universal [Studios] had signed him to create: a classic film that makes every new audience feel good about the worst time in their lives." -- author Maerz, on page 5
Similar to The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000's format (to name just one example in this emerging genre style) from earlier this year - which incorporated alternating snippets from dozens of interviews that it almost seems like a marathon discussion - Alright, Alright, Alright focuses on the 1993 cult classic comedy-drama ensemble film Dazed & Confused. From an outsider's perspective it would possibly appear that making said flick was akin to something like a non-stop party . . . well, you would be kind of right (if you were a performer) and yet also wrong (if you were on the production staff). If nothing else, this book is a sobering little reminder of critic Roger Ebert's axiom that "It is a hard and difficult thing to make a movie, and credit must be given where due."
Dazed & Confused is one of those rare instances where a film, which failed to receive a nationwide big-screen release and initially garner attention, finally found its audience and gained everlasting popularity after it was released on VHS and then DVD. The killer soundtrack (filled with appropriate kick-ass 70's rock and pop songs) and the careful attention to detail - the cars, the clothing, and (often an overlooked factor) the good and bad of being a teenager - were certainly in its favor.
So when Dazed & Confused hit the movie theaters in autumn 1993 it quickly fizzled out, but not because the young cast - portraying high school students beginning their summer break in a Texas town during 1976 - was comprised of a bunch of unknowns. (Belatedly it is now compared to and/or stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the quasi-similar 1973's American Graffiti and 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but those two films were both box office successes.) Only in next two decades did Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Renee Zellweger (who had a bit part) win Oscars, and many of their fellow performers - Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg, Rory Cochrane, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams - carved out respectable careers in supporting roles on TV or movies. The real issues (other than a few problematic young performers) were director/producer/screenwriter's Linklater's dealings and interaction with the studio financing his film. It is all presented here in great detail, along with anecdotes and reminisces from nearly EVERYONE involved in this production.
Similar to The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000's format (to name just one example in this emerging genre style) from earlier this year - which incorporated alternating snippets from dozens of interviews that it almost seems like a marathon discussion - Alright, Alright, Alright focuses on the 1993 cult classic comedy-drama ensemble film Dazed & Confused. From an outsider's perspective it would possibly appear that making said flick was akin to something like a non-stop party . . . well, you would be kind of right (if you were a performer) and yet also wrong (if you were on the production staff). If nothing else, this book is a sobering little reminder of critic Roger Ebert's axiom that "It is a hard and difficult thing to make a movie, and credit must be given where due."
Dazed & Confused is one of those rare instances where a film, which failed to receive a nationwide big-screen release and initially garner attention, finally found its audience and gained everlasting popularity after it was released on VHS and then DVD. The killer soundtrack (filled with appropriate kick-ass 70's rock and pop songs) and the careful attention to detail - the cars, the clothing, and (often an overlooked factor) the good and bad of being a teenager - were certainly in its favor.
So when Dazed & Confused hit the movie theaters in autumn 1993 it quickly fizzled out, but not because the young cast - portraying high school students beginning their summer break in a Texas town during 1976 - was comprised of a bunch of unknowns. (Belatedly it is now compared to and/or stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the quasi-similar 1973's American Graffiti and 1982's Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but those two films were both box office successes.) Only in next two decades did Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, and Renee Zellweger (who had a bit part) win Oscars, and many of their fellow performers - Anthony Rapp, Adam Goldberg, Rory Cochrane, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams - carved out respectable careers in supporting roles on TV or movies. The real issues (other than a few problematic young performers) were director/producer/screenwriter's Linklater's dealings and interaction with the studio financing his film. It is all presented here in great detail, along with anecdotes and reminisces from nearly EVERYONE involved in this production.
December 4, 2020
My catnip.
Side note: I would like someone to do a book length oral history of Almost Famous.
Side note: I would like someone to do a book length oral history of Almost Famous.
November 2, 2020
Yeah, five stars. What a delight and answered so many questions that I had gone into this skeptical about. Longer review to come... just, a great oral history that made me laugh and provided so much insight. Ready for that Dazed rewatch now... (and probably giving this as a gift this holiday season to some friends...)
October 4, 2020
Four weekends in a row were spent watching Dazed and Confused, simply because of reading this book. Alright, Alright, Alright will reinforce your love for Dazed and Confused, causing you to revisit the film as much as possible. I certainly won't be the only one for whom that's the case.
That's what I'm talkin' about, man.
That's what I'm talkin' about, man.
January 22, 2021
Writer Melissa Maerz stitches together the story of a film that's become a cult classic, "Dazed and Confused," through the words of more than 100 people she interviewed for the book. The result is outstanding.
I'm a big fan of books written in the oral history format because the story is told directly by those involved, rather than the occasional quote interspersed with the author's work. Add to that the fact that "Dazed and Confused" is one of my all-time favorite movies, and we have a book that I was incredibly excited to read. Maerz's book was even better than I hoped for, and is a book I will soon be adding to my own collection.
"Dazed" - set in a Texas town on the last day of school in 1976 – was director Richard Linklater's first big studio production after his highly regarded indie debut "Slacker," filmed in Austin, Texas. It was a pleasant surprise to read more about the making of "Slacker" in this book because it sets the stage for not only the approach that Linklater took to "Dazed," but also sets up the conflict faced by this young, determined director and his close friends (many of whom he brought with him from "Slacker" to work on "Dazed" as he navigated the Hollywood studio process. At its heart,
"Alright, Alright, Alright" is a book about filmmaking in the 1990s, when the last wave of decent-budget independent films reached its high-water mark, when they still had some support from the major studios and before those same studios focused their time and money on remakes, sequels and superheroes. Readers get a behind-the-scenes look at arguments between the film crew and studio executives over the not just the making of the film, but the battles that came after with its soundtrack, marketing and distribution of the film and much more.
At the same time, we also get insight into the camaraderie and summer camp-type atmosphere the actors experienced while making "Dazed" told through their own words. The actors all were in their teens and early 20s, and many of them were appearing in their first major film – including future stars Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. (Zellweger has a very small, non-speaking role and the book’s title is McConaughey’s most famous line of the film, and the most famous of his career.) Linklater intentionally took a hands-off approach to their off-screen behavior in hopes they would form a bond with each other and the result was a lot like the high school atmosphere portrayed in the film: romantic hookups, clique drama and intoxication while they weren’t on set (and sometimes when they were!) Linklater also gave these young, relatively inexperienced actors a substantial amount of freedom in shaping their characters and the film's dialogue, which may of them said was a freedom they haven't been given by other directors since "Dazed."
Despite Linklater’s attempts to avoid turning "Dazed" into a nostalgia trip for the 1970s, many of us who grew up in the 1990s saw the film in exactly that light. That makes the ending of the book even more poignant, because Maerz and her subjects speak about ways in which the 1990s are now viewed nostalgically as the right before the crush of cellphones and social media and before the shift in priorities among the major movie studios.
This book hit close to home for me in many ways and brought back some wonderful and awkward memories, and I still learned some new things about a movie I’ve watched dozens of times. I’m so grateful for the tremendous effort Maerz undertook to put this book together.
Chad D. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.
I'm a big fan of books written in the oral history format because the story is told directly by those involved, rather than the occasional quote interspersed with the author's work. Add to that the fact that "Dazed and Confused" is one of my all-time favorite movies, and we have a book that I was incredibly excited to read. Maerz's book was even better than I hoped for, and is a book I will soon be adding to my own collection.
"Dazed" - set in a Texas town on the last day of school in 1976 – was director Richard Linklater's first big studio production after his highly regarded indie debut "Slacker," filmed in Austin, Texas. It was a pleasant surprise to read more about the making of "Slacker" in this book because it sets the stage for not only the approach that Linklater took to "Dazed," but also sets up the conflict faced by this young, determined director and his close friends (many of whom he brought with him from "Slacker" to work on "Dazed" as he navigated the Hollywood studio process. At its heart,
"Alright, Alright, Alright" is a book about filmmaking in the 1990s, when the last wave of decent-budget independent films reached its high-water mark, when they still had some support from the major studios and before those same studios focused their time and money on remakes, sequels and superheroes. Readers get a behind-the-scenes look at arguments between the film crew and studio executives over the not just the making of the film, but the battles that came after with its soundtrack, marketing and distribution of the film and much more.
At the same time, we also get insight into the camaraderie and summer camp-type atmosphere the actors experienced while making "Dazed" told through their own words. The actors all were in their teens and early 20s, and many of them were appearing in their first major film – including future stars Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. (Zellweger has a very small, non-speaking role and the book’s title is McConaughey’s most famous line of the film, and the most famous of his career.) Linklater intentionally took a hands-off approach to their off-screen behavior in hopes they would form a bond with each other and the result was a lot like the high school atmosphere portrayed in the film: romantic hookups, clique drama and intoxication while they weren’t on set (and sometimes when they were!) Linklater also gave these young, relatively inexperienced actors a substantial amount of freedom in shaping their characters and the film's dialogue, which may of them said was a freedom they haven't been given by other directors since "Dazed."
Despite Linklater’s attempts to avoid turning "Dazed" into a nostalgia trip for the 1970s, many of us who grew up in the 1990s saw the film in exactly that light. That makes the ending of the book even more poignant, because Maerz and her subjects speak about ways in which the 1990s are now viewed nostalgically as the right before the crush of cellphones and social media and before the shift in priorities among the major movie studios.
This book hit close to home for me in many ways and brought back some wonderful and awkward memories, and I still learned some new things about a movie I’ve watched dozens of times. I’m so grateful for the tremendous effort Maerz undertook to put this book together.
Chad D. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.
July 17, 2024
One of my fave movies. Lots of dishy insight.
June 10, 2021
Delightful! Not much else to say, other than that it does everything you want it to, and that as I feared/hoped going in, there's something deeply sad about it all. Favorite fact: the guy who plays Don in the movie owns the rights to Rin Tin Tin.
I do feel bad for the guy who played Pickford. Seriously.
I do feel bad for the guy who played Pickford. Seriously.
March 23, 2022
this was such a blast to read—i feel like i have so much random knowledge about the movie now and i love it!! one of the big themes of the book was nostalgia and how every generation wishes that they lived in the generations before them, even if all they have is a romanticized idea of it in their head. what makes dazed and confused so special to me is that even though it’s set in the 70s the characters feel true to today, which is something that virtually everyone who has seen the movie has also said. i also loved reading about all of the cast drama:)
(i wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy, unless of course we’re talking about my enemy shawn andrews. f you shawn andrews you know what you did.)
(i wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy, unless of course we’re talking about my enemy shawn andrews. f you shawn andrews you know what you did.)
April 7, 2021
I saw this on a Booklist "Beach Reads" list yesterday, and when I saw my library had it in, had to grab it to skim.
And then. I read. THE WHOLE. THING.
This is not for you if you haven't watched Dazed, but if you owned a battered VHS copy in 1997-2003 and it was a core part of your movie collection, AND if you and your friends spent time picking out who you would be if you were in the movie (I, of course, was Cynthia) then oh my god, pick it up now. So many juicy little tidbits. So much early 90's Austin.
While I ended up being a hardcore Kevin Smith girl by 1998, based on this book, it's entirely possible that I have Linklater to thank for that.
(An open letter to 1992 Ben Affleck: From the moment my 7th grade class watched The Voyage of the Mimi, I had my eye on you.)
And then. I read. THE WHOLE. THING.
This is not for you if you haven't watched Dazed, but if you owned a battered VHS copy in 1997-2003 and it was a core part of your movie collection, AND if you and your friends spent time picking out who you would be if you were in the movie (I, of course, was Cynthia) then oh my god, pick it up now. So many juicy little tidbits. So much early 90's Austin.
While I ended up being a hardcore Kevin Smith girl by 1998, based on this book, it's entirely possible that I have Linklater to thank for that.
(An open letter to 1992 Ben Affleck: From the moment my 7th grade class watched The Voyage of the Mimi, I had my eye on you.)
March 16, 2022
Wow wow wow wow wow. It took a few days to get into this one, but after the first 50 pages or so, I couldn't stop reading. It is dense, but she makes it so exciting. It was cool to read about Linklater's experiences while directing Dazed, and his experiences in the film industry. I'm also a sucker for drama, so hearing the actors revisiting all of the cliques and gossip that went on while filming was really interesting. I loved it, and it makes me sad that I never experienced the 70's like Linklater did or even the 90's when they filmed it in Austin. All the actors are all old now with kids, so it's weird to hear them talking about the Dazed like it was yesterday.
January 17, 2023
“Richard Linklater: Now, I don't think it's possible to make an anti-nostalgic movie. That's just the power of cinema. Do you remember in the book JARHEAD, all the guys are sitting around watching APOCALYPSE NOW and FULL METAL JACKET? And it's like, wait, these are anti-war movies! But the soldiers are just like, ‘Yeahhhh!’ There's a disconnect there. Cinema can't help but glamorize. Cinema doesn't give a shit if you're nostalgic or not. It's a nostalgia creator.”
June 22, 2021
Nostalgic look at the making of a film that tried to be anti-nostalgic. Reflections on two bygone eras: the 1970s and the 1990s. The author must be tremendously charming and patient, because she has managed to secure the participation of scores of people, many of whom are now very famous.
June 2, 2024
“A God-Awful Failure of an Anti-Nostalgia Movie”
If you couldn’t tell by the copious amount of updates I made while reading this book, Dazed and Confused is my favorite film…ever actually.
Richard Linklater is a genius writer and filmmaker for one reason, and one reason only. He knows exactly what he wants to create.
The thing that surprised me the most is the process of creating this film was not premeditated or, for lack of a better word, scripted at all! There was so much creative freedom allotted for the cast and the crew that the movie that was made became something entirely different than what was pitched, BUT exactly what Richard Linklater wanted it to be.
Despite the overall opinion from the majority of viewers that the film is a “nostalgia” film, I connected with the story Richard set out to tell. I believe there is a very small target audience for this film aside from it being a “cult classic” and widely accepted.
This book shed so much light on the reason this is one of my favorite films. I always liked to believe this was supposed to be a movie about hoping more for the future and not wanting to get stuck in a small town doing the same thing everyone else is. And mostly enjoying the present while you’re in it.
That may have been the original theme, but with the creative u-turn it took you can’t help but be nostalgic. For some, that’s even for a time you didn’t even exist.
The book explores how the nostalgia crept back in, and after understanding it you cannot help but love it. From the cast of basically random actors (some of which later become the biggest movie stars) coming together to party all summer having fun with their characters and giving life to the story authentically, to the surmounting changes to the script to allow the actors freedom to fill in the story. It completely changed the film and not necessarily in a bad way.
From start to finish, the processes of making Dazed and Confused was so casual (which is almost absurd to think about now) and getting to look inside that specific time is really incredible and created a whole new appreciation for the movie. As if I could love it any more?!?!?
Seeing where it started as an indy film picked up by a major film production, to the odd casting methods, the actors wild “summer camp” filming experience, then to the post-production war over the soundtrack, I felt like I was in it. I understand why Richard Linklater fought so hard for it to be exactly as it was. As someone who would have liked nothing more than to have been apart of it, this really scratched that itch!
If you love Dazed and Confused for more than it being the “stoner movie” PLEASEEEE READ THIS BOOK!
“You just gotta keep living man, L-I-V-I-N.”
If you couldn’t tell by the copious amount of updates I made while reading this book, Dazed and Confused is my favorite film…ever actually.
Richard Linklater is a genius writer and filmmaker for one reason, and one reason only. He knows exactly what he wants to create.
The thing that surprised me the most is the process of creating this film was not premeditated or, for lack of a better word, scripted at all! There was so much creative freedom allotted for the cast and the crew that the movie that was made became something entirely different than what was pitched, BUT exactly what Richard Linklater wanted it to be.
Despite the overall opinion from the majority of viewers that the film is a “nostalgia” film, I connected with the story Richard set out to tell. I believe there is a very small target audience for this film aside from it being a “cult classic” and widely accepted.
This book shed so much light on the reason this is one of my favorite films. I always liked to believe this was supposed to be a movie about hoping more for the future and not wanting to get stuck in a small town doing the same thing everyone else is. And mostly enjoying the present while you’re in it.
That may have been the original theme, but with the creative u-turn it took you can’t help but be nostalgic. For some, that’s even for a time you didn’t even exist.
The book explores how the nostalgia crept back in, and after understanding it you cannot help but love it. From the cast of basically random actors (some of which later become the biggest movie stars) coming together to party all summer having fun with their characters and giving life to the story authentically, to the surmounting changes to the script to allow the actors freedom to fill in the story. It completely changed the film and not necessarily in a bad way.
From start to finish, the processes of making Dazed and Confused was so casual (which is almost absurd to think about now) and getting to look inside that specific time is really incredible and created a whole new appreciation for the movie. As if I could love it any more?!?!?
Seeing where it started as an indy film picked up by a major film production, to the odd casting methods, the actors wild “summer camp” filming experience, then to the post-production war over the soundtrack, I felt like I was in it. I understand why Richard Linklater fought so hard for it to be exactly as it was. As someone who would have liked nothing more than to have been apart of it, this really scratched that itch!
If you love Dazed and Confused for more than it being the “stoner movie” PLEASEEEE READ THIS BOOK!
“You just gotta keep living man, L-I-V-I-N.”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 22, 2023
One of the most fun and engaging books on the making of a single film I’ve read. The flow of the whole thing is just so beautifully constructed, taking in an entire swathe from Richard Linklater’s upbringing and formative years, through the making of the film itself and beyond into its legacy and what happened next for the key players. Melissa Maerz gets an astounding level of access from the top down and everyone at every level is well represented — with a couple of notable exceptions, which lends the book some additional drama. The oral history format works so well as a means of really drilling into specific aspects of the production and hearing it directly from this involved with only minor —but vital— contextualisation. It reads breezily but only due to the care with which Maerz weaves the whole thing together from such disparate elements, factoring in juxtapositions and conflicting versions of events to really sell the aspect of fallibility in all this. With exacting precision, Maerz takes specific aspects and exhausts all avenues to present a rounded picture of every part of the film and the lives of those it touches in such a way that no one feels short changed and everyone can speak frankly. It hits a rich seam of gossipy information that it feels somewhat illicit to be hearing about (hook-ups, jealousy, in-fighting, family dramas) but it’s all entirely relevant when the film is hinged upon the camaraderie of that core crew. This stuff is vital to hear and, rather than being a salacious add-on, it really places you right in the midst of an unfathomable experience you’ll never be part of and all the torment and exhilaration that’s inherent in that perfect storm of emotions. It’s only when reflecting back on it as I write this that I’m struck by how little of it is devoted to the technical ins-and-outs of the process and just how central the human experience —as opposed to nuts and bolts— is to our emotional connection to a film, regardless of whether we’re technically addressing how it was made. Full of revelation, melancholy and joy and does nothing to dent my ardour for the work in question.
December 2, 2020
There are few movies that can become so celebrated that it becomes the focus of a major book. Sam Staggs, of course, has written exhaustively of A Streetcar Named Desire, Imitation of Life, and All About Eve, and earlier this year was a book on the 1974 film Chinatown. Recent books on Nashville and Network examined two of the most important films of the 1970s. So does Richard Linklater’s sophomore film, Dazed and Confused, deserve the same treatment, as encapsulated by the new release Alright, Alright, Alright: An Oral History of Dazed and Confused? Yep. Most definitely. While not a box office hit at the time of the 1993 release, the film has grown in fans and mythos in the intervening years. Journalist Melissa Maerz (wife of Blog favorite Chuck Klosterman) has examined Linklater’s ode to high school in four hundred plus pages, featuring interviews with a large number of cast, crew, studio execs, critics, and fans. And there are no topics left unexamined, from Linklater’s work on the iconic film Slacker to the preparation, casting, filming, and release of the historic film that was marketed as a stoner comedy but received as an all-encompassing representation of high school seen through the lens of nostalgia. Despite Linklater’s insistence that the film was not a celebration of a time, what the interviewees all seem to agree upon is that the movie perfectly captures the feeling of being in high school, not knowing what awaits, but ready to get started on the path to adulthood. The argument that the film makes (which is similar to an argument made in Douglas Coupland’s Shampoo Planet) is that the feelings are universal, despite the time and the place. Despite almost thirty years from the summer of 1992 filming, the cast is still rife with the memories and the grudges, and Maerz talks to everyone, including Matthew McConaughey, Joey Lauren Adams, Parker Posey, Wiley Wiggins, Jason London, Ben Affleck, and most importantly, Linklater himself, who was very generous with his time in discussing his landmark film. Ms. Maerz, can you now do Mallrats?
October 3, 2023
I loved this book! For fans of Dazed and Confused (all of whom could guess the topic from the book title) this book weaves together interviews from seemingly all the people involved in the making of Dazed and Confused, plus some people who worked with Richard Linklater before and after the movie, including people who went to high school with him.
It's packed with a ton of interesting facts (Jason Lee was also there for filming; he was dating Marissa Ribisi at the time and went as her chaperone. Ben Affleck was tired of being cast as a bully. Filming was like summer camp for the actors and was hell for Linklater.) I especially appreciated the chapter that focused on the women in the film both how they interacted with each other and how the film shifted focus from them as filming went on. This is essential reading for Linklater fans, people interested in how movies get made, and people who still have crushes on many actors of early 90s cinema.
Personal story: In college my roommates were trying to decide which VHS tape to watch. "Let's watch alright, alright, alright," said one. We all knew immediately what she was talking about. And I've thought of that as the title every since.
It's packed with a ton of interesting facts (Jason Lee was also there for filming; he was dating Marissa Ribisi at the time and went as her chaperone. Ben Affleck was tired of being cast as a bully. Filming was like summer camp for the actors and was hell for Linklater.) I especially appreciated the chapter that focused on the women in the film both how they interacted with each other and how the film shifted focus from them as filming went on. This is essential reading for Linklater fans, people interested in how movies get made, and people who still have crushes on many actors of early 90s cinema.
Personal story: In college my roommates were trying to decide which VHS tape to watch. "Let's watch alright, alright, alright," said one. We all knew immediately what she was talking about. And I've thought of that as the title every since.
November 25, 2021
I thought this was a really fun and entertaining book about the movie Dazed and Confused. I was in grade school when this movie came out and I remember it was a few years later that one of my friends got their older brother to get it for us to watch. We thought we were such rebels 😂 There was cursing! Drugs! Making out! And a kick ass soundtrack to boot.
This book was so well done - its such an honest and transparently done book and was fascinating to see the differences in memory and opinion between the cast. I loved that some of the biggest stars to come out of the movie such as Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and Renee Zellweger (who is barely even in the movie) agreed to be interviewed for this book. I also thought it was really interesting to see that several of the cast still hold grudges about things 25 years later.
Thank you to @Harper for providing me a gifted copy to read and review. Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is now available in paperback.
This book was so well done - its such an honest and transparently done book and was fascinating to see the differences in memory and opinion between the cast. I loved that some of the biggest stars to come out of the movie such as Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and Renee Zellweger (who is barely even in the movie) agreed to be interviewed for this book. I also thought it was really interesting to see that several of the cast still hold grudges about things 25 years later.
Thank you to @Harper for providing me a gifted copy to read and review. Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is now available in paperback.
July 24, 2022
So this book was even better than alright, alright, alright. Okay that joke is terrible, but this book was a must for any fan of the movie. Just about everyone involved in the movie discusses the book including McCoughney, Affleck, Parker Posey, Joey Laren Adams, Jason London, Cole Hauser, Adam Goldberg, Richard Lanklater and more. You'll learn everything about just about every scene and how this incredible cast came to be. You'll learn how two actors were full of themselves and excluded themselves from the rest of the group. You'll learn how this movie was marketed very differently than originally intended. Good stuff and a quick read.
March 28, 2021
You already know just by its premise if this book is for you or not. It's a Dazed and Confused deep dive and it's really really good.
Dazed and Confused was a seminal movie for me as I was born in 1981 so the characters in the film are like 4yrs older than I was the first time I saw the film. I've loved the movie since it came out.
This book provides a lot of great information via interviews with the players who made the movie happen. Rick Linklater comes off like a true artist. He's kind of a dick but he's always true to his vision.
Great book, highly recommend.
Dazed and Confused was a seminal movie for me as I was born in 1981 so the characters in the film are like 4yrs older than I was the first time I saw the film. I've loved the movie since it came out.
This book provides a lot of great information via interviews with the players who made the movie happen. Rick Linklater comes off like a true artist. He's kind of a dick but he's always true to his vision.
Great book, highly recommend.
January 4, 2021
This was excellent! I love oral histories, and I really enjoy Dazed and Confused, so this was a great match. Maerz did a great job in structuring the book and pulling the interviews together and honestly I was surprised at how candid so many people were!
December 16, 2020
does the heart good
December 22, 2020
An absolute delight cover to cover. There should be an oral history written about all of my favorite movies.
January 11, 2021
Fantastic.
February 1, 2021
I wish I could give this more than five stars. A must-read for any Dazed fan.
November 24, 2020
"Linklater focused not on the things that alienate teenagers but on the qualities that quietly unify them: boredom, horniness, a lack of power, fear of rejection, and the endless optimism that, once night falls, something cool might happen.
I'm sure the oral history from behind the scenes of every movie you've ever enjoyed would make for a good article, but not necessarily a good book. A good book needs a three-act structure, and arcs for its story and its characters.
DAZED AND CONFUSED is a perfect fit as a book of oral history, because the three acts and the arcs are baked right into the dough:
1) Hot indie filmmaker gets his first shot at a studio production; 2) How did that go? and 3) How did it affect his career after? Also 1) A bunch of young actors, mostly from New York and Los Angeles, are assembled and brought together in Texas for several weeks; 2) How crazy did all that isolated immaturity and hormonality get? And 3) How did that experience affect their lives and careers after?
All compelling questions, and all thoroughly and entertainingly unpacked.
Melissa Maerz, a veteran entertainment journalist, knows how rich her material and structure is, and wisely steps out of the frame after establishing each shot (chapter). Like with a film, the secret to a good book of oral history is as much in what you leave out as what you put in. And Maerz proves to be an instinctive expert hand at this, making the reading feel freewheeling, like a good drunk dorm-room bull session but never out of control, like a bad drunk dorm-room bull session. When listening to hours upon hours of recorded conversations, this can be a far more difficult undertaking than it seems.
DAZED director Richard Linklater, thirty-one when he made the movie, comes across as a complicated but ultimately sympathetic figure and thoughtful figure, constantly trying to walk fine lines between his inherent conflicts: hewing to his own vision while trying to accept sometimes stultifying studio oversight as the price of getting the movie made, for example. Then he’s got to walk the equally intimidating tightrope of giving his young, sometimes distracted actors room to express their true selves freely and grow in their art while keeping them wrangled enough to get through a day’s shooting on time and under budget. And he tries hard to stay true to his teenage experiences while not angering the people he grew up and cares about, people whose personalities informed those of the movies characters to the point that he borrowed their real names for the movie.
It all worked, except when it didn’t. One of ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT’s great sections is about how he was sued, a decade after the film’s 1993 release, the real-life Wooderson, Slater and “Pink” Floyd sued Linklater who using their characters with compensation or permission. As it turns out, they weren’t really angry about that as they were that they hadn’t gotten any money from DAZED AND CONFUSED. And, as befits their characters, they got drunk one day and egged each other on into it. Their case, predictably, went nowhere, and one of the best parts of the book is each admitting to Maerz that suing Linklater was pretty stupid, that it earned them a lot of justified scorn, and hey, no hard feelings, we just took a shot at a score, you know?
“If you have friends who are writers, buckle up,” Linklater tells Maerz. “You’re going to find yourself as some kind of a character in someone else’s story, and it can be unnerving, how you’re characterized in someone else’s thing. We’re all aghast when we see what a small part we play in other people’s lives. We’re all the lead character in our own lives, and we’re only supporting characters in other people’s lives, and that hurts.”
Other chapters have that same feeling of We Mostly Had A Blast But Here’s What I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now. You know, sort of like how we look back on high school, and on the 1970s. There’s one that should be titled How Not to Be a Future Star, about one of the two cast members who didn’t play well with others: Shawn Andrews, who played Kevin Pickford in DAZED. The recollections are as short and slashing as razor swipes. Said Jason London: “There’s a reason we all called him Prickford.” And, of course, the Who Hooked Up With Who and Who Still Pines For Who material is too juicy to resist.
Another chapter deals with the bittersweet career trajectories of DAZED’s cast members. Few of the cast members pegged as breakout stars (Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Michelle Burke) hit anything resembling those heights. The biggest star going in, Milla Jovovich, hit a rough patch after her role was minimized in the movie in the wake of poor cast citizenship (she took up with Shawn Andrews during filming, even marrying him briefly later, and the two isolated from the others). Few would have guessed on the first day on the set that Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey would be the future superstars.
To this day, there is resentment and bewilderment over how things turned out for some. And no small measure of pathos. In the afterword, Esteban Powell, who played Carl Burnett, says “he trolls the internet for low-paying jobs to make up for his lack of health insurance.”
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: DAZED AND CONFUSED is a great movie. And ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT is a great book in the same way: wise, stoned, sober, thoughtful either way, funny as hell, bittersweet. Like life. Or maybe just how we choose to remember it. As Maerz points out: “That’s just the way nostalgia works: It is not a collection of memories, but a reinvention of memory itself. It’s misremembering your own life on purpose.” How true. And how effed up. And how memorable.
I'm sure the oral history from behind the scenes of every movie you've ever enjoyed would make for a good article, but not necessarily a good book. A good book needs a three-act structure, and arcs for its story and its characters.
DAZED AND CONFUSED is a perfect fit as a book of oral history, because the three acts and the arcs are baked right into the dough:
1) Hot indie filmmaker gets his first shot at a studio production; 2) How did that go? and 3) How did it affect his career after? Also 1) A bunch of young actors, mostly from New York and Los Angeles, are assembled and brought together in Texas for several weeks; 2) How crazy did all that isolated immaturity and hormonality get? And 3) How did that experience affect their lives and careers after?
All compelling questions, and all thoroughly and entertainingly unpacked.
Melissa Maerz, a veteran entertainment journalist, knows how rich her material and structure is, and wisely steps out of the frame after establishing each shot (chapter). Like with a film, the secret to a good book of oral history is as much in what you leave out as what you put in. And Maerz proves to be an instinctive expert hand at this, making the reading feel freewheeling, like a good drunk dorm-room bull session but never out of control, like a bad drunk dorm-room bull session. When listening to hours upon hours of recorded conversations, this can be a far more difficult undertaking than it seems.
DAZED director Richard Linklater, thirty-one when he made the movie, comes across as a complicated but ultimately sympathetic figure and thoughtful figure, constantly trying to walk fine lines between his inherent conflicts: hewing to his own vision while trying to accept sometimes stultifying studio oversight as the price of getting the movie made, for example. Then he’s got to walk the equally intimidating tightrope of giving his young, sometimes distracted actors room to express their true selves freely and grow in their art while keeping them wrangled enough to get through a day’s shooting on time and under budget. And he tries hard to stay true to his teenage experiences while not angering the people he grew up and cares about, people whose personalities informed those of the movies characters to the point that he borrowed their real names for the movie.
It all worked, except when it didn’t. One of ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT’s great sections is about how he was sued, a decade after the film’s 1993 release, the real-life Wooderson, Slater and “Pink” Floyd sued Linklater who using their characters with compensation or permission. As it turns out, they weren’t really angry about that as they were that they hadn’t gotten any money from DAZED AND CONFUSED. And, as befits their characters, they got drunk one day and egged each other on into it. Their case, predictably, went nowhere, and one of the best parts of the book is each admitting to Maerz that suing Linklater was pretty stupid, that it earned them a lot of justified scorn, and hey, no hard feelings, we just took a shot at a score, you know?
“If you have friends who are writers, buckle up,” Linklater tells Maerz. “You’re going to find yourself as some kind of a character in someone else’s story, and it can be unnerving, how you’re characterized in someone else’s thing. We’re all aghast when we see what a small part we play in other people’s lives. We’re all the lead character in our own lives, and we’re only supporting characters in other people’s lives, and that hurts.”
Other chapters have that same feeling of We Mostly Had A Blast But Here’s What I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now. You know, sort of like how we look back on high school, and on the 1970s. There’s one that should be titled How Not to Be a Future Star, about one of the two cast members who didn’t play well with others: Shawn Andrews, who played Kevin Pickford in DAZED. The recollections are as short and slashing as razor swipes. Said Jason London: “There’s a reason we all called him Prickford.” And, of course, the Who Hooked Up With Who and Who Still Pines For Who material is too juicy to resist.
Another chapter deals with the bittersweet career trajectories of DAZED’s cast members. Few of the cast members pegged as breakout stars (Jason London, Rory Cochrane, Michelle Burke) hit anything resembling those heights. The biggest star going in, Milla Jovovich, hit a rough patch after her role was minimized in the movie in the wake of poor cast citizenship (she took up with Shawn Andrews during filming, even marrying him briefly later, and the two isolated from the others). Few would have guessed on the first day on the set that Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey would be the future superstars.
To this day, there is resentment and bewilderment over how things turned out for some. And no small measure of pathos. In the afterword, Esteban Powell, who played Carl Burnett, says “he trolls the internet for low-paying jobs to make up for his lack of health insurance.”
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: DAZED AND CONFUSED is a great movie. And ALRIGHT ALRIGHT ALRIGHT is a great book in the same way: wise, stoned, sober, thoughtful either way, funny as hell, bittersweet. Like life. Or maybe just how we choose to remember it. As Maerz points out: “That’s just the way nostalgia works: It is not a collection of memories, but a reinvention of memory itself. It’s misremembering your own life on purpose.” How true. And how effed up. And how memorable.
May 22, 2021
Endlessly fascinating, as a HS student in the early 90's, Dazed and Confused caught my eye and heart, to this oral history of its creation and legacy hit all the sweet spots for me. Richard Linklater's creative process, the actors and actresses reflecting on the power of that intense moment, and the ascension of McConaughey make this book a mosquito in the amber, a frozen moment in time, with great details on the soundtrack, the studio resistance, and the concordances with Linklater's own youth in Huntsville, TX. I recommend this highly for all fans of Linklater and D&C.
January 10, 2021
Fun vacation reading that let me geek out over a much-beloved movie. Maerz gets a lot of folks to talk, from major players to behind-the-scenes participants, and there's a lot of juicy gossip here. It's a quick page-turner and Maerz's research is meticulous. In fact, with 140 referenced interviewees, Maerz's research is almost too comprehensive - I regularly had to switch back to the opening "who's who" pages to remember who some of the interviewees were. Overall, though, highly enjoyable, and one that Linklater fans will especially appreciate.
February 27, 2024
This is really well done, it’s not just about Dazed, but about 90s indie culture, Slacker, Austin Texas, and it touches on some of the more toxic angles of the film industry and the weird ensemble cast scene around the movie. Good on Affleck and McConaghey as part of their stories too. Just very well done.
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