It's time for summer movies, everybody! I'm starting off with one of my very favorites, and one that I can't quite believe I haven't recommended yet, but apparently I've been saving it. Dazed and Confused is director Richard Linklater's best film, in my opinion, even if it is an attempt at American Graffiti set in another era. You know what? If you can capture your own era just as well as Graffiti did it's worth doing, because this is just as much a perfect representation of the mid-70's as that other film was for the early 60's. It's authentic, natural, funny and it feels like you've been dropped right in the middle of the action, on the last day of school in 1976, at the start of the bicentennial summer. The cast is a who's who of people who became stars later, most famously Matthew McConaughey as the iconic Wooderson (yep- this is the movie where he coined his "all right, all right, all right" catchphrase), but also Ben Affleck, Renee Zellweger, Parker Posey, Milla Jovovich and Jason London. It's a trip through time right back to the 1970's and catches the time and place in a way only someone who lived through it could. For me it's Linklater's signature work.
Original 1993 Trailer:
