Dazed and Confused at 20

Not a comedy, but I'd put "Friday Night Lights" - the television series - in the high school pantheon, as well.

 

It was definitely Plant's opinion for awhile... Of course Plant agreed to reunite with Page and left John Paul Jones out of it.

Apparently all of the nonstop reissues were all Page's doing because he knew he could repackage anything and that there were people (like me) who would line up to buy it.

I remember reading something where Plant was super pissed off when Page teamed with Coverdale, who most see as someone doing a mediocre-to-decent Plant impersonation... But the Plant/Page tour was all of two years after that, so I'm guessing he got over it when he saw how much he could make off the '95 tour.

 

Coverdale looks a little like Plant.
That's where the similarity ends.

 

I agree with everything you said as it pertains to Freaks and Geeks. But I thought Dazed and Confused's characters felt two-dimensional. A thought: Could Dazed and Confused have worked even better as a TV show?

 

Maybe. Someone mentioned Friday Night Lights and it worked better as a TV show than a movie, but I like that it was just a day in the life of these people. Maybe some things could have been fleshed out over 18 hours like it was on Freaks and Geeks, but I like that where it goes from there is left to the imagination.

 

I'm starting to come to somewhat of an understanding of why I might not like Dazed and Confused (which I will watch again at some point soon for the fifth time, still hoping to like it, hoping these realizations help). For me, the characters are flat because I didn't grow up in that environment. They're abstract characters, and that's intentional. It's clear many of you imbue those characters with the back stories and personalities of the people from your own lives who best fit the characterizations. That's probably a big part of why so many of you can relate so strongly to the movie, and that's absolutely worthy of praise. But for me, the characters are flat because I didn't and don't know many people who could fill those roles. And the movie is flat because it's not actively seeking laughs the way Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Superbad does. It's going for that nostalgia and personalized feel, hoping you create your own interpretations and your own humor.

I think a really well-done TV show version of Dazed would have drawn more specificity to the characters, which might have left many of you less able to relate but would have given me a firmer grasp of who these people are. It took me a few episodes to warm up to some of the Freaks and Geeks characters, though I have three good friends who are more or less exactly like the geeks. (Does that make me Gordon Crisp?)

 

That sounds about right. For me it's both funny and sad to watch Wooderson do his thing knowing Mitch is going to outgrow parties at the Moontower before he does. I know some of these guys' lives are going to peak in high school. Pink's probably going to be tending bar at some local shithole, banging weathered divorcees and occasionally somebody around town will tell their kid how good a ballplayer he used to be.

 

It's quite possible I'm getting my scenes crossed -- haven't seen it for years.

 

OK, I just re-watched "Dazed and Confused" for the first time in a long while.

What stood out to me? Despite all the drinking, pot and partying, no sex and no nudity whatsoever. Just a li'l making out.

Compared to all the high school/lost weekend of partying movies that have come out since, that seemed strange.

Kudos to Linklater ... movie was funny enough without the nudity.

 

I never saw Pulp Fiction.

 

I haven't seen Pulp Fiction, but I enjoyed John Travolta's work in Look Who's Talking Too.

 

I never saw that one, either. Just the first Look Who's Talking.