Real Review - Dazed And Confused HD DVD

There has always been a counter-culture element in the American teenage years, and Dazed and Confused brilliantly reveals the one from the mid-1970s. Sporting tight, bell-bottom jeans and rock concert t-shirts, it was men with long hair, smoking marijuana, and listening to hard rock music that defined the culture. Women were stretching their wings of empowerment following the changes from the 1960s era, and being a teenager in the deep South offered its own special set of challenges.

Richard Linklater wrote and directed Dazed and Confused and there is no doubt it was a labor of love. Drawing on his own experiences during the decade that gave us such great guitar rock classics such as Paranoid and Rock and Roll All Night, Linklater’s film is a slice of life from that era.

Dazed and Confused doesn’t have much of a plot. It is a film about experiences and sets a tone for a bygone time when there was nothing do to but hang-out, plan parties, and listen to rock music. When a big band such as Aerosmith came to town for a concert, nothing else seemed to matter. Everyone would make the scene, party hard, and relish the event. The film makes just that point: growing up in a small town, the big events of the summer had nothing to do with sports or family events. It was about being with your friends, getting wasted, and watching your favorite band on stage.

If there is a plot to Dazed and Confused it is this: the last day of school has come and the junior high kids are now freshmen. According to tradition, the new seniors will haze the freshmen; the boys, by being chased and then paddled, and the girls by being humiliated in front of the boys. The film traces the events of a few freshmen and a few seniors and their interactions with one another. Along the way, we learn a lot about the characters and the humdrum events of small town America in the 1970s.

There are many familiar faces in this neo brat-pack flick. Many young actors got their start here, including performances by Matthew McConaughey, as Wooderson the older graduate who still likes to hang with the high school crowd, and Ben Affleck, as O’Bannion, the kid who flunked his senior year just so he could return for the freshman hazing fun. Milla Jovovich, Wiley Wiggins, and Jason London, among many others, also join in on the fun.

Featuring a great soundtrack which includes tracks by ZZ Top, Ted Nugent, Foghat, Kiss, and others, the party simply never stops.

I watched Dazed and Confused on HD DVD and was generally satisfied with the PQ. Though somewhat uneven at times, there are many scenes with that nice HD pop. The audio track was the typical 5.1 Dolby Digital Plus and it was decent, though the hard rockin’ soundtrack could have benefited from a better mix and a lot more bottom end. The disc includes some deleted scenes and some old 1970’s public service announcements from tv.

Rating: 8

Source Chuck’s Movie Reviews

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