Eighteen years later, 'Dazed and Confused' still delivers
Posted Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 5:49 PM Central
Last updated Wednesday, January 26, 2011 at 5:49 PM Central
by John Couture
James Jacks and Sean Daniel's Alphaville Films banner sure have produced their fair share of hits, but it's their cult films that really hit home with movie fans. Mallrats and Dazed and Confused are two cult hits that strike a chord with my generation, those of us who graduated high school in the early nineties and spent the better part of the nineties in college.
Dazed and Confused in particular is one of those films that continues to find an audience to this day as each generation grows up and discovers it for the first time. So, it was without hesitation that I scooped up tickets to see Dazed and Confused on the big screen last night when I arrived in L.A. Better yet, the screening, at the wonderful Arclight Cinemas, was followed by a Q&A session with producers James Jacks and Sean Daniel and stars Jason London and Michelle Burke.
Who would pass up an opportunity to see Pink and Jodi reminisce about the movie that defined an entire generation of pot smokers? I certainly didn't.
First and foremost, I must say that seeing Dazed and Confused on the big screen reinforces my belief in retro cinema screenings. While Dazed and Confused can certainly be enjoyed in the comforts of your home, there's just something unique and awesome when you hear a huge audience laugh to lines that everyone knows it coming.
In particular, you could literally cut the laughter tension with a knife just before Matthew McConaughey uttered his infamous line, "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age." Even a comedy with no special effects delivers to a higher (pun most likely intended) degree when seen on the big screen.
The Q&A section was interesting and informative. Even a casual fan of the film could pick up on just how much fun it was for them to make this film. Jason London recounted countless stories of how the cast, then really young, used to hang out on off days. You can easily see that the true magic of the movie was in the way the cast interacted together both on and off-screen.
Michelle Burke mentioned how much she leaned on Jason during filming as she didn't have any proper training and wasn't too experienced. One insightful quip from her revealed that much like the cliques in the movie, she felt that there were groups within the cast when the cameras weren't rolling. This most likely carried over into the final product that we see today.
If you're curious to know what's become of the cast (well, the ones that aren't mega rich and huge stars), Jason shared the best story of the evening when he gave us an update on young star Wiley Wiggins. Wiley played young frosh-to-be Mitch and earlier in the Q&A James Jacks even mentioned that they all though Wiley would be the one to be the huge star some day, but he's not exactly working in front of cameras these days.
Apparently, Jason was having issues installing Final Cut Pro on his Mac computer so he called Apple to get help. Apple was only happy to pass along Jason to their Final Cut Pro expert, who happened to be none other than Wiley Wiggins himself. But, Wiley isn't completely out of the film industry. Jason pointed out that Wiley helped Dazed and Confused director Richard Linklater with some animation effects for Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly and even lent his voice to a role in Waking Life.
By far, the most humorous story was saved for the casting of Matthew McConaughey as Wooderson. According to producer James Jacks casting director Don Phillips was sitting in a hotel bar in Austin striking up a conversation with a pretty woman who happened to be McConaughey's girlfriend at the time. The two started talking and when McConaughey learned that Phillips was in town casting a movie, he happened to mention that he was an actor and from there "All right, all right, all right" was born.
What about that long-rumored sequel? James Jacks said that he was urging Linklater to pursue it in the '80 to check in on the same characters and even had a seven week shoot plotted out where half of the cast would come in for the first three weeks and the rest of the cast would work the last three weeks and the entire cast would work the middle week, but as things do, it never came to fruition.
Jacks did add that Richard Linklater has written a sequel finally, but that now they'd have to shoot it with a whole new cast. The one question they couldn't answer though was why it hasn't been released on Blu-ray yet. That's a question that only Universal can answer. But, if you'd like, you can sign up here to be notified when it does come out on Blu-ray.