richard linklater's DAZED AND CONFUSED (1993)

i first saw Dazed And Confused during my initial teen-aged infatuation with movies, as my friends and i sought out all those films supposed to be "cool" or "really awesome", and as such i have been reluctant to revisit it. i was pleasantly surprised, then, to find that my recollections of it were off-base: D&C isn't a counterculture film, or a drug film, but simply a film about being a teenager, and sublimely so. in fact, it resembles nothing so much as a superior companion piece to American Graffiti, watching benevolently over the last night of school to the strains of the mid-70s' finest tunes, seemingly deejayed by God himself. (maybe the distance that allows me to look back fondly on my teenhood is what makes the film resonate now?) at once evocative of its setting and warmly, abidingly universal, the film draws much of its strength from its dedication to ensemble; though there the are one or two nominally "main" characters, at least fifteen others are given equal attention and affection, and as a result the essentially plotless film possesses a lazy but undeniably fun momentum, eschewing the mechanizations of story in favor of confident characterization. it probably wouldn't work, of course, were the cast and script not so uniformly fine, but the talents of Linklater and his merry band make for a refreshing, carefree film about the nights we fought to keep our buzz going and the cops never showed up.