Dazed and Confused turns 30 and is still perfection. (Bonus Cinematic Throwback)

Movies can not be perfect. A song, sure, but perfection is something that can't be sustained for 90+ minutes.

Even my absolute favorite movies are not perfect. They all have something in them that doesn't work (hell, there's like a 10 minute chunk of Pulp Fiction I skip over every time I watch it). So no, no perfect movies exist. 

But none come closer than Richard Linklater's now 30 year old classic Dazed and Confused.

I didn't see this in theaters. Few did, as its distributor Universal only gave it a small release. I caught it as a rental the following spring. And in those days, if I liked something I rented I usually watched it twice. I watched Dazed 3 times. 

It's an awesome movie. Set on the last day of school in 1976, and all taking place on that one day, it follows a huge ensemble of characters. Plot? Not really. There are story threads that weave in and out, but there is no overarching story or even lead character.

Linklater based a whole lot of this on his own experience, and it's those little details peppered throughout the movie that really make the film stand out, and of course timeless, since it was already a period piece when it was released. Hard to believe it was set only 17 years earlier, when that would now be like setting a movie in 2006. How the fuck is 2006 17 years ago? My god!

Dazed is all about the actor and character ensemble. So much has been made over the years about how this movie found budding stars and launched careers.

Most legendary of course is Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson, who isn't even in high school here, but is some years graduated, yet still hangs out around the school cause of how he likes that high school girls stay the same age as he gets older. Yeah, so, this is a character who would probably have zero chance of making it into a film these days, but McConaughey's easygoing charisma makes him fun. It took a few years for him to really break out in a mainstream way, but I think the seeds were planted here.

The other big breakout of this cast was Ben Affleck. Now, Affleck did have a couple credits before this movie, but very little. He plays O'Bannon, a senior bully who flunked just so he could take part again in the hazing ritual where seniors paddle incoming freshmen. Affleck is one of the film's few villains, but he too is a lot of fun in the part. 

Almost every actor and character in this is super memorable though. The ostensible leads are Wiley Wiggins as Mitch, one of the incoming freshmen, and Jason London as Randall "Pink" Floyd, the school's quarterback and all around most popular kid, who kind of takes Mitch under his wing a little. 

Oh there are girls too. Michelle Burke as Jodie and the simply stunning Christin Hinojosa as freshman Sabrina are the standouts. We also get some early Joey Lauren Adams, and in the one performance I can't stand, Parker Posey. You're supposed to hate her though. Milla Jovovich, who was maybe the only one in the cast that was kind of known at the time, also floats in and out of the movie a few times.

Other standouts are Rory Cochrane as heavy stoner Slater, and the somewhat Greek chorus-y trio of Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp and Marisa Ribisi.

And the soundtrack is exceptional. I honestly have no idea if I knew any of these songs prior to seeing this movie, or even if these songs were huge, but the needle drops are perfect in this movie.

It's the all time hangout movie. I would watch a longer movie with these characters for sure. I would have watched a sequel (Everybody Wants Some is kind of a sequel if you squint a little). And you would have to say it's one of the all time high school movies, even if very little of it actually happens in school. 

This film quickly became my end of the school year tradition. I watched it on the last day of school all 4 years of high school (well, junior year I think I had to watch it the next day). And I have watched it many, many times since, and I will watch it many, many more times in the future.