‹ All movies

The Rewatchables ·

Dazed and Confused

year 1993decade 90sdirector Richard Linklatergenre Drama
host Bill Simmonshost Chris Ryanhost Sean Fennessey
All 15 categories

Most Rewatchable Scene · 28:25

Wooderson's slow-motion entrance to the Emporium pool hall to Bob Dylan's Hurricane

The whole movie is a rewatchable scene and is hard to separate into candidates, since it is never clear what time it is until daylight arrives at the very end; the five picks are scenes you could identify from a single picture, knowing the music and exactly what happens.

Wooderson going to the pool hall in slow motion to Bob Dylan's Hurricane is a great four minutes, a great 70s hang, the entire movie cracked into one thing, and may already be the answer.

The Neil McCauley “A Book about Metals” Award for Best Line from the Movie · 1:01:12

"I get older, they stay the same age"

Wooderson's line about getting older while the high school girls stay the same age was hilarious for about 20 years and is less so lately; the line about only coming to do two things, kick some ass and drink some beer, and being almost out of beer, and the great high school yearbook line about killing yourself if these are the best years of your life, are classics.

The film

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Directed by Richard Linklater · Drama

102 minutes

IMDbLetterboxdJustWatch
Cast

Selected cast credits · Film reference

Jason London Randall "Pink" Floyd
Joey Lauren Adams Simone Kerr
Milla Jovovich Michelle Burroughs
Shawn Andrews Kevin Pickford
Rory Cochrane Ron Slater
Adam Goldberg Mike Newhouse
Anthony Rapp Anthony "Tony" Olson
Sasha Jenson Don Dawson
Marissa Ribisi Cynthia Dunn
Deena Martin Shavonne Wright
Michelle Burke Jodi Kramer
Cole Hauser Benny O'Donnell
Christine Harnos Kaye Faulkner
Wiley Wiggins Mitch Kramer
Mark Vandermeulen Tommy Houston
Esteban Powell Carl Burnett
Jeremy Fox Hirschfelder
Ben Affleck Fred O'Bannion
Jason O. Smith Melvin Spivey
Christin Hinojosa Sabrina Davis
Parker Posey Darla Marks
Matthew McConaughey David Wooderson
Nicky Katt Clint Bruno
Renée Zellweger Nesi White
Kim Krizan Ms. Stroud

Everything from the episode

In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.

28:25

Most Rewatchable Scene

Wooderson's slow-motion entrance to the Emporium pool hall to Bob Dylan's Hurricane

Wooderson's slow-motion entrance to the Emporium pool hall to Bob Dylan's Hurricane

In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:28:25Read transcript
  • The whole movie is a rewatchable scene and is hard to separate into candidates, since it is never clear what time it is until daylight arrives at the very end; the five picks are scenes you could identify from a single picture, knowing the music and exactly what happens.
  • Wooderson going to the pool hall in slow motion to Bob Dylan's Hurricane is a great four minutes, a great 70s hang, the entire movie cracked into one thing, and may already be the answer.
  • The mailbox-smashing drive, with Don Dawson laughing in the front seat and the angry hillbilly pulling a 9mm on them, recalls a host's own college Halloween runs smashing pumpkins in a rich part of Worcester; people were idiotic in the 70s and 80s.
  • The paint dumped on O'Banion is a sting operation in which the ninth-grade girls get a little retribution; it is one of Affleck's most committed performances, he gets in his car and is never seen again, and together with Mallrats it suggested he would play a dipshit in every movie before Batman and Armageddon.
  • Adam Goldberg's character getting beaten up is enjoyed as a very realistic fight: he put thought into it and out-thought himself, and the other guy just gets him; Cole Hauser's character shoves people back to let it go on until Pink comes in with McConaughey and stops it.
  • The ending is probably the best two minutes of the movie: four people who would not have been together eight hours earlier end up in one car listening to Slow Ride as the road rolls toward nowhere over an imaginary hill, after the wind-down of everyone going home, Wiley Wiggins's character caught by his mom, Sabrina getting a kiss from Anthony Rapp's character, and Pink admitting to Don that football is not for him.
  • The entrance to the Emporium is settled on as the pick.
  • Asked first which song would soundtrack a slow-motion walk into a high school bar or party, picks Can I Live by Black Rob. — Sean Fennessey
  • The other answer is Cash Rules Everything Around Me by Wu Tang, so both picks are hip-hop songs from kids of the 90s, obsessed with rap, though rock options like Whole Lotta Rosie and Houses of the Holy are floated; a middle school class spent two years reciting Wu Tang skits; one host's own pick would have been L.A. Woman by The Doors, which plays in the room, and a Doors Rewatchables is dangled to one host, who is accused of begging for it and told to name the day and time.
Share this discussion More Most Rewatchable Scene answers
33:42

What’s Aged the Best?

The combination of McConaughey and the cast

The combination of McConaughey and the cast

In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 00:33:42Read transcript
  • Opening nominations are McConaughey, the 70s music, the cars, the cast and the high school hierarchy, with others invited to add their own.
  • The limited temporal narrative structure, with everything taking place over one day, never gets old and feels like a full day, recalling how the social part of a school day started after the last class, ran through practice or a game and then seven to ten hours of hanging out; the action is the juice.
  • It is hard not to say the cast: McConaughey's first movie, Affleck, a golden generation, plus indelible characters for people who went on to have no careers; even though there was no tape on McConaughey in 1993, like drafting a player with no tape, he reads as a movie star, having done only one Miller Lite commercial.
  • Around 1996, with Lone Star and A Time to Kill, McConaughey was pushed as a star on Premier and Vanity Fair covers, and that is when the film's cult-classic status grew because people saw him as Wooderson; in a making-of documentary he recounts being nobody on the Friday and famous, stopped on the street, by the Monday after A Time to Kill opened.
  • A Time to Kill is far less remembered than Dazed and Confused, which is a more generationally beloved movie, though it is defended as good; Grisham was the MCU of the era, with real excitement for The Firm and The Client.
  • The answer offered is the combination of McConaughey and the cast, with the pleasure of seeing McConaughey at that point of his career.
  • Late additions: count how many times Don gets into a car, about 15, since apart from two school scenes he is in a car the whole time; Tim Lincecum looking like an adult Mitch Kramer became a running joke through the 2000s; and the nerds' theory in the car that President Ford's football concussions were affecting the economy now reads as a CTE subplot, which Chevy Chase's portrayal would support.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Best? answers
38:15

What’s Aged the Worst?

Mitch Kramer's performance; his pitching, which needed a cutaway; Wooderson's interest in high school girls; the hazi...

Mitch Kramer's performance; his pitching, which needed a cutaway; Wooderson's interest in high school girls; the hazing and bullying; the lack of accent work beyond McConaughey

In the discussion (13)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:15Read transcript
  • Number one is Mitch Kramer, the biggest flaw in the movie: a bad, miscast performance, which leads to his pitching, where a cutaway was needed and makes Freddie Prinze in Summer Catch look like 1999 Pedro Martinez; even in the cutaway he releases the ball beside his neck as if he had a herniated disc.
  • Texas baseball could not have him as its innings eater; Everybody Wants Some (transcribed as Everybody Wants Him) is read as Linklater's reaction to botching the Mitch Kramer casting, since its players looked like real ballplayers, maybe the most credible baseball movie ever, including the mustached one, Tyler Hetchling (as transcribed) from Teen Wolf, who looks like Mike Trout.
  • A counterpoint: 70s and 80s ballplayers were not athletes like Bryce Harper or Mike Trout, and Houston pitcher Mike Scott, a Cy Young winner, looked like a science teacher; the reply is that Scott was a cheater who tried to cheat the Mets out of the 1986 World Series.
  • The counter to the counterpoint: Criterion making-of footage of Wiley Wiggins having a catch with Richard Linklater is one of the saddest things, since he cannot catch from three feet away; research says he claimed he had played baseball, could not, and they edited around it, which raises what Mitch Kramer brought to the movie versus a 12- or 13-year-old River Phoenix or another good child actor of 1993.
  • The defense: even as a bad actor he has something, since eighth grade is awkward and his lack of confidence and signature nose-and-face touching read as nervousness, so the bad acting works in his favor; the rebuttal is that River Phoenix could have done that, and the what-if game is mocked with James Dean and the Doors Val Kilmer as Mitch Kramer.
  • Kristen Hinojosa (as transcribed), who plays Sabrina, the other eighth-grade girl, is liked for playing it low-key in a movie full of big performances; Mitch needed to be cooler and to be seen pitching, since he is set up as the Randy Pink Floyd of four years later, and Pink at least carried himself like a quarterback.
  • A tangent assigns football positions: Don a defensive end, linebacker or maybe safety, Cole Hauser clearly the best player and a left tackle or defensive end captain, Mel on defense, O'Banion the best player on the defense and a good blocker, Wooderson a tailback or, given his key-catching skills, a Jerry Rice wideout in a pre-West Coast ground-and-pound offense, and Pink a scrambling quarterback like Manziel, a young Jim Zorin (as transcribed) or Tarkenton rather than Stabler.
  • The disagreement over Mitch Kramer is left standing: one side calls the defense the wrong opinion, the other says it is okay that he is a bad actor, something they would say in almost no other case.
  • Wooderson's interest in high school girls, including the implied statutory issue, has not aged well and he may be a predator; the clip of him asking a freshman about this year's crop of girls and his line about getting older while they stay the same age is played.
  • The hazing and bullying have also not aged well.
  • Not a lot has aged badly: in the version of the country we live in now none of this is acceptable and society has changed, but as a period piece the costumes, music and performances hold up, it is full of stars and not riddled with problems. — Sean Fennessey
  • When Mitch Kramer is raised again, Kramer's pitching is conceded as bad, and the Wiggins catch footage is now wanted; a side trip into the 1986 World Series box set, which includes the Astros-Mets NLCS games six and seven and Scott's chicanery, follows.
  • Cole Hauser is not a convincing Texan, few in the cast were and it did not matter, but there is little accent work besides McConaughey, which may be what has aged worst.
Share this discussion More What’s Aged the Worst? answers
47:52

The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance

Parker Posey

Parker Posey

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:52Read transcript
  • The award is a tough one: McConaughey is in the movie too much to qualify, and the same goes for Don Dawson, so something more creative is wanted.
  • Parker Posey, in about four or five scenes, is proposed and was going to be the other host's vote; her high-pitched initiation scene is played, she is likened to Hannibal Lecter and called the answer, while Slater is ruled out as too prominent and iconic, with his long monologues, including his thoughts on George Washington's wife, saved for later.
Share this discussion More The Dion Waiters Award for Best Heat Check Performance answers
49:13

The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award

Jason O. Smith (Mel)

Jason O. Smith (Mel)

In the discussion (2)
Approx. transcript time · 00:49:13Read transcript
  • Clint the Bully, played by Nicky Cat (as transcribed), is the runner-up: seen in nine things without being placeable, including Boston Public, A Time to Kill and a cut-down role in The Dark Knight as one of the cops chased by the Joker while escorting Aaron Eckhart; at about 5'7" he could be more imposing but has the greaser attitude.
  • The answer is the one black actor, who plays Mel, Melvin Spivey: Jason O. Smith has no Wikipedia page and two IMDb credits, this film and Overexposed nine years earlier as Jerry Solomon, a film with a salacious cover about a rock singer secretly posing for a men's magazine; the award could be renamed for him.
Share this discussion More The Joey Pants “That Guy” Award answers
55:25

Apex Mountain

No affirmative selection

No affirmative selection

In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:25Read transcript
  • Arguably nobody here is at Apex Mountain unless you say Linklater, but the second Before Sunrise film is considered his peak instead.
  • Jason O. Smith is offered as obviously peaking here, as are Michelle Burke, Sean Andrews, Rory Cochran and Wiley Wiggins, but these are not famous people and anyone never seen again does not really count, since Apex Mountain is usually for bigger names.
  • It is obviously not McConaughey's peak; Dina Martin, who plays Siobhan (as transcribed), peaked in Swingers, where she is so good a host still has a crush on her.
Share this discussion More Apex Mountain answers
56:12

Is This Movie Better With…?

Michael K. Williams as a young Mel; Danny Trejo hanging out at the Emporium; Steve Buscemi as the offensive coordinat...

Michael K. Williams as a young Mel; Danny Trejo hanging out at the Emporium; Steve Buscemi as the offensive coordinator reading the letter

In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:12Read transcript
  • A young Michael K. Williams could have played Mel; Trejo would have been fun hanging out at the Emporium, someone who knew Wooderson; Buscemi could have been one of the coaches, the offensive coordinator reading the letter.
Share this discussion More Is This Movie Better With…? answers
56:43

The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award

Ben Affleck

Ben Affleck

In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 00:56:43Read transcript
  • The Mark Ruffalo category is now the Saul Rubinick (as transcribed), renamed on the True Romance podcast, and Zach, absent last time, hears the new name live for the first time.
  • Delivers the renamed award's line, 'I treated you like a son and you stabbed me in the heart.' — Chris Ryan
  • Affleck is the guess and then one host's vote: he turns it up nine notches when the paint goes on him, and his furious screaming clip is played; another view is that it is a bit in the movie that O'Banion takes this stuff so seriously, he played it correctly and should not be blamed.
  • Ben Affleck squealing like a pig is one of the most disturbing sounds in modern times and very committed; squeal-like-a-pig, the Deliverance reference to Ned Beatty's assault, was a big 80s and 90s joke that nobody under 30 in the Ringer office would recognize now, an example of a movie humor bit dying with time.
Share this discussion More The Ruffalo / Hanna / Rubinek / Partridge Overacting Award answers
1:10:16

Who Won the Movie?

Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater

In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:16Read transcript
  • The choices offered are Linklater, McConaughey or Martha Washington, who took a big win; Don Dawson is floated and dismissed, since within the story Wooderson won, the way Chevy Chase won Fletch with his name atop the poster and Harrison Ford won Indiana Jones.
  • The case for Linklater is that this launched a 25-year career and made him a two-track filmmaker rather than just an experimental director emerging from the indie scene.
  • The case against McConaughey is that his career cratered in the early 2000s into bad Wooderson-impersonation rom-coms, as one host's 2001 movie-quotes column had jabbed, before the McConaissance.
  • Linklater is one of the nine most important directors since 1990; this is the first Linklater Rewatchables, and the Before films have been discussed, imagined as the hosts and their wives crying through the five-hour trilogy.
  • Linklater is the answer: every film he makes is interesting even when not his best, he has had a great career, and this is a masterpiece that Tarantino has had in his ten best films; alongside Pulp Fiction it emerges from that era as the standalone masterpiece and is the definition of a rewatchable.
Podcast choices
Speaker not identified
Richard Linklater
Share this discussion More Who Won the Movie? answers