Welcome to the final edition of Your Favorite Movie for the 2019 season. If I'm planning on doing at least 50 of these interviews, then we have reached the halfway point. And for halftime, we've switched things up a little bit.
Many people reading along with these things have asked me what my favorite movie is, and when I will be the one interviewed. Here is your answer. A little over a month ago, Pam sat down and interviewed me about my favorite movie of all time, Dazed and Confused.
This is the longest interview I've published so far, and I think it turned out pretty good. It's somewhat indulgent, but I'm not going to apologize for having such a fun time having a conversation with my wife, ya feel me?
Thanks to everyone who has made this blog project so fun for the past 25 interviews. See you in 2020!
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Pam: I don't know about that. Okay, so I broke it down into a few sections based on the interviews that I've been a part of and read. And I basically went on Wikipedia, and looked up some other things. I have one section that's trivia, one section that's about reviews of the movie, and then just questions that I have for you. Do you want to start anywhere specific?
Joe: Nope, you take the lead.
Pam: This is not really trivia, or maybe trivia and reviews? But Dazed and Confused was not a huge box office success apparently. I guess now it's viewed as a cult movie? I don't know if I would've thought of it as a cult classic.
Joe: Do we think it's one of those things that's more generational? I know we were talking about that with Beetlejuice, how the people who would normally be going to the movies in '93 are not the people who would appreciate this movie, but their kids are growing up with this movie now.
Pam: That's how I felt about it. In 1993, I definitely remember it coming out, and not knowing what made a movie "good" back then. But I remember seeing it, trailers for it, and knowing people who went to see it... and they probably shouldn't have? Because I was in third grade?!
Joe: Yeah, I can't imagine appreciating this movie in third grade. But critics appreciated it, for the most part.
Pam: Yes, that was another thing. It has a 91% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes.
Joe: That's pretty fucking good.
Pam: And it seems like, overall, generally people reviewed it positively. That it "lacked structure," but they kind of overlooked that.
Joe: I'm sure, at some point in this interview, I will argue that that is a positive.
Pam: That's true. Something that was said in a few of the reviews— something that I really liked about the movie but couldn't put into words myself—it was actually Roger Ebert who said that "Linklater brought an anthropologist's eye to the film, celebrating the rights of stupidity."
Joe: I like how he puts that.
Pam: I definitely felt that, watching it. Like, it's super '70s, and it definitely taps into that, what the culture was like then.
Joe: I've always liked entertainment like that. "Anthropology," that's a good way to put it. I always said that about Jersey Shore. It was like going to the zoo. I don't know shit about gorillas, but I still wanna tap on the glass. I don't want to watch a video of a gorilla growing up. I don't need to know the motivations behind a gorilla eating a banana. I just want to see him do it.
Pam: So that's the opposite of Linklater's movie Boyhood. It follows the same boy.
Joe: I guess. Though I would argue that Boyhood is a good mix of that. It's not a "slice of life." It's sixteen slices of life, piled on top of each other. Linklater is good with that kind of shit.
Pam: So other trivia—you might have read the Wikipedia page too, so you might know all this—
Joe: Possibly. But I can respond to it.
Pam: That the title came from the Led Zeppelin song? "Dazed and Confused." Did you know that?
Joe: I had read that. And it's funny, there's no Led Zeppelin song on the soundtrack.
Pam: Which I also read that they wanted to put the Led Zeppelin song "Rock and Roll" in there, and Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones said that's fine, but Robert Plant didn't want it in there. Which is weird! Because there are so many other songs on the soundtrack that are great.
Joe: I remember seeing something—you know how School of Rock did "Immigrant Song"?
Pam: Yes, and that's directed by the same director.
Joe: It is! Holy shit, you're right! I didn't even think about that when I brought this up. But I remember seeing a behind-the-scenes thing for that movie. In order to use "Immigrant Song," during one of the concert scenes, they had Jack Black come out and say, "Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, please let us use this song!" And they showed all the extras in the audience clapping and saying "Please!" They had to pretty much beg Led Zeppelin to let them use it. [Editor's note: Here ya go.]
Pam: That's so weird. Why are they so weird with that?
Joe: Some artists are just more protective of their work, I guess?
Pam: But isn't there a Led Zeppelin song that's on a car commercial? "Rock and Roll," right?
Joe: [laughter] Wow. How much is Hyundai paying them, versus fucking Richard Linklater?
Pam: A lot more. Okay, I'm going to go through all the trivia, because it's not that important.
Joe: But it's still fun to talk about.
Pam: And again, you might know this already, but apparently Vince Vaughn was almost cast in the role of O'Bannion, who was played by Ben Affleck. Which, I don't know if that would work. It would, but I feel like Ben Affleck did a good job of being... not likable in that role? Vince Vaughn probably would've been fine.
Joe: I can't picture Vince Vaughn as legitimately angry. I just picture him as being ironically angry, or angry in a comedy and you're supposed to laugh at his anger. Not that we weren't laughing at O'Bannion when he got angry. But you could tell he was actually angry, versus Vince Vaughn, who would smirk his way through it.
Pam: Apparently Renée Zellweger has a non-speaking role in this film?
Joe: I saw that! I have never noticed her. Not that I would ever be that person, and notice a celebrity in the background.
Pam: I mean... she looks different all the time.
Joe: Is she the one who had the plastic surgery?
Pam: Yes, she recently doesn't look anything like she used to.
Joe: I feel like I get her mixed up with the other chick that's in there, Joey Lauren Adams.
Pam: Yeah, she's in all the Kevin Smith movies.
Joe: Is she?
Pam: Isn't she in Mallrats? [Editor's note: Yes.]
Joe: Is she Amy? [Editor's note: No.]
Pam: I don't know. I think she's in a bunch of those movies. She's also in Big Daddy. [laughter] But yeah, I could see how you would get those two confused. Renée Zellweger is a huge star now, bigger than all the stars now.
Joe: Reading all the IMDB trivia pages for these movies, they are always so filled with "This person almost got this role," and "This person almost got this role." "This person had a very minor role, and it was supposed to be bigger," and all that shit. I don't know if that necessarily adds to my understanding or appreciation of a movie. Am I supposed to think about Vince Vaughn now when I see O'Bannion? I don't know. I guess it's more about appreciation when a movie gets it right? Versus wondering if they got it right?
Pam: It's just fun to think about. Like, wondering how that other actor would've done. We were talking about that for one of the movies. It might've been Clue?
Joe: Oh, Carrie Fisher for Ms. Scarlett?
Pam: No. I think instead of Tim Curry, there were some other actors?
Joe: Ah, yeah. I forget. It definitely is only significant if you couldn't picture that alternative actor or actress being better.
Pam: I feel like, for the most part, you can't. Maybe that's just because you watch it and it works. I guess that's what they do when people make movies. It's everyone's job to make sure that the person is working out. Oh, the other one was Back to the Future with Kev. Wasn't someone else cast as Marty McFly, and it just wasn't working out? So they were like, "Hmm, yeah, let's get Michael J. Fox in here."
Joe: It's the director's job—
Pam: To pick up on that, yeah.
Joe: Like, what's his name. That kid who was casted as Jack in La Salle's Into the Woods, and then they were like, "This dude literally cannot sing." So they brought Dwyer in. [Editor's note: True story.]
Pam: They brought in the ringer. [laughter]
Joe: And he did a good job!
Pam: It must've been a hard conversation to have with that other kid.
Joe: Doug P***** had to talk to him.
Pam: He was the director?!
Joe: The producer.
Pam: Oh, that's right. That's a shame for that kid originally casted.
Joe: Eh, he joined FIJI.
Pam: I'm sure he... date raped some girls... Okay! Last bit of trivia that I have. This is funny. Three of the director's former classmates filed a defamation lawsuit against him in 2004.
Joe: Oh lord.
Pam: Their names were Wooderson, Slater, and Floyd. [laughter] He directly took people's names that he went to high school with, and put them in the movie.
Joe: So these people were claiming...
Pam: That the characters were based on them, I guess? Maybe that he was slandering them or something? I don't know. It was thrown out of court.
Joe: Well that's good.
Pam: I just thought it was pretty funny.
Joe: I guess I never knew about what type of legal right you have to your own story? Depends on what judge you're in front of?
Pam: They had to actually prove that they were those characters. He could've just used the names. Like, was the one classmate coming into court saying, "alright, alright, alright"?
Joe: [laughter] I wonder. It's like, if I were to write a story, I would most likely take shit directly from my life.
Pam: I think a lot of people do that. But you change the names!
Joe: That's true.
Pam: "Names have been changed to protect identities."
Joe: They're great fucking names, though. They're iconic names at this point. I guess that's maybe why those three people particularly were suing.
Pam: Maybe. I didn't realize the guy—what's his name, the first name of the guy Floyd?
Joe: Randall?
Pam: And "Pink" is his nickname. Don't they call him "Pink" the whole time? I didn't realize that was a nickname. But I get it, obviously. Pink Floyd.
Joe: Who also didn't make it onto the soundtrack. Though I don't where they would've fit in on this soundtrack.
Pam: That is interesting. Because there were a lot of good songs on this soundtrack. It's a great soundtrack.
Joe: Yeah. Ya know, I feel like I only like some of those songs because they're on that soundtrack. Like, would I like "Sweet Emotion" if it wasn't in Dazed and Confused? Probably not. I'd rope Aerosmith into that whole class of shitty, B-list classic rock bands.
Pam: But I feel like, when I hear that song, I picture Dazed and Confused.
Joe: At this point, for sure. And like, "Slow Ride" and "Free Ride." I meant to reread an essay about those two songs to prepare for this. I think it was the Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs guy? Or maybe it was Steve Hyden? Whoever it was, they wrote an essay about the sociological differences between "Slow Ride" and "Free Ride."
Pam: [Sings the hook from "Slow Ride"] And how does the other one go?
Joe: [Sings the hook from "Free Ride"]
Pam: Gotchya. [laughter]
Joe: I'll link to the essay here. [Editor's note: It was my first guess, Chuck Klosterman, in his book Killing Yourself to Live. Google books has the essay HERE.]
Pam: So, it not being a box office success, it's interesting that now—going back to the "cult classic" idea, I guess—it's now ranked on some lists. For example, Entertainment Weekly had it ranked on the list of "Best High School Movies." I don't know what year the list came out.
Joe: I assume it's number one on all these lists?!
Pam: It's number three on that one. There's number seventeen on another. Entertainment Weekly also ranked the "Top Cult Films." It was seventeen on that one. But yeah, top five in "Best High School Movies." Do you want the other four?
Joe: Sure.
Pam: Wait, I have a question... what is your Mom Mom's favorite movie?
Joe: Splendor in the Grass.
Pam: Okay. I thought so.
Joe: Is that in there?
Pam: That's number 50. And I read—you don't have to put this in—
Joe: It's a rape movie, isn't it?
Pam: Yeah! It said more, but basically, it's Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. Warren Beatty is her boyfriend. "And she's tortured by her sexual urges for him, and pressured to be moral, that she attempts suicide, and ends up in a sanitarium." [laughter] So have fun interviewing your Mom Mom about that!
Joe: Right? This is a nice preview. I'm halfway through my project, here's what to come in 2020! Talking to Mom Mom about Warren Beatty raping a girl!
Pam: Okay, so that's number 50. But the top five. You've definitely seen all of these—no, maybe not all of them. Number five—Heathers.
Joe: Never saw it.
Pam: You did. We watched it for Beerito.
Joe: Must not have been paying attention that week.
Pam: Well, we did watch it for Beerito. Winona Ryder might be in it? Definitely the girl from 90210. Shannen Doherty. And what's his name...? I can't think of his name. [Editor's note: Christian Slater] Rebel Without a Cause is number four.
Joe: That's a high school movie?
Pam: I guess. Yeah, James Dean. I guess he's in high school then. Dazed and Confused at number three.
Joe: Okay.
Pam: Number two is—you hate this movie—Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Joe: Ugh.
Pam: Which, I think it's funny that you hate, because there are similarities to Dazed and Confused.
Joe: Yeah, they're in high school, it's a large cast, there's a bunch of different stories told. But, ideologically, they are completely opposed. Dazed and Confused is all about—and I don't want to get into it too much right at the beginning—but everyone shows a basic love and understanding for each other. Whereas, in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, they are, at their core, shitty human beings. I think Dazed and Confused makes an argument that people are good, and Fast Times makes an argument that people are ultimately flawed.
Pam: Okay. Number one is The Breakfast Club.
Joe: I will that props for being the iconic high school. When you think of high school movies, you think of Breakfast Club.
Pam: That is John Hughes, right?
Joe: Right.
Pam: I read something else about Dazed and Confused, that it was the "Anti-John Hughes movie."
Joe: I think those are Linklater's words.
Pam: Yeah. All the John Hughes movies are so dramatic. And this was just like, "No, that's not what high school is about." More realistically, high school was like driving around, looking for something to do. Besides, like, someone dying in a car crash, or whatever.
Joe: That was the original pitch for this movie, just like four people driving around in a car.
Pam: I read that too. They were going to use an album—I forget what album it was—
Joe: ZZ Top.
Pam: Yeah. They were going to use that. The entire movie was going to be set to that album, and it would be as long as that album. With all the songs in the background.
Joe: I think Linklater could pull something like that off.
Pam: But I think that Dazed and Confused was better than that would've been.
Joe: Oh my god, absolutely! If you want just two people talking for 90 minutes, go watch Before Sunrise.
Pam: ...I don't want to see that. I prefer this, with the ensemble cast, that sort of thing.
Joe: Absolutely.
Pam: I had to look up the other movies that Linklater directed. I know that I had seen some of them, but I wanted to make sure. There were a few that I had seen. School of Rock, we've already talked about. And Boyhood, we saw that. Bernie is another one.
Joe: I forgot about that. That's kind of an outlier for him.
Pam: And the only other one that I had seen—and this is also an outlier—is a movie called Waking Life. Have you ever seen that?
Joe: I don't think I've ever heard of it.
Pam: It's sort of a cartoon. It's like animation over live action? And it's all these... it's very philosophical. I don't even know if there's a plot. There's just people talking about philosophical ideas. I remember watching it in high school. But it definitely impacted me. I remember thinking about it a lot in freshman year of college, when we were taking our philosophy class.
Joe: I'll have to check it out!
Pam: That has nothing to do with Dazed and Confused, so... I guess his movies are... he doesn't really have a shtick. Like some of the directors we've talked about, like Scorsese, or Wes Anderson.
Joe: I mean, if we were to say he had a shtick, outliers notwithstanding, it's be like—movies, like you said, that are philosophical about life, the characters are discussing "what it all means" in some capacity. Dazed and Confused is definitely like that.
Pam: Have you seen Slacker? That's his other big movie.
Joe: That's his first one, right?
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: Nah, I've never seen it. Dazed and Confused was his follow up to Slacker, I guess. I assume it's good.
Pam: I guess I'll have to rewatch Everybody Wants Some!!, because Wyatt Russell's in it, right?
Joe: Yup. It definitely covers some of the same themes as Dazed and Confused, being a "spiritual sequel" to Dazed and Confused. A lot of the same reasons I love Dazed and Confused are the reasons I love Everybody Wants Some!! We can dig into that as much as you want, though that might be jumping the gun, because then I'll have to talk about why I love Dazed and Confused so much.
Pam: Which... you will. Okay. I just have my questions left.
Joe: Go for it.
Pam: But I don't want to start with, like, "Why is this your favorite movie?"
Joe: Um, let's talk about the Dazed and Confused drinking game.
Pam: Oh yeah. Wait, the one we played for...?
Joe: My birthday one year? No! It was Christmastime.
Pam: The week we had a different party every night?
Joe: Right!
Pam: When none of us had kids, or gave a shit about anything.
Joe: [laughter] Yeah.
Pam: I definitely remember being cramped in Maeve's apartment. All of us dressed up like characters from Dazed and Confused. So yeah, what kind of things did we drink to during that movie?
Joe: Nothing. The only rule was that everyone just had to drink 237 beers.
Pam: Really? No rules?
Joe: Prior to that party, I had watched Dazed and Confused and counted how many beers that were drank. Or at least sipped—so I didn't count a keg as 160 beers, I counted somebody pouring a beer out of the keg as one beer.
Pam: Thanks for that. [laughter]
Joe: And when he opened the trunk, and there were all those beers, I only counted the ones that he grabbed and threw to the girls in the other car. So... according to 2013 Joe K*** who counted, they drank 237 beers throughout the movie.
Pam: Did we collectively drink all that during the party?
Joe: ...I don't think we drank 237 beers.
Pam: There were a lot of us there, I think! I don't think we drank that much though.
Joe: You figure, if there were 20 people there, in that small apartment, then everyone would have to drink at least eleven beers.
Pam: Eh, that's not hard to picture, with our group of friends.
Joe: I'm glad you have faith in our friends to drink a lot of beer.
Pam: We probably drank... 150?
Joe: Close. As much as they drank at the keg party, probably.
Pam: I totally forgot about that party we had. For some reason, I thought that was Beerito or something. But that was a fun time.
Joe: Always a fun time watching Dazed and Confused!
Pam: How do you feel about the hazing in the movie?
Joe: Are you talking about what they actually do? Or how the whole town seems to react? Or both?
Pam: Both, yeah. Because the town seems to just look past it. I dunno. Is it okay?
Joe: I thought about that. It seems like the type of question I would try to press somebody on, so I knew you were going to ask it, and I thought about it. [laughter] Sure. I... feel... okay. Overall, in 2019, hazing should, in that capacity, should probably be frowned upon.
Pam: [laughter] Yeah!
Joe: And that is because, it's a "few bad apples" type deal. Where characters like Darla—Parker Posey's character—O'Bannion, the people who don't have the right spirit in the proceedings. They do it because they want to inflict pain on someone else. Whereas someone like Melvin—
Pam: Which one's Melvin?
Joe: The black guy. He's going to smack the shit out of Mitch's ass, but then give him some money, tell him to go grab some beers, ruffle his hair later, and is buddies with him. He does it because this is the tradition that's passed on. And I feel like, in the '70s, there wasn't enough history in this type of thing happening, that the town couldn't look past the bad experiences and say, "We can't do this anymore." In 2019, we can look at it and say, "In the mid-2010s, there was hazing at the Penn, and a kid died." We can look at hazing rituals and say, "This can't happen because of these bad things that have already happened."
Pam: That's true.
Joe: Whether the town of Baytown, Texas, whether anything has happened prior to May 27, 1976, probably not? They are looking at the positive side of this. Like, most of these kids are doing it because they are passing the torch to these younger kids, and they are using it as a ritual to welcome these kids into their high school years.
Pam: It's just, some of it made me feel uncomfortable.
Joe: For sure. What parts specifically?
Pam: Mainly, the girls. When they made them propose to the high school guys. They were like, "What will you do for me?" and they has to say, "Whatever you want." And then he said, "Do you spit or swallow?" That would scar me for life if I was a freshman girl!
Joe: It's fucked up. And Donnie definitely... he's definitely a character to watch in this movie, because he flips so much. He's such an asshole on the outside—and I'm not even saying he has a good heart on the inside, because maybe he doesn't—but he does show some positive qualities as well. I always think of that scene when he is fake stealing the beer, and brings Mitch with him. He's like punching him like he would a little brother. That's him caring for the person whose ass he smacked with a paddle a few hours earlier. But, at the same time, he is a sexist, a misogynist, treats women poorly for sure. So he's like a whole human being, ya know? I agree with you, that was real shitty, that he sexually degrades a girl for no fucking reason.
Pam: Because it's hazing.
Joe: Right, because it's hazing. You're right in that it's not an excuse. That's the reason why we're sitting here saying that hazing is not good, because if that happened today, a woman rightly would be offended and appalled by his behavior.
Pam: Yeah, this is way before the Me Too movement.
Joe: And, ya know, it's not even... maybe that's a slight toward Linklater, because the chick who made the O-face, it had no impact on her. She did it because she wanted to.
Pam: I think one of the senior girls afterward was like, "You're an asshole" to Donnie.
Joe: Jodi, who's kind of... there's more voices of reason throughout this whole ritual than there are assholes.
Pam: I guess the asshole were Parker Posey and Ben Affleck. But you definitely saw other people that were like, "You wanna hang out with us tonight?" Like you said, welcoming them into high school. There were more nice parts than shitty parts.
Joe: Definitely. And then what's her name, Sabrina proposing to Tony. He says the same kind of stuff, but ironically. And then is nice to her afterward.
Pam: Don't they kiss at the end?
Joe: They do! "It's always nice to eat pancakes after a night of beer drinking."
Pam: Did you think of the Masque at all when you watched the hazing?
Joe: [laughter]
Pam: They do put pacifiers in the girls' mouths at one point! I was like, "Oh my god, did we pull that from this movie?"
Joe: It's possible. I did not think of that. Maybe I should have! I was accused of hazing. I had to have a meeting with La Salle admins about it.
Pam: You did? What?!
Joe: I mean, I didn't do anything like they do in the movie. Me and Dwyer were drinking in the cats. And I tweeted about it. [Editor's note: I deleted the tweet after the meeting, which is a damn shame, because that would've been nice to hold on to.]
Pam: Well, that's where you went wrong there.
Joe: I had to meet with the administrators. The Masque was accused of hazing their freshman, I guess.
Pam: Because of you and Dwyer!
Joe: I mean, I'm not going to put any blame on Dwyer, but...
Pam: I definitely thought about the hazing thing, when they're nicer to the freshman. "This is all a game. You should come hang out with us later." Because when we were driving around in the car, me and Tricia were like, "Guys, you can take your masks off, this is stupid, we're going back to the theater. We're not going to the beach. Do you guys want to get milkshakes? Because we're going back to the theater in like ten minutes." [laughter] [Editor's note: Part of the Masque's "hazing" rituals was that we would have the freshman blindfolded and "drive them to the shore," but actually just drive around for a while and end up back at the theater. I know! Crazy!]
Joe: I forgot we made them wear bathing suits.
Pam: I think Stephan was in our car. I'll have to ask him.
Joe: He wore a bathing suit?
Pam: Probably. We all did.
Joe: That Spring before I met you, the week before inductions, we told the freshman we were going to the beach, and we ended up going to Day Dreams. So there were people wearing their bathing suits at the strip club. [laughter]
Pam: I'm sure some of them were glad they were. [Editor's note: Though it was not requested, I'm taking an additional comment off the record for the subject of the comment's own sake.]
Joe: Strike that from the record!
Pam: So yeah. The hazing was... eh. I guess it was just the beginning of the movie.
Joe: Is the movie trying to make a case that hazing is good?
Pam: No.
Joe: I don't think so.
Pam: And this is a movie that was depicting culture in the '70s. When was Animal House supposed to take place? The '70s or the '80s? Same thing.
Joe: It's depicting characters as they are. I know we talked about that in Clue, with Professor Plum grabbing Scarlett's ass? Is that something that we as an audience should be concerned about? Probably not, because it shows his motivation.
Pam: And we're just watching a movie, and being entertained.
Joe: So I'm not sitting there saying, "This is fucking awesome that these girls are getting ketchup and mustard all over them!" I find it more entertaining to consider that a type of person like Darla would exist, and what her motivations are.
Pam: I think she was just a jerk. [laughter]
Joe: Probably! But how bad must she have gotten it three years prior?
Pam: Yeah, that's true.
Joe: That she felt that she had to be this tough badass.
Pam: So, something that we've talked about with all the of the previous movies that we didn't talk about yet with this one is Oscar nominations. Or lack of Oscar nominations? This won nothing.
Joe: Oh... no. I didn't even bother looking it up.
Pam: There's nothing. No accolades.
Joe: The MTV Movie Awards didn't even exist then.
Pam: Are you sure?
Joe: It started a couple years later. [Editor's note: This is wrong. The MTV Movie Awards began in 1992. Dazed and Confused was released in 1993. It wasn't nominated for anything in 1994.]
Pam: I was going to say, if that was a year they had those award, Dazed and Confused would've won something.
Joe: Maybe. It probably would've won "Best Stoner Scene" or something.
Pam: Or Kids Choice Awards.
Joe: 'The golden blimp for Best Martha Washington Impression" [laughter]
Pam: So when did you first see Dazed and Confused?
Joe: Ya know, it only just recently came to me. I guess I hadn't thought about it in a while. And I don't know the specifics. I couldn't think of the exact time or place. But it was definitely during the teenage high school years that I had first heard of it and watched it—it's not like I was waiting to be a teenager to watch it. Pretty sure it was with the Little Flower girls I hung out with back in the day.
[Editor's note: After this interview, but before publishing, I saw two of my old friends from this group at a wedding, and I confirmed that it was definitely with them that I saw this movie first. Apparently there was a party at Kristi's house when her parents were out, and Dazed and Confused was played on loop on the TV as we drank shitty beers. Good times.]
Joe: We, as a group, would drink in the woods—
Pam: Drink in the woods, yeah, yeah.
Joe: —I guess, when I was shown this movie by them, they were already trying to... not emulate it, but looking up to this movie as the ideal teenage experience. And I agreed. Obviously. I found it to be... ya know, I don't want to say I looked to this movie as something I wanted to do, exactly. But it was the teenage experience that I wanted to live, even though I wasn't actually living it.
Pam: Eh... it seems like you guys were living some of this.
Joe: From a 30-year-old perspective? Yeah, I agree with you. Is it a nostalgia exercise at this point? Maybe. As a sixteen-year-old watching this, it was: All these teenagers seem like they got it made. It seems like they run this town. They can do whatever the fuck the want. The big party is cancelled, and someone snaps his fingers, and they have eight kegs in the woods and the whole school is there.
Pam: Well that's because they are friends with Matthew McConaughey.
Joe: [laughter] Right, who wouldn't want that?
Pam: Such a creep.
Joe: But, when I was that age, when I was sixteen, all I saw were the differences. I wasn't living that exactly. When we were drinking in the woods, there were six of us. It wasn't the whole school. It wasn't large groups of different cliques, it was just the people I usually hung out with. There were those trivial high school problems that seemed so important at the time. Girl problems, right? That didn't seem to exist in Dazed and Confused.
Pam: Yeah, everyone seemed to be laid back about everything.
Joe: So as a sixteen-year-old, I'm watching this movie saying, "I wish it was like that." As a 30-year-old, I'm watching this movie saying, "That was how it was!" And maybe that has something to do with rose-colored glasses. What do the Menzingers call it? "Revisionist history"? But I watch that movie and I say that these teenagers seem to have a certain sense of freedom from responsibility, and I feel like, now, I did have that then.
Pam: Definitely. And despite the small differences, the overall feel and what you guys were doing, was probably more similar than different.
Joe: For sure. Just that overall feeling of being a teenager. And I guess now I'm in the Linklater position. He's looking back on his teenage years, and trying to recreate that.
Pam: I wonder how old he was when... was he raised in the '70s?
Joe: He must've been.
Pam: I saw a picture of him, and he definitely looked like he's in his 50s or 60s now.
Joe: The timeline might not be exactly right, but this movie was released in '93, so you figure... I dunno, that's seventeen years after '76, and he was certainly older than seventeen. So... right? Yeah. He probably... I guess he would've been a teenage then. If he was seventeen then, he would've been 34 making this movie. If that makes sense. [Editor's note: Born in '60, so 33 years old when this movie came out.]
Pam: And it was only his second movie, so... I guess he was creating it as nostalgia. Maybe using some rose-colored glasses to take out some minor details.
Joe: And that's natural. He probably did have some way shittier experiences than he remembers, just like both of us do.
Pam: It's interesting that you bring up watching it as a teenager versus watching it as an adult, because I definitely didn't watch this as a teenager. Maybe I saw it in college? It could've been that the first time I saw it from start to finish was at Maeve's party.
Joe: I thought you were going to say the first time was the other night!
Pam: No, I had seen it before. At least bits and pieces before. It's funny, because I think if I would've watched it as a teenager, I would've felt... I dunno, I feel very different watching it now. Certain things.
Joe: You're saying you would've thought negatively as a teenager?
Pam: No, no. I would've felt positively watching it as a teenager, and I felt positively watching it now. But there were some things, as a parent, watching it now, I'm like, "Are they really smashing these people's mailboxes?" Like, c'mon!
Joe: You didn't do that shit as a teen?
Pam: No! That must be a guy thing, I guess. Egging people's houses, I guess... not that we did that. But that's different than destroying someone's property.
Joe: I guess we didn't really do that. But we did have a thing, during the nights we used to drink in Andrew R*****'s basement. We used to sneak out at three in the morning—this had to be during Christmastime—and we would rearrange the lawn deers, the ones that light up, into positions so that they'd be fucking.
Pam: Joe! See, I would probably think that's funny then, but now, I don't think that's funny at all. Like, if someone stole that little thing out front that cost $10 at A.C. Moore, I'd be pissed,
Joe: Oh, for sure.
Pam: And the teenagers who did it—because it would definitely be teenagers—would be like, "This is so funny."
Joe: Teenagers smashed our jack-o-lanterns as kids. I definitely get it. You're right. Things change as parents.
Pam: And just watching them drive around drinking, it's just like, [shuddering sound]. But that's what people did in the '70s back then, too.
Joe: Yeah, that wasn't frowned upon by anyone back then.
Pam: That was more of another cultural thing, in the '70s.
Joe: And I'm sure a lot more people died crashing into poles drunk as teenagers than was portrayed in Dazed and Confused.
Pam: Do you see yourself as any of the characters in the movie? Do you identify with anyone specifically?
Joe: Tricky question. I guess, with everything like this, it's who you think you are, versus who you want to be.
Pam: Can I predict who you're going to say, based on that?
Joe: [laughter] Sure.
Pam: I think you're going to say you want to be Pink.
Joe: Of course.
Pam: Because you're friends with everyone.
Joe: Well... I wanted to be, when I was growing up. Pink was a character that I would look up to. He wasn't defined by a social status. He was friends with the jocks, he was friends with the stoners, he was friends with the nerds. He was good with old people. He was looking after the people below him. He was a defender... I don't want to say "a defender of the weak," but—
Pam: He did cheat on his girlfriend, though.
Joe: He did, and that's—
Pam: It's a minor thing about him, but...
Joe: Sure, and I think that plays into the whole "idealistic version of teenage life," that you don't really have girl problems. In real life, I would be beating my chest in agony that I did something like that. But definitely, overall, he was the man at school. That was definitely who I wanted to be. At certain points in my life, I did feel that way. I know there were times when you—maybe after I saw some random fucking person at the bar—you would be like, "That Joe K***, he knows everybody."
Pam: Yeah, you do see a lot of people you know.
Joe: I don't know if I feel that way anymore. I don't know if I feel like Randall "Pink" Floyd anymore.
Pam: What? You always... okay, first of all, we're not in college, so it's hard to be the person that "bounces between cliques" anymore. There are no cliques in the real world.
Joe: Look, I'm not trying to say that I still want to be Randall Floyd. I'm not saying that I'm disappointed that I'm not. I'm just saying the person who I wanted to be, and possibly was at one point, I no longer am.
Pam: I think you definitely have pieces of him. I see that.
Joe: You know, looking over this character list now, I kind of feel like... Well, first off, they do a great job of having all these different types of characters. You could look at this movie like a Rorschach test, and say, on any particular day, "I feel like an X, or a Y, or a Z." Ya know? Have there been times when I've been an O'Bannion, just angry at the world? Fuck yeah!
Pam: When you were drinking in the cats? Just kidding.
Joe: Have there been times when I've felt like a Mitch? Being in a new situation, shy and touching my nose out of shyness all the time? And coming into a world where people are already established, and I'm the new kid? Yeah, definitely I've felt like that at times. Have I been in situations like Mike, where some dude disrespects me, and I feel so fucking low, that I just want to do something stupid about it? Hell yeah. Have I felt like Slater, and felt like I was high? Yeah!
Pam: There are so many characters that guys can say that kind of stuff about in this movie. This guy and this guy and this guy... and then for the girls, you're either the dorky redhead, the asshole Parkey Posey, or you're all the other popular girls. That's it!
Joe: That's fair, to think that.
Pam: But that's like every movie.
Joe: I don't know if I full agree with you. I think I can look at this list and give you a few other female examples. But I agree with you in that this might possibly be a guys' movie? And if that is a slight against me, then that's fine, I'll accept that.
Pam: No, that's okay.
Joe: But, for the record, I am a guy.
Pam: On the record.
Joe: So if it's a movie directed toward guys, then that would be a mark in its favor toward me, personally, as a male.
Pam: Don't they kind of address that in the movie? In the girls' bathroom? About Gilligan's Island?
Joe: Yeah, that's true!
Pam: "There's two girls—the hot girl next door, and the movie star. And then all the guys are nerds or middle-aged overweight guys, or Gilligan?" [laughter]
Joe: True. Maybe that was Linklater admitting that he was making this movie for him and his ilk. I dunno. But there are some other girl characters. There's the stoner girl.
Pam: Oh yeah, Milla Jovovich?
Joe: Who actually got married to the actor who played Pickford during the filming. But she was only sixteen, so her mom got it annulled.
Pam: What?
Joe: But anyway, Sabrina is like the Mitch-type character. They even talk during the movie, trading notes, like, "This is how I'm dealing with this new situation." Cynthia, who's probably one of the best characters—
Pam: The redhead.
Joe: Yeah! She's like a philosophical, even-keeled person who doesn't stop smiling throughout the whole movie. And she's certainly not "popular."
Pam: And she ends up with the creepiest one of all.
Joe: You think Wooderson's creepy in this?
Pam: He's in his twenties, and the girls are, what, maybe eighteen?
Joe: I guess I can see that. And certainly, that big line—"I get older, they stay the same age"—in the comedy world is a joke line.
Pam: I think he's bordering on being creepy. Yet. I think if it was five years later and he was still doing that, then definitely he would be creepy.
Joe: That's fair. I wonder how old he's actually supposed to be in this.
Pam: He's in his twenties.
Joe: Early twenties.
Pam: I mean, the people knew him, that were in high school. So he was probably only a few years older than them. He was on the football team with some of them, right?
Joe: Sometimes, in my life, I've felt like a Wooderson.
Pam: I mean, I should talk. I used to hang out at La Salle with all your friends, when I was 25. [laughter]
Joe: I kind of felt like that at the Laf, ya know? That older figure, who's probably not supposed to be there anymore—toward the end of my tenure there—but you can still pass on some kind words, and pass on some sage advice, occasionally.
Pam: You felt like him when you were at the Laf?
Joe: Yeah. When me and Dave were in our early twenties, still working with sixteen-year-olds.
Pam: [laughter]
Joe: It was fun as shit!
Pam: You and Dave were like, "The best thing is, I keep getting older, and they stay the same age." And you were talking about the kids and the old people. [laughter]
Joe: "I keep getting older, and they keep getting way older."
Pam: I also feel like—to go back to the "what character do you see yourself as"—
Joe: Yeah, tell me more about myself.
Pam: I know you very well, but someone who knew you from high school, or knew you from college, they might see you as the Kevin Pickford character, who is originally having the keg party. And all the kegs are delivered to his house, and he has to cancel the party. I was like, "That's definitely a Joe K*** move." So ballsy. And the dad's like, "There's a gentlemen downstairs delivering kegs to this house," and Pickford's like, "What? That's weird." He doesn't break at all, until the dad says, "Unpack the trunk, we're staying home."
Joe: You're saying that I'm practiced in the art of lying to my parents?
Pam: Yes!
Joe: [laughter]
Pam: For keg parties.
Joe: I kind of pulled a stunt like that at the end of one of my keg parties. We had already cleaned up the whole house—
Pam: "Cleaned up the whole house"?!
Joe: Absolutely.
Pam: I'm using air quotes right now.
Joe: They never had a problem with the state of the house when they came back. They never noticed anything. We would even vacuum.
Pam: I'm sure. They probably were like, "We can tell Joe had a party because it's cleaner than it was before."
Joe: One time, afterward, we didn't get out of the house quick enough. A few of us were chilling around the empty keg, just shooting the shit. And my parents came into the Florida room, and were like, "What?!" So we just took the keg and ran around the side. I remember my mom chasing us, like, "Joe! We saw you!"
Pam: You're bad.
Joe: Luckily that was the end of the night, and not the beginning of the night. I don't think my parents ever caught me bringing a keg into the house. They caught Mary C***** bringing something in once. "Mary, you're always welcome here, but your case of beer is not."
Pam: God... I hope Willow has the fear in her that I had, growing up.
Joe: Of your parents?
Pam: Yeah, I never had parties in my house. Not that kind of party. I had people over.
Joe: Well, I think what I had, and what Pickford could've had—I can't imagine what type of party that would've been, had his parents left town—but as drunk as I got, I will still pretty responsible about the well-being of the house. It wasn't like I left it up to chance whether something was going to be destroyed or not. For some of the parties, I would literally lock the back door so no one could get in, unless they had to pee.
Pam: Plus, you guys had the Florida room.
Joe: Right, the Florida room, and the backyard.
Pam: That's good.
Joe: So who knows, Pickford might've been the same way.
Pam: Maybe.
Joe: But... he was also getting high as shit at two in the afternoon, so... would he have been that way? Probably not.
Pam: I read that the actor that played him didn't get along with the other actors. His role was cut a lot. Which sucks. I wouldn't think about that on a movie set. If that were me, I'd just be like, "I'm happy to be here." [laughter]
Joe: The character of Wooderson took a lot of his parts, I guess.
Pam: And Milla Jovovich's part was bigger too.
Joe: She got cut by proxy?
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: That's a shame for her.
Pam: Well, she's still famous.
Joe: That's a shame that this kid, he fucking blew it. It seems like it was probably a fun cast, right?
Pam: He was fighting the actor who played Pink. They were fighting each other, and had to get broken up on set. Some people are just dicks.
Joe: Well, if you're saying I'm like both of them, then maybe it was a matter of them being too similar to one another, and they couldn't get along in that way.
Pam: I think you're like the characters, not the actors! [laughter] Any other characters that you identify with?
Joe: I mean... I could go down this list and say how I identify with any of these guys. But besides maybe... Tony?
Pam: Anthony Rapp.
Joe: Although... maybe I could identify with his basic shyness? Had Tony had more than the six beers that he had that night, would he have come out of his shell more? That's kind of how I felt in high school sometimes, where I came out of my shell after drinking some beers. And maybe he did! Maybe he never would've kissed Sabrina at the end of the night had he not had those beers... and those pancakes.
Pam: Do you think he moved to New York right after high school? To live with Roger and Angel?
Joe: [laughter] Yup. 525,600 minutes after he graduated high school.
Pam: [laughter]
Joe: I've never seen Rent.
Pam: Well, they live in a flat in New York. And they don't pay the rent.
Joe: They don't pay the rent?!
Pam: Squatters.
Joe: So the title is ironic?
Pam: Well, they sing about it. [Editor's note: I'm not cutting much from this interview, but I'm gonna cut Pam's long Rent description that she gives with a mouth full of Halloween candy.]
Joe: So they're not paying rent in Rent. Would you say that the characters in Dazed and Confused are "dazed" and "confused"?
Pam: Just the one guy, Slater.
Joe: I feel like you could make a case that they are dazed and confused. "Dazed," if you consider inebriation of any kind as "dazed."
Pam: And I guess all teenagers are inherently confused.
Joe: Yeah, that goes back to the philosophical nature of it. Figuring out where they are in life. It's a transitional period. Cynthia kind of talks about that in the general—going into the next decade, what's that going to hold?
Pam: Right, aren't they talking about how the '70s suck? I watch this movie and I'm like, "the '70s seem so cool."
Joe: I don't know if she says that before or after her most famous quote—"I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor insignificant preamble to something else." So, live in the present.
Pam: Be mindful.
Joe: This is obviously a character who is struggling to live in the moment. I think of you when she says that.
Pam: Yeah?
Joe: Because you're usually like, "If I can just get through this." Like you were saying earlier, "I just need to get through these weeks of pain, until I give birth."
Pam: Oh god. Strike that from the record.
Joe: What? Why?
Pam: Because I don't want it to seem like I'm whining.
Joe: You don't think you struggle to live in the present?
Pam: When I feel like I do now every day!
Joe: We used to play that game, "Say Three Positive Things," where you would have to name three good things about right now. And you would struggle to play that game.
Pam: That's because I was usually mad at you when you would make me play that.
Joe: You were mad at something. I dunno. I think it's something that I struggle with sometimes too, but maybe the opposite direction.
Pam: Being nostalgic, and looking at the past?
Joe: Yeah. We've touched on this a few times in previous discussions, but I'll say it right now—I do think nostalgia is toxic for me. I think that—there's never come a time when I've let me feelings about the past affect my present enough that it's ruining my present. Like, I'm not sitting there, feeding Willow breakfast, and thinking, "I wish I was drinking Smirnoff in the woods right now with the Little Flower girls," or anything like that. But... I miss the old days, sometimes.
Pam: Well, like you said, it was a lack of responsibilities, a certain freedom.
Joe: Exactly.
Pam: You didn't have to worry about getting up and going to work every day and having health insurance and feeding a baby.
Joe: So is my love for Dazed and Confused healthy?
Pam: I think so.
Joe: I don't know. I feel like it gives me an excuse to reminisce, and maybe I don't need any more excuses than I already have.
Pam: I think it's okay. I think if it was more nostalgia than was healthy...
Joe: Then you would knows this as my wife.
Pam: I would know, yeah.
Joe: That's fair. This is probably just me being hard on myself. But... that's just how I am.
Pam: Everyone looks back—not everyone—a lot of people back on these years and think, "Man, that was so fun." But I think as long as you're not trying to relive that, then I think it's fine.
Joe: That's fair. In other words, don't be an O'Bannion in that type of situation.
Pam: Don't fail so you can go back.
Joe: As tempting as that was in senior year of college.
Pam: There were a lot of things that I noticed in the movie—talking about nostalgia, but '70s nostalgia. I don't know if my parents have ever seen this movie. Have your parents seen this movie?
Joe: I doubt it.
Pam: I don't think mine have either. But I think they would really enjoy it if they did. Because that was what their lives were like as teenagers. It's funny, there were a lot of things I noticed in this movie that were like, "That's so different than right now."
Joe: Like what?
Pam: Like in the end, when they were like, "We're gonna spend the summer driving to get Aerosmith tickets!" Now, you can just go on your computer and say, "Well, I got Aerosmith tickets. It took me five minutes." Can you imagine that being a road trip? "We gotta drive to get these tickets." It's like, what? Where are you driving to? [laughter]
Joe: Which must have been awesome for them. What a way to cap off the night, ya know?
Pam: I noticed that—and this is sort of the hazing thing again—but the teacher in the middle school was laughing at the kids when the seniors were—
Joe: Physically threatening them while drinking beers in the school parking lot? Yeah.
Pam: The teacher's like, "[chuckles] Oh man, these rascally seniors..."
Joe: And he made a really dark joke! "As the sergeant told us in Vietnam, 50 of you are going in, and 25 of you are coming out!" Very funny.
Pam: Another thing was when the party was cancelled. That wouldn't happen in movies these days! Because everyone would know, because they would be texting each other.
Joe: You'd get a Facebook notification.
Pam: But here, people still showed up, which was so good. It's the same thing when you're meeting someone at the bar, and you're like, "Alright, I'll meet you at this bar at 7 PM." You don't have to text when you're there! I know that used to drive us crazy, when the person would text something like, "I'm here!" and make you go out and get them. It's just like, go into the bar and meet them! What would happen if you didn't have a cell phone? You'd just go in and meet them, right?
Joe: Do you think that's just indicative of the size of Baytown, Texas, that there's a limited amount of options to hang out at, so you didn't need to try to let everyone know, because everyone's just going to show up at the burger place anyway?
Pam: No, I think it was indicative of the '70s. How are they going to tell everyone anyway? Start a phone chain.
Joe: I guess.
Pam: But now, everyone would just be texting. Even if you were in a small town like that, it would be a text. Everyone would know. Or it would be on Snapchat, or whatever bullshit app kids use these days.
Joe: Is this a good thing or a bad thing, are we saying?
Pam: Oh, I appreciate the '70s culture of it all so much more than I appreciate now.
Joe: Yeah, there's definitely a throwback aspect to it. I guess I usually make a point to text people as few times as possible, if something's being planned. But at the same time, it's easier, when we're throwing a party, just making a Facebook event, and contacting everyone through that.
Pam: I think it's things like that, that happen to people, that will not happen to people now, obviously, because of Facebook and text and stuff. Some of the character-building things for people, in general. It seems like our parents have so many more stories of stupid things that happened than we will, because of the technology.
Joe: Like what?
Pam: I dunno, like showing up at different bars, or whatever. I can't think of a good example. But in the movie, that was a good example. The party was cancelled, and people still showed up, and the dad opened the door, and they were like, "Oh shit!"
Joe: So you're saying that that would be a good story for those people that still showed up.
Pam: Yeah. We would never have something like that happen to us.
Joe: I'm sure Mike and Tony and Cynthia showed up to the keg party and were like, "Yo Pickford, we went to your fucking house, man!" And Pickford was probably like, "Ah, sorry man."
Pam: And you can't get mad at him, because... how are you going to tell the whole school that the party's cancelled? Just funny things like that.
Joe: So would you like living in a small Texas town in the '70s? Is that something that you would've wanted?
Pam: I think I would enjoy it. I just appreciate the '70s aspect of this as a whole. Not specifically a Texas town, but I appreciate small towns in movies and TV shows, stuff like that.
Joe: Did you feel any sense of that kind of thing, growing up?
Pam: No, not really.
Joe: Eh, I kind of did. Certainly not to this extent, where Baytown felt like their entire world. But in the pocket of the Northeast where I grew up, all my friends lived close by, we tended to congregate in the same places. You could go to the Wawa and see a lot of people that you knew, just because that's where the teenagers went.
Pam: You're right, I guess we had the Pub that we would go to, and you would always run into someone from Neshaminy.
Joe: In high school you went to a pub?
Pam: It was called the Great American Pub, but it was a diner.
Joe: I see. So you had your own little world.
Pam: I guess. But when I think of "small town," I think of Dillon, Texas.
Joe: Everyone knows each other.
Pam: Yeah, and... no, I don't think I felt that. I'm always torn between wanting to live in a small town, and wanting to live in the city. And I wouldn't consider Port Richmond a "small town." [laughter]
Joe: Well, we're not as ingrained in the pocket of this neighborhood as we were in the pockets of where we grew up.
Pam: I guess.
Joe: But do you think that's maybe—going back to a previous subject, when you said you used to say, "Joe K***, you know everyone"—do you think that was probably more indicative of the town I grew up in, rather than that I was emulating Pink in any way?
Pam: I think it was a little bit of both. Yes, you grew up in a "small town"—if you consider Rockledge a "small town"—
Joe: Let's call it "quasi-isolated neighborhood."
Pam: So yeah, partly because of that. But you also know a lot of people. I think you work to keep relationships up with people. We talked about this at some point, about seeing people you know from high school or college. Some people—like you—would be like, "Hey! How are you?"
Joe: Oh, when we talking about how I saw Stacy G***** on the El.
Pam: But then other people, like me, would just look back at their phone. [laughter] Which is horrible, because I'm saying how much I love '70s culture, but then I'm using technology when I don't want to see someone, or talk to someone!
Joe: I mean... you're acknowledging the downfalls of social media, and how it spreads us apart. In Baytown, everyone seemed to feel connected without social media.
Pam: We talked a lot about this—Randall Pink Floyd being friends with everyone. One of the reviews of the movie said, "The film presents 'fluidity of cliques.'" Because of this character, and a lot of the characters, who move between the cliques. There's not really the "popular crowd," and... well, there's a few. There's a distinction between "the jocks" and "not the jocks." And there are the three nerdy people. But in every teen movie, it's like, "This is the popular crowd, and these are the dorks, and these are the art people, and these are the stoners." Which do you think is a more realistic depiction of high school?
Joe: Dazed and Confused, for sure. I mean... I guess I can only speak anecdotally. And my anecdotes are from a very specific school—La Salle College High School—and there were definitely groups of friends there. But mostly everyone was fluid in their social groups. You're absolutely right, that's reflected in this movie. Fucking Donny hanging out with the jocks and the stoners. Floyd moving through all of them. Wooderson, a stoner, defending Mike, the nerd, helping him out in the fight. That's definitely more realistic than, say, a Mean Girls thing, that's very specific in, "These are the tables you can sit at."
Pam: I think real high school—for me, at least, going to a co-ed high school that was a lot bigger than La Salle High School—it's somewhere in between. I don't think it's like all the teen movies—"These are different cliques, and the cliques don't mingle." But it was definitely fluid, like this movie. And same with college! It's inevitable for things to happen that way, when you're that age, and you're with that many people who are your age.
Joe: I meant to bring up a movie that I think you might relate to more than Dazed and Confused. Can't Hardly Wait?
Pam: Oh yeah, I love that movie.
Joe: If I could name a movie that is spiritually related to Dazed and Confused the most, it'd be that movie. How there are cliques, and they're all smashed together.
Pam: Because they're all at the same party.
Joe: Right. And it's just one night, everyone bumping up against each other.
Pam: There's the nerd, who's the valedictorian. There's the jock. And they end up playing the piano together.
Joe: Would you say that that was more representative of your high school experience than Dazed and Confused?
Pam: Yeah, probably. The groups would merge if you were at a party. Maybe not to that extent—there was never a giant party where everyone from our high school was at. It's not like they wouldn't merge at all, but you still knew who the popular kids were, and who the nerds were, and who the stoners were.
Joe: Isn't that a good feeling though, when there's crossover?
Pam: Yeah, it's great. It's what real life is when you're an adult. No one's popular anymore.
Joe: I've always tried to make my different friend groups friends with each other. And that's not even a hierarchical thing. People are just in different bubbles, trying to get them to connect... with varying levels of success, I guess, with our friends.
Pam: I feel like, if cliques happen in your high school, it's because your young, and stupid, and fixated on things that don't matter. And then in college, it's a little less. You're friends with more diverse crowds and groups, but—like La Salle—I still think of the sororities and fraternities. There was the "hot sorority," and "the nerdy sorority." I'm not going to say which sororities I'm referring to...
Joe: Do you think that's why I didn't like Greek life? Because they were purposefully walling themselves off in a bubble, and that went against my whole ethos of "groups should merge," that they shouldn't put themselves in a bubble?
Pam: That's super true.
Joe: I've never thought about it like that.
Pam: And... you're also paying for your friends. [laughter] But you get out to the real world and you're like, "Nope, everyone can be friends with everyone." As long as you're a nice person. High school and college are just priming you for this nonexistent tribal structure.
Joe: I dunno, you still kind of see that with sports team, and...
Pam: Yeah, it's more economic now.
Joe: Conservatives and liberals?
Pam: Oh god.
Joe: I know, we're not getting into that. [laughter]
Pam: And I purposefully didn't look up whether anyone in the cast was Me Too'd, because I don't want to bring that up.
Joe: I thought for sure you were going to ask me if I thought this was an anti-capitalist movie.
Pam: Oh, I have that in my notes! But I... I don't care. [laughter] Because I'm sure the answer is "Yes."
Joe: The world will never know.
Pam: The world will never know because I'm not going to ask you. To everyone reading this—you're welcome.
Joe: [laughter]
Pam: Do you think they could make this movie now? Set in 2019?
Joe: I think you could capture the spirit of it. There's always going to be teenagers that feel what these characters feel. Be it the feeling of "There's gotta be something better than this," clashing with the feeling of "We've never been freer than we are right now!" The juxtaposition of people growing up, being on the cusp of adulthood... that specific feeling could cross any timeline. It doesn't necessarily have to be '76. You could do it in 2019. Ya know, there's going to be different specifics, for sure. And you might not be able to capture that giddy, frantic, anything-goes-type feeling that they captured in this small Texas town. But yeah, I think that the conversations that they're having in this movie could happen in any year. Any types of misgivings about what the future holds that teenagers are still asking about today. Did you ask yourself about that, growing up? Like, did you feel that when you were about to graduate? "What the fuck does the future hold?"
Pam: I guess. I think I was just more excited. I wish I felt more "What am I supposed to do now?" But it was more like, "No. Nursing major. Going to La Salle." I wish I had less planned out.
Joe: Nah man, that's a gift! It's a gift to know what you want to do.
Pam: Not that I really... I still, when people ask me why I wanted to be a nurse, it's like, "I dunno, because I like science, and I like people?" But I wasn't like, "I am meant to be a nurse, it's my calling in life." I'm just a planner. [laughter]
Joe: That's fine. That's awesome!
Pam: I wish I had a little more of that whole "what does the future hold?" feelings.
Joe: This will be like the fifth time it's written on the blog, but I woke up the morning I was moving to college, and I threw up.
Pam: What?! [laughter]
Joe: Because I was that nervous about the future, I guess? The immediate future, obviously, since that future was only hours away.
Pam: But didn't you know your roommates? Oh, no, it was Pat T********, you didn't know him.
Joe: It was more just like this "new phase in my life." Ya know? It was interesting, being thrown into that. so I look at the characters in this movie—like Floyd, like Cynthia—who are in these established roles in high school, and have a full year ahead of them, and they're questioning what the future holds. And I just want to say—No! You're living in the present right now! Appreciate it!
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: It's like what fucking Andy Bernard says in the finale of The Office. "When I was working at Dunder Mifflin, I kept thinking about my Cornell days, and all the friends I had there. And then I quit Dunder Mifflin, and I'm working at Cornell, and now all I think about are the good times I used to have at Dunder Mifflin." He says, "I wish I could know it was the 'good days' when I was actually living them." As opposed to afterwards. And that's a fact of life—nobody can ever appreciate it.
Pam: I feel like now, in my job, I appreciate that more than I have. Because I had jumped between a couple jobs, I had left Jefferson. But now it's like, "No, this is the best job." And I always tell my boss that, like, "No, this is my favorite job." Because I'm friends with everyone who works there. I finally have that... when it comes to a job, at least.
Joe: I guess that's kind of... that would be different than Wooderson still living his high school days, right? Going back to a high school party, after he graduates.
Pam: Yeah, because that's unnatural.
Joe: Right. And you're conditioned to think that. Didn't you have misgivings going back to Jefferson, like, "Is this the right move?"
Pam: I don't think I did. I think I hated Einstein that much.
Joe: I remember you asking me, "Would that be weird?" As if that could be a possibility.
Pam: I probably felt like people are going to think, because I got my Master's degree and I "moved on." And then people are going to think... I remember someone asked me, "What are you coming back as?" And I was like, "...a nurse." That's it. That's all I want to be.
Joe: We're conditioned to think that you can't circle back.
Pam: But...
Joe: I know it's different.
Pam: It's different, yeah. It would be weird if you went back to La Salle right now, and went to Woodstock, and were like, "Yeah! Party!"
Joe: No, it would be weird as shit. It was weird a year later, let alone ten. But, isn't that lucky, when you can go back to something you previously considered a good fit?
Pam: Do you think that's what this movie is really about? Being happy in the present moment?
Joe: I don't necessarily think that's what this movie is "about," but I certainly think some of the characters are struggling with that idea. They're grappling with the idea of, "Could it be possible that this is where I'm happiest?"
Pam: It doesn't have to mean that you're "the happiest," but you can just enjoy the moment, without worrying about the future, or being nostalgic for the past.
Joe: There are definitely some character moments here too, when they do that. I think about when they crawl to the top of the Moon Tower. They look out. There are jokes—"How many people do you think are fucking right now?"—but also there's that "instant monumentalizing" of a moment, like, "We're looking down on our life right now. It's never going to be like this again. Where are we going to be?" That's what you probably can't do an actual sequel to Dazed and Confused.
Pam: With the same characters? No.
Joe: You couldn't even do it in '95. Obviously it's well past that point now. But how sad would that be, to see Slater struggling in college?
Pam: Or some of them working in cubicles, ten years down the line?
Joe: Exactly. It's a moment, it's one single day, crystallized, in the lives of these various characters.
Pam: I know this is something you wanted to touch on, so this is a good segue. I'll start by comparing this a little to It's a Wonderful Life. Jimmy Stewart, his character doesn't know how good he has it. That's the movie. He doesn't appreciate what he has, because he has money problems. It takes the whole fantasy sequence with Clarence to show him—this is how good you have it. It really is a "wonderful life."
Joe: That's a good way of putting it.
Pam: So, that's a good comparison to what some of the characters are struggling with. Like you said, thinking about the future, and being nostalgic for the past. So that is my segue into comparing to Dazed and Confused to all the previous movies, which I know is something you wanted to do.
Joe: Yeah, I did want to touch on the movies that we've already talked about. This has been a journey so far. Not that this project is over! It's only halfway over. But, I do, after looking at so many movies with a critical eye, I'm starting to feel this connection to the movie world in general. And the way I deal with that is asking, "How are these movies connected?" Why does every movie make me feel the same positive things? It's because they share similar qualities. So let's talk about what qualities they share.
Pam: We'll start with... this is incorrect, because you have this list in alphabetical order, and "The Aquatic Life" is not the title of the movie. It's "The Life Aquatic."
Joe: I can't fathom why anyone didn't call me out on this till now.
Pam: I didn't notice it till right now. When you gave me this list.
Joe: But Frank read the interview, and he didn't—
Pam: Is Frank on Facebook? I thought he wasn't on Facebook?
Joe: He access to the blog on the public internet! He obviously read his own interview!
Pam: Maybe he didn't notice it either, I dunno. Maybe we're all slightly dyslexic. So yeah. Go ahead. That will be our first movie. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
Joe: We'll start simple. They were two movies that were both lauded for their soundtracks. And, critically reconsidered years later.
Pam: Okay. How about Back to the Future.
Joe: They both talk about the inner-workings of a car, explained in detail. [laughter]
Pam: Do they? Oh yeah, Wooderson does.
Joe: "The Delorean has some fucking muscle."
Pam: [laughter] Okay. Beetlejuice?
Joe: Um... a character really wants the homeowners to leave the house, but they can't get them to do it.
Pam: The kegs. Gotchya.
Joe: [laughter]
Pam: The Big Chill? Kind of obvious.
Joe: Yeah. A group of friends question their future, and talk about their fears for the future. And also... there is some unquestioned polyamory.
Pam: ...Is there?
Joe: Yeah! Glenn Close's husband—
Pam: No, no, I know The Big Chill. What is that in Dazed and Confused?
Joe: Like you said, Pink cheats on his girl.
Pam: Cheating is not the same!
Joe: Well no one questions it!
Pam: The girl he hooks up with questions it! But she's the only one who knows about it!
Joe: Um, I feel like...
Pam: Move on! Big Fish! Big Fish! [laughter]
Joe: They both feature a character earning their worth by getting their ass kicked.
Pam: Who in Big Fish? The main character?
Joe: Yeah, remember, Roy kicks his ass? And then he gets his wife?
Pam: Okay, The Big Lebowski. Stoner movie? Or cult classic?
Joe: When Pink is talking about O'Bannion, he's like, "He's an asshole, but he's a good guy to have in your corner too." It's the relationship between Lebowski and Walter.
Pam: Clue?
Joe: The story of one single evening.
Pam: The Dark Knight?
Joe: Okay... so I want to give my apologies to Nicky Katt at this point, because during another interview, I thought he was in Wolf of Wall Street. He does not play Brad in Wolf of Wall Street. But he does play Clint in Dazed and Confused, and he does play "SWAT Team Member #1" in The Dark Knight.
Pam: Good for him.
Joe: [laughter] Yeah. I guess he's sitting next to Commissioner Gordon as they're traveling hither and tither?
Pam: The Godfather Part II.
Joe: In both movies, during the middle of a party, one character accuses another character of betrayal.
Pam: Okay. Wait... who in Dazed and Confused? When the football players are sitting in the car?
Joe: Yes. Benny is kind of like—
Pam: "C'mon, you're screwing us?" Yeah, we can circle back to that, because that was a thing—I don't know if it was plot-driving, I guess it was—but we'll definitely talk about that whole thing though.
Joe: I would like to.
Pam: Interstellar.
Joe: They both feature an Angry Affleck.
Pam: And Matthew McConaughey!
Joe: That was the obvious answer. I'm not trying to give the obvious answer.
Pam: Is Casey Affleck angry in Interstellar?
Joe: Yeah, remember they are afraid he's going to drive back when they're trying to take his kid to the hospital? And they set fire to his cornfield to distract him?
Pam: Should we mention It's a Wonderful Life, or are we going off of what I already said?
Joe: That, and also a gun is shot wildly at the protagonist as he retreats.
Pam: You're obsessed with the gun in It's a Wonderful Life.
Joe: Well I was obsessed with the idea of guns in movies, even though we didn't really talk about it in any interviews besides The Wizard of Oz. Do all these movies have guns? Not The Big Chill. Not The Lord of the Rings. But all the rest?
Pam: ...
Joe: Anyway.
Pam: The Last Boy Scout. I didn't read that interview...
Joe: That's shameful.
Pam: Sorry.
Joe: Floyd has achieved success in football, and it brings him about as much happiness as it did to Billy Cole. Who shoots a bunch of linebackers, and then kills himself.
Pam: Yikes. Okay...
Joe: [laughter]
Pam: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I'm interested to hear this. CGI, right?!
Joe: Yup. [laughter] Um, both movies make Bob angry. No. [laughter] They both somewhat explore the idea that you can show how much you care about your male friends by busting their balls. Legolas and Gimli show that male fraternization by making fun of each other, but as Bob said in the interview, they ended up being good friends because of that. Likewise, there's a lot of ball-busting among the male characters—especially between Mitch and the older guys—that wasn't actually fighting. They were just saying negative things about each other to show that they love each other.
Pam: So that's a boy thing?
Joe: Yes.
Pam: And hobbits are basically stoners, right?
Joe: Yes! You're right. Smoking pipes. Charlie from Lost!
Pam: They're "dazed and confused," those hobbits. [laughter] Okay. Mahogany.
Joe: You'll know this. Both feature an actor who went on to star in a movie based on a musical that is known to spotlight minority groups.
Pam: Wait, are you talking about Rent?
Joe: Yup, and The Wiz, with Diana Ross.
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: I tried to see if any of the songs on the Dazed and Confused soundtrack went to number one on the Billboard charts, like "Theme from Mahogany" did. But they did not. As far as I know.
Pam: Really? I'm surprised.
Joe: I think "Sweet Emotion" topped out at number five, or something?
Pam: That's surprising. I guess "Hurricane" didn't?
Joe: No, Bob Dylan hit number two with... I forget what song.
Pam: "Like a Rolling Stone"?
Joe: Maybe! [Editor's note: He hit #2 for that song, and also for "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35." Also, he sang on the number one hit "We Are the World," but that doesn't really count for Dylan.]
Pam: Okay. Oldboy?
Joe: They both contemplate what it means to get revenge. Though... they come to wildly different conclusions.
Pam: Oh, with the O'Bannion revenge?
Joe: Yeah. And, this is a poor comparison, it's probably more of a contrasting, because in Oldboy... you'll see in the interview. It speaks a lot to the idea of revenge. Whereas O'Bannion just gets paint dumped on him. But there's the moment when Mitch says, "O'Bannion, I fucking hate that guy." That's revenge, and that's something Oldboy would have something to say about.
Pam: The Prestige?
Joe: It's a weak one—IMDB trivia states that three of the actors in this movie are twins. Which, if you've never seen The Prestige—I know you haven't—I don't want to spoil anything. but Parkey Posey, and Jason London, and Marissa Rabisi—that's Cynthia—all have twins. It's a twin thing.
Pam: The Princess Bride.
Joe: [laughter] Um, Kevin Arnold takes his school attendance about as seriously as the characters in this movie do.
Pam: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Joe: Someone is accused of being a Nazi.
Pam: Who's accused of being a Nazi in Dazed and Confused?
Joe: Mike is calling Clint a Nazi after Clint verbally abuses him.
Pam: Okay, I remember that.
Joe: And... there's Nazis... in Raiders...
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: ...of the Lost Arc.
Pam: Yeah. Silence of the Lambs?
Joe: Um... [laughter] I couldn't think of anything. So, here is definitely the weakest one on this list. Both are referenced in the 2017 Supernatural episode, "Ladies Drink Free."
Pam: Where... what... where did you find that?
Joe: Google.
Pam: Okay.
Joe: Claire says, "Let's go to the morgue," and Dean says, "Not so fast, Clarice." Later on the episode, he quotes Wooderson: "You get older, they stay the same age."
Pam: Weird.
Joe: Yup.
Pam: Okay.
Joe: Have you have seen Supernatural?
Pam: Yeah, I have.
Joe: Apparently it's like fifteen seasons long? So this is like the idea of a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand keyboards writing a thousand TV scripts, eventually there's going to be a monkey typing Dazed and Confused references and Silence of the Lambs references in the same script.
Pam: There's probably references to these movies in Degrassi episodes too.
Joe: Ooh, damn! I didn't do that research. [Editor's note: But you better know that I'm doing the research now, and OH MY GOD I found this fan-made video. There's gotta be someone out there who appreciates this as much as I do. No? Only me? Okay.]
Pam: Don't. Don't. Okay, There Will Be Blood.
Joe: Method acting.
Pam: Who was a method actor in Dazed and Confused?
Joe: All the kids were actually drinking beer.
Pam: Really?
Joe: Yeah.
Pam: Okay. McConaughey is not a method actor, is he?
Joe: No, and... saying that they were method acting by drinking beer is me making a joke. They were technically method acting though, I guess, by acting like their characters act.
Pam: I guess so. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Joe: I saw a lot of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the scene where Parker Posey confronts Sabrina. And she's all drunk and sweaty, and she makes Sabrina and Tony really uncomfortable. She's like, "Freshman—air raid." And Tony's like, "Sabrina, you don't have to do this." And Darla is real intense about it. Total Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? vibes. Also, we already talked Milla Jovovich and Pickford getting married in real life. Just like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were.
Pam: When Harry Met Sally...
Joe: Characters attend a baseball game, but aren't really watching the game.
Pam: The Wizard of Oz.
Joe: Just the idea of "the escape." Ya know? Wondering whether you're going to miss what you left. Baytown, Texas, is the Kansas that all these characters feel "trapped" in, but I'm sure a lot of them are going to realize that "there's no place like home."
Pam: True. And last but not least, The Wolf of Wall Street.
Joe: So both of them had McConaughey, obviously. But both of them had him doing something in the movie that he also did as an actor to prepare himself to play the role.
Pam: The chest-beating thing?
Joe: Yeah, and "alright, alright, alright." It was an actor thing first.
Pam: Is McConaughey the actor who's in the most of these movies? Are there any other actors that are in more than two of these movies?
Joe: Hmm. I don't think so!
Pam: Because he's in three. Wolf of Wall Street, Interstellar, and this.
Joe: Yeah, I think he's the one. It's a shame Nicky Katt wasn't really Brad from Wolf of Wall Street. But yeah, I think that's it. Not many of these movies share actors at all. Which is good! It means my friends and family have diverse tastes, ya know?
Pam: So we can circle back to something that came up while we were talking about the other movies. The whole...
Joe: The pledge?
Pam: Yeah, the pledge for the football team. That was such a huge deal for Pink. But... I dunno, the rest of the football team was like, "Just sign it, you don't actually have to do what it says." It said, what, "abstain from drinking, girls," basically all the things you want to do in high school.
Joe: Yeah, I mean, they were right that he could've signed it and gotten away with doing it anyway. But I think that was the whole point. Pink was making a stand. As thirty-year-olds, maybe taking a stand on the platform of "drugs are good" isn't necessarily the strongest platform.
Pam: No!
Joe: But, I think, I appreciated it then, and still appreciate it now, the idea of... not wanting to be told what to do for seemingly no reason? I guess a tangentially related situation would be with my current supervisor at work. It seems like—and it's been better lately, but—it seems like some of the things that she's told me to do in the past have seemed nonsensical. They seemed to be against what I am and try to be as a social worker. Had she made me try to sign a pledge to do things I don't necessarily agree with doing, I don't know if I would necessarily sign it. And that's a completely different situation, sure, because I'm under her in a chain of command, and I'm getting paid to be there, and I have previously signed a contact to be in that position. But... I dunno.
Pam: I gues, I have to think about it in the '70s. Because the drinking age was eighteen. When we were in high school, it was implied that we weren't going to drink. It was against the law, so you didn't have to sign a pledge. I guess I didn't think about that, and how stupid I thought it was.
Joe: How stupid you thought Pink was being?
Pam: Yeah. Because that was what we all "pledged" to do in high school, not drink. We just did it.
Joe: Well, that's the thing. There wasn't "contracts," per se, but my parents wanted me to pledge to them that I wasn't going to drink, at age seventeen. But I didn't make that pledge! I didn't want to be told... at the time—and I can say this with a decade and a half more experience—at the time, I didn't want to be told what to do, is basically what it came down to. That probably has a lot to do with Pink Floyd's thinking as well. Mike can dress it up in his claims of it being "Neo-McCarthyism," but at the end of the day... sure. Pink just doesn't want to be somebody's asshole.
Pam: Right.
Joe: But... at the same time. At the same time, he's on the cusp of adulthood. He's starting to question, "Who am I?" as a person. Look how uncomfortable he is when those old people are telling him about his football career, and "what he can achieve" in being a football player. He's not smiling during that. You can tell that's not where he wants to be. He wants to be driving to get Aerosmith tickets! So he's coming to terms with who he wants to be, and that pledge is a symbol of everything he doesn't want to be.
Pam: Hmm. Okay.
Joe: It seems... could it seem pathetic that I'm defending him now? Maybe!
Pam: No, I don't think so.
Joe: Like I said, there's some distance between me feeling all that, and me now. Ya know? Now I'm an adult, and I can make those types of decisions on my own. Whether I'm drinking or not. But I can understand how shitty it would feel to be looking into the future, being ready to be an adult, and still be told, "You can't do x, y, and z."
Pam: So do you think that was essential to the plot of the movie?
Joe: I do. Well, okay... to the plot of the movie? No. To the characterization of our ostensibly main protagonist, Randal "Pink" Floyd? Yes, it is essential to his character.
Pam: He has more depth than a lot of the other characters.
Joe: It's funny, because it takes place over the course of a day. So for most of the characters, they are who they are. They're the same person at the beginning of the school day that they are at sun-up. But for Floyd? I don't think that's true. I think he kind of realizes that he's becoming a different person. And that pledge sheet is the catalyst for his change.
Pam: I could see that.
Joe: That definitely has something to do with why it's my favorite movie.
Pam: So why don't we talk about that now... since it's been two and a half hours.
Joe: Has it?!
Pam: No. But around two hours. So just tell me why it's your favorite.
Joe: Well, like you implied, we probably already covered most of it. I think there's two distinct arenas in why it's my favorite. The first is that, just as an audience of movies, there are things that I always appreciate in movies, and television, and art on screen. Large, diverse casts, that are telling different stories at the same time. A certain unique structure in telling the story, especially when it comes to a timeline—this takes place over a full day. And finally, how it's a slice of life, that there's not really a plot driving this forward. We're just observing certain characters over a certain time period, and that's it. We're inventing the motivations in our mind because we're comparing us to them. This is how we relate, this is how we don't relate, and these are the things that they are doing in this time period that entertain us. Like we said earlier, about the zoo. These are the animals behind the cage bars that we're just observing for that brief slice of time.
Pam: Plus they're all drinking in the woods.
Joe: You're saying "plus" because this is another reason I like this movie?
Pam: Yeah.
Joe: Right, so now we move on to the personal aspect of it. Because it was originally who I wanted to be, and now it's me realizing that that's who I was. And also, in the ultra-specific, this is the character, Pink Floyd, who I wanted to be. And me, wondering now, if I ever was.
Pam: Do you think this is a movie that you would want Willow to watch?
Joe: Absolutely.
Pam: When she becomes a teenager.
Joe: Yeah! There are specifics that I, in the dad role, might not want her to follow, or to emulate. I can't help it if she does or not. But I think there's a certain comfort in seeing characters on the screen acting the same way teenagers have always acted. We've talked so much about how teenagers feel "free" and "full of abandon."
Pam: Their brains just haven't fully formed yet.
Joe: [laughter] Possibly. But along with that comes feelings of inadequacy and unsuredness about where you are in the world. A lot of the characters feel that way in this movie—unsure of their place in the world. I'm sure Willow is going to feel that way at some point. I'm sure she's not going to really know where she fits into the grand scheme of things. And it might be comforting to find that reflected in these characters from a different time.
Pam: You feel like that's another reason you love this movie too?
Joe: Yeah, for sure. But I'm past that point. If that was my reason for it being my favorite movie then, it's not the reason now.
Pam: You feel like you know where you fit into the grand scheme of things now?
Joe: Yeah. I understand my role, as small as it is in this world. I'm not on top of the Moon Tower anymore, wondering how big the world is. I know how small it is now. Whether that's good, or bad, or it sucks, or it's great, that's completely beside the point. The truth is the truth.
Pam: You're going through The Big Chill now.
Joe: [laughter] I guess! Now that's my favorite movie.
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