Linklater, Richard

Waking Life

Waking Life is a film that never settles down. Or maybe it never wakes up. Regardless, Richard Linklater's animated meditation seems to strike a perfect balance between the plotless meanderings of Slacker and the unquenchable knowledge-seeking of Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Any way you look at it, this is a weird, original movie.

As he attempts to figure out what separates dreams from reality, the protagonist (Dazed and Confused's Wiley Wiggins) hears an earful from everyone he stumbles upon. Ramblings range from the scholarly (Linklater's former college professor Robert C. Solomon gives a monologue) to the banal (of which there are plenty). Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Steven Soderbergh, and Adam Goldberg all get animated cameos, basically playing themselves. The dream-centered dialogues eventually grow mind-numbing, but that's OK; the animation steals the show. Each frame of the movie, which was first shot with live actors, was painted over, and the process renders a distorted and trippy collage of sights and sounds. Linklater's film is ultimately quite poignant, but, as with any good journey, you'll need to sit through some fairly tedious moments before reaching the destination. --Jason Verlinde

A man in a dream state begins to question whether waking or dreaming is the true reality; while on his journey in the dream he meets many interesting characters who talk with him about the meaning of life, perception and human existance.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 15-APR-2003
Media Type: DVD

Dazed & Confused (Widescreen Flashback Edition)

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour

On the DVD
With a perfect combination of awesome '70s-era packaging and a totally rockin' selection of bonus features, the Criterion Collection's director-approved special edition two-disc release of Dazed and Confused instantly qualifies as one of the very best DVDs of 2006--the 30th anniversary of the Bicentennial, man! That's what I'm talkin' about! As a sublime companion piece to Criterion's release of Richard Linklater's previous film Slacker, the set comes in a slipcase (complete with "Physical Graffiti"-like picture-windows) festooned with Flair-pen high-school "doodling" (just like you'd scribble on your Pee Chee folders, back in the day), and the features get off on a high note (kinda like Slater, y'know?) with writer-director Linklater's feature-length commentary, which offers all aspiring filmmakers an important lesson protecting your vision and knowing when not to compromise. In recalling the many struggles he endured during production, Linklater covers a lot of territory (notes from the studio, the fantasy abundance of muscle cars, selection of music, and his acute disappointment when Robert Plant--but not Jimmy Page--refused to allow Led Zeppelin songs to be used in the film), and his engaging, good-humored perspective (and appropriate sense of vindication) clearly arises from his film's eventual acceptance as a classic. (For all you film buffs out there, Linklater quite rightly recommends Tim Hunter's Over the Edge and Lindsay Anderson's If... as "great teenage films" that defined the genre before Dazed.) The film itself never looked or sounded better (Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel supervised the high-def digital transfer), and a generous selection of deleted scenes will be welcomed by the film's legion of loyal fans.

The Disc 2 supplements are highlighted by Making "Dazed", filmmaker Kahane Corn's decade-in-the-making 50-minute documentary, chronicling all aspects of the production from casting to the Dazed tenth-anniversary celebration in Austin, Texas, in 2003. "Beer Bust at the Moon Tower" allows random viewing of a 118-minute compilation of behind-the-scenes footage, on-set interviews (with cast members both in and out of character), audition footage, and recollections from the anniversary bash. The accompanying 72-page booklet is a Criterion master-stroke: Designed like a small-scale high-school yearbook, it's filled with more "doodling" artwork, lots of photos, three appreciative mini-essays (the best being by journalist/author Chuck Klosterman), recollections by cast and crew, and humorous "Profiles in Confusion" portraits of the characters in Dazed, reprinted from the film's similarly designed companion book. It's all topped off by a miniature reproduction of the film's original poster, designed by Frank Kozik. In terms of capturing "The Spirit of '76" and the film's celebratory sense of anti-nostalgia, this is surely one of Criterion's finest releases to date. --Jeff Shannon

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour

No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD

School of Rock (Widescreen Edition)

Turbo-charged comic Jack Black shakes School of Rock to its foundations, wailing with born-again metalhead passion as Dewey Finn, a guitarist who gets kicked out of a band because he grandstands too much--or, to put it another way, enjoys himself. Through an intercepted phone call, Finn gets a job as a substitute teacher for a fifth grade class at a private grade school. Neither students nor teacher quite know what to do with each other until Finn discovers that some of his young charges can play instruments; at once he starts turning them into a blistering rock & roll troupe that can crush his former band at an upcoming competition. School of Rock is silly and formulaic, but director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), writer Mike White (The Good Girl), and especially Black and co-star Joan Cusack invest the formulas with such glee that the movie is irresistibly fun. --Bret Fetzer

The New York Times Jack black gives a roaring star-making performance his incandescent comic energy should establish him as the screen s most popular rock-fueled wild man the wall Street Journal This joyous film is a big deal and jack black is nothing less than majestic an epic star turn Entertainment weekly Jack black makes the joy the passion even the innocence of rock and roll just a little bigger than life the band rocks and so does this movie System Requirements: Running Time 109 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: NR UPC: 097363385141 Manufacturer No: 338514

Before Sunrise

This romantic, witty, and ultimately poignant glimpse at two strangers (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) who share thoughts, affections, and past experiences during one 14-hour tryst in Vienna somehow remains writer/director Richard Linklater's (Dazed and Confused, Slacker) most overlooked gem. Delpy, a stunning, low-key Parisian, meets the stammering American Hawke, as the two share a Eurorail seat--she's starting school in Paris, he's finishing a vacation. Their mutual attraction leads to an awkward meeting (beautifully played by each performer), and Hawke suggests that Delpy spend his remaining 14 hours in Vienna with him.

Typically, this skeleton is as much plot as Linklater provides; as usual, he's more interested in concentrating his talents on observing the casual, playful conversations between his leads. His tight time frame allows the characters to say anything to one another, and topics ranging from politics to past romances to fears of the future flow with subtle finesse. The short time frame is also cruel, however, because beneath this love affair lies the painful reality that the two most likely will never see each other again and will be left only with memories--an idea Linklater drives home with an effective snapshot conclusion.

Hardly the trite Gen-X bitch session that many '90s films using this approach become, the film feels more like a Bresson or Rohmer piece, containing sharp perceptions--and flawed humans rather than stereotypes. The protagonists' frank revelations and heated exchanges flow in a stream-of-consciousness style, and its no accident that Linklater set the film in Vienna, where Freud invented and practiced psychotherapy. --Dave McCoy

A French grad student named Celine (Julie Delpy) meets an American boy named Jesse (Ethan Hawke) on the Budapest-Vienna train. They get off the train in Vienna and hang out for a while.Running Time: 102 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 053939253122

A Scanner Darkly

How well you respond to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. While it qualifies as a faithful adaptation of Dick's semiautobiographical 1977 novel about the perils of drug abuse, Big Brother-like surveillance and rampant paranoia in a very near future ("seven years from now"), this is still very much a Linklater film, and those two qualities don't always connect effectively. The creepy potency of Dick's premise remains: The drug war's been lost, citizens are kept under rigid surveillance by holographic scanning recorders, and a schizoid addict named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is facing an identity crisis he's not even aware of: Due to his voluminous intake of the highly addictive psychotropic drug Substance D, Arctor's brain has been split in two, each hemisphere functioning separately. So he doesn't know that he's also Agent Fred, an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate Arctor's circle of friends (played by Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, and Robert Downey, Jr.) to track down the secret source of Substance D. As he wears a "scramble suit" that constantly shifts identities and renders Agent Fred/Arctor into "the ultimate everyman," Dick's drug-addled antihero must come to grips with a society where, as the movie's tag-line makes clear, "everything is not going to be OK."

While it's virtually guaranteed to achieve some kind of cult status, A Scanner Darkly lacks the paranoid intensity of Dick's novel, and Linklater's established penchant for loose and loopy dialogue doesn't always work here, with an emphasis on drug-culture humor instead of the panicked anxiety that Dick's novel conveys. As for the use of "interpolated rotoscoping"--the technique used to apply shifting, highly stylized animation over conventional live-action footage--it's purely a matter of personal preference. The film's look is appropriate to Dick's dark, cautionary story about the high price of addiction, but it also robs performances of nuance and turns the seriousness of Dick's story into... well, a cartoon. Opinions will differ, but A Scanner Darkly is definitely worth a look--or two, if the mind-rattling plot doesn't sink in the first time around. --Jeff Shannon

Set in a not-too-distant future where America has lost its "war" on drugs Fred an undercover cop is one of many people hooked on the popular drug Substance D which causes its users to develop split personalities. Fred is obsessed with taking down Bob a notorious drug dealer but due to his Substance D addiction he does not know that he is also Bob. Based on a classic novel by Philip K. Dick. Starring Keanu Reeves ("Constantine" "The Matrix" trilogy) Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Winona Ryder ("Girl Interupted" "Mr. Deeds") Academy Award and Emmy-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Robert Downey Jr. ("Good Night And Good Luck" "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") and Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominee and Emmy-winner Woody Harrelson ("North Country" "The People vs. Larry Flynt"). Directed by Academy Award-nominee Richard Linklater ("Before Sunset" "Dazed and Confused"). Filmed in live-action and then animated using the same critically acclaimed process that Linklater used in his previous film "Waking Life."Running Time: 100 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 012569594173 Manufacturer No: 59417

Before Sunset

In 1994, director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Waking Life) made Before Sunrise, a gorgeous poem of a movie about two strangers (played by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) wandering around Vienna, talking, and falling in love. Ten years later, Linklater, Hawke, and Delpy have returned with Before Sunset, which reunites the same characters after Hawke has written a book about that night. Delpy appears at the final book reading of his European tour; they have less than two hours before Hawke has to catch a flight to New York...and in that time, they walk around Paris, talk, and fall in love all over again. It sounds simple, perhaps dull, but it's written with such skill and care and acted with such richness that it's a miracle of filmmaking. On its own, Before Sunset is moving and wonderful; seen right after Before Sunrise, it will break your heart. --Bret Fetzer

Fast Food Nation

If you're still eating that fast-food burger after watching Super Size Me, you might not feel too hungry after watching Fast Food Nation, a fictionalized feature based on Eric Schlosser's bestselling nonfiction expose. Director Richard Linklater, who cowrote the screenplay with Schlosser, guides a topnotch ensemble cast through a peek behind the veil of how that Big Mac is born. Much of the film focuses on the illegal immigrants who work in the loosely regulated meat-packing industry, and actors including the luminous Catalina Sandino Moreno (Maria Full of Grace), who plays a desperate but outraged laborer. Greg Kinnear also delivers a spot-on performance as a fast-food chain marketing manager, trying frantically to discover the source of stomach-turning contamination in the company's meat. Stories are woven in unexpected ways, and cameos by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, Patricia Arquette, and especially Bruce Willis keep the narrative fresh. The film has a point of view, but thanks to Linklater's deft touch, is never didactic. As Willis's character slyly says, "Most people don't like to be told what's best for them." Agreed, yet Fast Food Nation likely will help the viewer be more conscious of what's on the end of that fork. --A.T. Hurley

Extras from Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation Arcade-Style Game

Beyond Fast Food Nation

Super Size Me

Fast Food Nation (Paperback)

Fast Food Nation: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture

Stills from Fast Food Nation

Inspired by the incendiary New York Times bestseller that exposed the hidden facts behind America's fast food industry Fast Food Nation combines an all-star ensemble cast lead by Greg Kinnear Wilmer Valderrama and Avril Lavigne with riveting interlocked human stories to serve up "a firecracker of a movie that jumps off the screen" (Rolling Stone). When a marketing executive (Kinnear) for the Mickey's burger chain is told there's a nasty secret ingredient in his latest culinary creation "The Big One" he heads for the ranches and slaughterhouses of Colorado to investigate...but discovers the truth a bit difficult to swallow.Episodes-Bonus Features:Widescreen FeatureCommentary with Director Richard Linklater and Writer Eric SchlosserManufacturing Fast Food Nation FeaturetteThe Meatrix Flash Animation ShortThe Meatrix II Flash Animation ShortThe Meatrix II 1/2 Flash Animation ShortThe Backwards Hamburger Flash Animation ShortPhoto GallerySystem Requirements:Running Time: 113 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 024543418689 Manufacturer No: 2241868

School of Rock (Full Screen Edition)

A diehard rock guitarist/slacker fakes his way into a teaching position where he turns his fifth graders into a rock group who compete in a battle of the bands.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 8-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD

Turbo-charged comic Jack Black shakes School of Rock to its foundations, wailing with born-again metalhead passion as Dewey Finn, a guitarist who gets kicked out of a band because he grandstands too much--or, to put it another way, enjoys himself. Through an intercepted phone call, Finn gets a job as a substitute teacher for a fifth grade class at a private grade school. Neither students nor teacher quite know what to do with each other until Finn discovers that some of his young charges can play instruments; at once he starts turning them into a blistering rock & roll troupe that can crush his former band at an upcoming competition. School of Rock is silly and formulaic, but director Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused), writer Mike White (The Good Girl), and especially Black and co-star Joan Cusack invest the formulas with such glee that the movie is irresistibly fun. --Bret Fetzer

Dazed & Confused (Full Screen Flashback Edition)

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour

On the DVD
With a perfect combination of awesome '70s-era packaging and a totally rockin' selection of bonus features, the Criterion Collection's director-approved special edition two-disc release of Dazed and Confused instantly qualifies as one of the very best DVDs of 2006--the 30th anniversary of the Bicentennial, man! That's what I'm talkin' about! As a sublime companion piece to Criterion's release of Richard Linklater's previous film Slacker, the set comes in a slipcase (complete with "Physical Graffiti"-like picture-windows) festooned with Flair-pen high-school "doodling" (just like you'd scribble on your Pee Chee folders, back in the day), and the features get off on a high note (kinda like Slater, y'know?) with writer-director Linklater's feature-length commentary, which offers all aspiring filmmakers an important lesson protecting your vision and knowing when not to compromise. In recalling the many struggles he endured during production, Linklater covers a lot of territory (notes from the studio, the fantasy abundance of muscle cars, selection of music, and his acute disappointment when Robert Plant--but not Jimmy Page--refused to allow Led Zeppelin songs to be used in the film), and his engaging, good-humored perspective (and appropriate sense of vindication) clearly arises from his film's eventual acceptance as a classic. (For all you film buffs out there, Linklater quite rightly recommends Tim Hunter's Over the Edge and Lindsay Anderson's If... as "great teenage films" that defined the genre before Dazed.) The film itself never looked or sounded better (Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel supervised the high-def digital transfer), and a generous selection of deleted scenes will be welcomed by the film's legion of loyal fans.

The Disc 2 supplements are highlighted by Making "Dazed", filmmaker Kahane Corn's decade-in-the-making 50-minute documentary, chronicling all aspects of the production from casting to the Dazed tenth-anniversary celebration in Austin, Texas, in 2003. "Beer Bust at the Moon Tower" allows random viewing of a 118-minute compilation of behind-the-scenes footage, on-set interviews (with cast members both in and out of character), audition footage, and recollections from the anniversary bash. The accompanying 72-page booklet is a Criterion master-stroke: Designed like a small-scale high-school yearbook, it's filled with more "doodling" artwork, lots of photos, three appreciative mini-essays (the best being by journalist/author Chuck Klosterman), recollections by cast and crew, and humorous "Profiles in Confusion" portraits of the characters in Dazed, reprinted from the film's similarly designed companion book. It's all topped off by a miniature reproduction of the film's original poster, designed by Frank Kozik. In terms of capturing "The Spirit of '76" and the film's celebratory sense of anti-nostalgia, this is surely one of Criterion's finest releases to date. --Jeff Shannon

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour

Dazed & Confused - Criterion Collection

America 1976. The last day of school. Bongs blaze bell-bottoms ring and rock and roll rocks. Among the best teen films ever made Richard Linklater?s Dazed and Confused eavesdrops on a group of seniors-to-be and incoming freshmen. A launching pad for a number of future stars Linklater's first studio effort also features endlessly quotable dialogue and a blasting stadium-ready soundtrack. Sidestepping nostalgia Dazed and Confused is less about "the best years of our lives" than the boredom angst and excitement of teenagers waiting... for something to happen.System Requirements:Running Time: 102 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 715515018425 Manufacturer No: CC1634DDVD

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour

On the DVD
With a perfect combination of awesome '70s-era packaging and a totally rockin' selection of bonus features, the Criterion Collection's director-approved special edition two-disc release of Dazed and Confused instantly qualifies as one of the very best DVDs of 2006--the 30th anniversary of the Bicentennial, man! That's what I'm talkin' about! As a sublime companion piece to Criterion's release of Richard Linklater's previous film Slacker, the set comes in a slipcase (complete with "Physical Graffiti"-like picture-windows) festooned with Flair-pen high-school "doodling" (just like you'd scribble on your Pee Chee folders, back in the day), and the features get off on a high note (kinda like Slater, y'know?) with writer-director Linklater's feature-length commentary, which offers all aspiring filmmakers an important lesson protecting your vision and knowing when not to compromise. In recalling the many struggles he endured during production, Linklater covers a lot of territory (notes from the studio, the fantasy abundance of muscle cars, selection of music, and his acute disappointment when Robert Plant--but not Jimmy Page--refused to allow Led Zeppelin songs to be used in the film), and his engaging, good-humored perspective (and appropriate sense of vindication) clearly arises from his film's eventual acceptance as a classic. (For all you film buffs out there, Linklater quite rightly recommends Tim Hunter's Over the Edge and Lindsay Anderson's If... as "great teenage films" that defined the genre before Dazed.) The film itself never looked or sounded better (Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel supervised the high-def digital transfer), and a generous selection of deleted scenes will be welcomed by the film's legion of loyal fans.

The Disc 2 supplements are highlighted by Making "Dazed", filmmaker Kahane Corn's decade-in-the-making 50-minute documentary, chronicling all aspects of the production from casting to the Dazed tenth-anniversary celebration in Austin, Texas, in 2003. "Beer Bust at the Moon Tower" allows random viewing of a 118-minute compilation of behind-the-scenes footage, on-set interviews (with cast members both in and out of character), audition footage, and recollections from the anniversary bash. The accompanying 72-page booklet is a Criterion master-stroke: Designed like a small-scale high-school yearbook, it's filled with more "doodling" artwork, lots of photos, three appreciative mini-essays (the best being by journalist/author Chuck Klosterman), recollections by cast and crew, and humorous "Profiles in Confusion" portraits of the characters in Dazed, reprinted from the film's similarly designed companion book. It's all topped off by a miniature reproduction of the film's original poster, designed by Frank Kozik. In terms of capturing "The Spirit of '76" and the film's celebratory sense of anti-nostalgia, this is surely one of Criterion's finest releases to date. --Jeff Shannon

You remember high school? Really remember? If you think you do, watch this film: it'll all really come racing back. After changing the world with the generation-defining Slacker, director Richard Linklater turned his free-range vérité sensibility on the 1970s. As before, his all-seeing camera meanders across a landscape studded with goofy pop culture references and poignant glimpses of human nature. Only this time around, he's spreading a thick layer of nostalgia over the lens (and across the soundtrack). It's as if Fast Times at Ridgemont High was directed by Jean-Luc Godard. The story deals with a group of friends on the last day of high school, 1976. Good-natured football star Randall "Pink" Floyd navigates effortlessly between the warring worlds of jocks, stoners, wannabes, and rockers with girlfriend and new-freshman buddy in tow. Surprisingly, it's not a coming-of-age movie, but a film that dares ask the eternal, overwhelming, adolescent question, "What happens next?" It's a little too honest to be a light comedy (representative quote: "If I ever say these were the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself."). But it's also way too much fun (remember souped-up Corvettes and bicentennial madness?) to be just another existential-essay-on-celluloid. --Grant Balfour