Melissa Maerz

The first time I saw Dazed and Confused was in my basement with my cool older sister and two of her friends. It was the summer before my freshman year of high school and when in the movie the new freshman boys say that they're in high school now and all the girls will put out, my sister and her friends screamed with laughter and teased me mercilessly about how now I'd have to put out because I was in high school; completely mortifying. A few years later I started smoking pot, rediscovered Dazed and Confused, and it basically lived in my VCR for the next decade.

All of this is to say that I have very strong emotional attachments to this movie, and so my hopes for this book were really high. Friend, this book blew my hopes and expectations out of the fucking water. It was everything I had wanted and so much more. Who was wearing a wig, and how that ranked their priority in the film. How the director's friends could/could not handle their new status as his employees. How the real people on which the characters were based tried to sue for defamation. There is even an entire chapter where everyone talks shit about one of the actors! This book is so juicy, so filled with... EVERYTHING, I loved every word.

One other thing that was great: they put the photographs at the start of chapters and throughout the book, not stuck in the back in some separate photo spread. It's a small detail, but it totally changes the reading experience for the better and I appreciated it greatly.… (altro)

Fascinating and informative. Fun read. I love the movie and this really goes deep into the behind the scenes of how it all came together, and the aftermath of the film's not very successful initial run and how the film slowly but surely built into a cult classic and a bit of a cultural phenomenon. It's a movie that would never get made today. The large ensemble cast spent a month together staying in the same hotel, hanging out off-set, forming cliques, hooking up, getting drunk and stoned, etc. Sounded a lot like some experiences I had as a younger person, working at fancy resorts and living in the free-for-all that was employee housing.

So many young actors would go onto careers after. Everyone thought Jason London would be the breakout star but that never happened. Matthew Mcconaughey was supposed to have a bit part but sort of willed his way into a bigger and bigger role, he was so mesmerizing onscreen that Linklater kept finding ways to get him into more scenes. Parker Posey, Joey lauren Adams, Anthony Rapp, Milla Jovovich, and of course Ben Affleck and Renee Zellweger went onto significant careers. For people like Michelle Burke, Shawn Andrews, and Deena martin, their careers never panned out.

Maerz masterfully weaves together quotes from all the main players except Jason O. Smith, who played Melvin and is apparently MIA. His perspective would have been interesting as the only non-caucasian (that I can recall off the top of my dome) in the cast. I enjoy the oral history format if done well, as this book definitely was.… (altro)