Dazed and Confused

Seeing as how the Aztec averages less than one movie screening per month nowadays, you gotta figure the timing of showing Richard Linklater’s stony opus Dazed and Confused on 4 freaking 20, is absolutely intentional — even if the venue website stresses that “all patrons are subject to search” and “no drugs or drug paraphernalia” are allowed. So maybe, just this once, ignore the timeless advice of Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) who says “it’d be a lot cooler if you did” have a joint on you, even though you’re going to watch a movie where characters take bong rips in a moving vehicle on Smoke Weed Day. Remember time is a nebulous thing in Linklater’s oeuvre — long before he defied the fates and sat on Boyhood for its dozen-year gestation. D&C’s Wooderson, it seems, keeps getting older while high school girls “stay the same age,” but, mentally, has he really aged at all? Have any of us? How does a 24-year- old movie, set 41 years ago, continue to influence high-school freshman hazing rituals and the ongoing gentrification of Austin? Ponder these cosmic questions and more whilst not indulging in the drug being celebrated both onscreen and IRL, because the man told you not to. Quoth Wooderson “The older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I- V-I- N.”