DAZED AND CONFUSED Criterion-style...that's what I'm talking about.

Throughout the years, it has become evident that Universal never really knew what to do with DAZED & CONFUSED (Universal Pictures; rated R for drug use involving teenagers and strong language throughout; 103 mins.; released September 24, 1993). Austin filmmaker Richard Linklater was given the chance by the studio to make a major league film after his buzz worthy 1991 debut, Slacker. But after the movie was completed, it was dumped into test screening hell, where the audience practically doomed it to limited release and Universal shipped it off to subsidiary company Gramercy Pictures. It died at the box office, but developed word of mouth through VHS and laserdisc and was crucial to the development of several current star performers. Universal still couldn't get it right on DVD, initially releasing the film bare bones and then in a disposable "Flashback Edition" that lacked the input of Linklater, who wanted to get a proper documentary made about the movie.

As always, here comes Criterion to the rescue. Universal Home Entertainment couldn't make proper special editions of such films as Do the Right Thing, Videodrome and Traffic, but the good folks who assemble Criterion Collection DVDs polished off these titles for vanguard-worthy two-disc packages that at last acknowledged them for the classics they are, stuffing them to the gills with commentary tracks, vintage featurettes, fly-on-the-wall documentary footage, etc. Linklater's Slacker got the vanguard treatment earlier in the millennium, and now his cult classic DAZED & CONFUSED has finally gotten the Collector's Edition package many have held their breath for, only those people will more than likely faint anyway once they read about the special features on this sucker.

DAZED & CONFUSED was the first real great teen movie since Over the Edge from what I have seen, despite the valiant efforts of John Hughes and his own exemplary 1980s fantasies (when will Criterion get those films out on the market?). By no means does it attempt to get all nostalgic about the 1970s or kitsch it up a la That '70s Show. Instead, Linklater just perfects the details and drops you into the era, letting you see a genuine slice of life that, fictional as it may be, is more footloose and fancy free than a Rod Stewart album. Forget about all the myriad movies after it that tried to steal its buzz (The Stoned Age, Can't Hardly Wait), this one is the real feel-good movie.

It's 1:00 in the afternoon on the last day of school, May 28, 1976. The juniors of Lee High are all on the cusp of being the coolest kids in school and are about to celebrate their own passage by initiating the eight graders at the nearby junior high school into freshman year with custom-designed paddles and bags full of messy groceries. However, as the night comes and party time draws near, the students are facing their own moments of angst and uncertainty amidst the beer busts and bong hits. Many are looking to the future with fear, whilst the present for many is being dictated by authority be it upperclassmen or faculty members.

Instead of focusing on merely one plot, we are taken all over the place and introduced to several characters. Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London) is the star quarterback who is given an ultimatum by his coach concerning his signature of a "pledge form" that will make him abstain from alcohol and drug use as well as any property damage. His friends include pothead Slater (Rory Cochrane), who gets into the spirit of the Bicentennial by talking about how George Washington was an advocate for marijuana. Meanwhile, two of the incoming freshmen find some stature amongst the senior crowd. Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins), little brother of popular chick Jodi (Michelle Burke), is invited to cruise around with Pink and his pals after enduring a butt-numbing paddle attack by returning senior O'Bannion (Ben Affleck) and his buds. Jodi strikes up a sisterly relationship with Sabrina (Christin Hinojosa), a young girl who finds romance with a nerdy journalist named Tony (Anthony Rapp).

The story takes place the night of a much-lauded party that was supposed to take place at the home of Pickford (Shawn Andrews), but his father catches on after the keg delivery guy shows up a bit too early. Stranded and without a place to crash, Pink, Mitch and crew just wander about the town, stopping by the Emporium for fun whilst there is talk about a replacement party near Moon Tower. By the end of the night, scores will be settled, the hook-ups will happen and Mitch will have some explaining to do when he gets home.

Linklater, whose recent The School of Rock became one of my favorite films of the last six years, could've gone overboard with the 1970s pop culture landscape, drawing unwarranted attention to the dated fashions (extra-tight pants with wide bottoms, flannel shirts), vintage automobiles (GTOs and Volkswagen Bug convertibles), goofy haircuts and period music (more Foghat and Frampton than you can fling a K-Tel record at). Instead, DAZED AND CONFUSED tells a more generation-spanning story about adolescent life that just happens to take place in an era when smoking weed was just part of the popular lifestyle and the kids were obsessed with Aerosmith and Zeppelin (note the title). The teachers are all Charlie Brown types, the parents overprotective, the student body diverse and the social morass is one perhaps burnt out by the previous cultural landscape, but it is agreed that the night of the last day of school is one for livin' (L-I-V-I-N) in the now.

Going for a Altman-esque style of storytelling that joins so many parts together that they will eventually overlap, Linklater gets mileage not just from the perspective that we get, feeling as though we're in a beat-up bucket of bolts trolling the streets with the boys and girls of summer, but from the ensemble cast. It's no surprise that the cast managed to boast a pair of future leading men in Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey, both having the time of their lives as the sadistic bully O'Bannion and the immortal Wooderson, a townie who shows up to celebrate principally for the promise of getting a little wango tango with the freshman girls. Far from one-note types, you can sense the charm in their portrayals that would boil over into the kind of cookie-cutter romantic fare the men would latter make their name on.

On the female side, both Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams were treasures as Darla and Simone, the latter Pink's love interest and the former a very catty fascist chick who demands air raids even when the newly-accepted Sabrina is hanging out with the cool girls. You can just picture the closet dysfunctions of Darla as well as sense Posey lost herself entirely in Darla (much evident in the bonus features), which would only help her out in future comedic roles in mainstream and independent films, the best and most obvious being the Christopher Guest trilogy. Newcomers Wiley Wiggins and Christin Hinojosa didn't have careers as actors following this, but their fresh-faced innocence gives the movie some gravity and truly sympathetic characters. Both Wiggins' Mitch and Jason London's Pink are really the principal characters of the movie, and share some nice dialogue together.

The rest of the cast is no less awesome. Milla Jovovich, who was just sixteen at the time of filming, plays hippie chick Michelle with little dialogue but the most adorably spaced-out facial expressions. Anthony Rapp, soon to be Mark Cohen from Rent, is witty as Tony and damn near gets one of the best laughs talking about his Abraham Lincoln dream. Adam Goldberg and Marissa Ribisi (aka "Mrs. Beck") co-star as Tony's buddies, Mike and Cynthia, who both have their own fascinating characters (Mike, in particular, decides to forgo all his dreams of attending law school because...he wants to dance!). Rory Cochrane has the stoner mannerisms and lingo down to a T. Cole Hauser, Sasha Jenson and Jason O. Smith are all a hoot as O'Bannion's partners in crime, as is Nicky Katt as Clint, the "dominant male monkey" who picks a fight with Mike. There is not a single wrong note within the entire ensemble.

But more so than the cast, DAZED & CONFUSED is all about the amusing little details, which makes the comedy and drama seem much more genuine. When O'Bannion and crew show up at Mitch's little league game with the intent of finally dispersing the licks, the boy realizes that there is no escape and he might as well take the punishment, which turns out to be the best thing given the confidence that will bestow him after. But Mitch reluctantly gives up, and you can sense it when the little league teams line-up for high-fives, an somewhat uncomfortable gesture made all the more frightening in that Mitch is basically heading off to the firing squad. It's hard to believe such a fascinating, minor detail could've been considered a throwaway by the studio, but it just shows you that if the kids in DAZED & CONFUSED were getting their fix on marijuana, the suits at Universal probably graduated to that certain drug of choice in the 1980s.

With that said, I will espouse no further on the actual film and get to the real reason why I wanted to write this review: this is Criterion Collection release #336 and is one of the most cherry packages I have seen the team put out, which is really saying something if you have seen some of their more lavish works. That Universal couldn't get this job done, instead focusing all their energies on minor cult films like Orgazmo and Mallrats, is a damn sin. The movie is presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen in a crisp high-definition transfer, supervised by Linklater and cinematographer Lee Daniel, that easily outdoes the previous "Flashback Edition" in terms of visual bliss. Virtually no print damage was evident during the entire movie, and there were only a couple fleeting instances of image softness. And the colors are a lot better than the last time, bold and pristine and accurate to the movie's deliberately age-defined palette, with concise blackness levels and shadow details. Fans owe it to themselves to pick this one up for the picture quality alone.

The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is fairly similar to the last edition's soundtrack, which isn't all that bad. The soundtrack is fairly heavy towards the front channels, but they have really fine directional effects and stereo delineation that help to flesh out to a strong degree the musical selections and ancillary car noises. The surrounds were fairly active if mainly in terms of ambience during scenes at the Moon Tower and the Emporium, although most modern comedies would sort of play down these aspects. Dialogue was always well-presented even when the hard rock would be blasting, and the elements combined to make for a pretty groovy listening experience. A second 5.1 soundtrack in DTS and optional English subtitles are the only real bonus in terms of alternate language options.

Recorded in New York in early 2006, Richard Linklater contributes at last a feature-length audio commentary track that gets down to the real nitty gritty about how the director got the movie he wanted in the end, albeit with numerous disappointing roadblocks and struggles with corporate and studio entities, particularly McDonald's, Schlitz and, of course, the major studio that was financing his movie. Linklater was adamant about sticking to a "pre-MTV influence" that basically meant no flashy cutting or camera tricks, as well as a strict allegiance to details rooted firmly in the 1970s, including the design of bedrooms that matched the ones of his childhood friends. Linklater talks about all the music choices, from the opening use of Aero smith's "Sweet Emotion" to the compromised use of Foghat's "Slow Ride" at the end. Linklater pleaded to Jimmy Page and Robert Plant for the use of "Rock & Roll," but after Page said yes, Plant brashly denied; however, the Led Zeppelin songwriters later agreed that Linklater could use "Immigrant Song" in School of Rock. Linklater never lets up for a moment and delivers a funny, personal, very worthy account of the experience.

Disc one also boasts seventeen deleted scenes, almost double of what the "Flashback Edition" offered. They can be viewed separately or played in one reel that lasts 25:29. Most of these scenes are merely extensions of dialogue (including more of the conversation about Gilligan's Island in the girls' room), but we get a couple of pretty good bits. Parker Posey and Joey Lauren Adams came up with their own dialogue in a comical scene where Darla and Simone chat over a bottle of booze. We also learn of how the statues were stolen to make the life-size KISS replicas and what happens to the kids in the end when the cops catch on. In one wisely-edited outtake, Benny reveals himself as a straight-up racist after he drives past a pair of Asian teens on the sidewalk, which would've added a degree of off-putting character development. A few scenes are very rough in picture quality and have little in the way of sound, and there is no Linklater commentary for them, but these scenes are a wealth for anyone interested.

The first disc concludes with the film's theatrical trailer in full-screen and Dolby 1.0 audio.

Disc two kicks things off with Making Dazed, a decade-in-the-making 50-minute documentary from onset presence Kahane Corn that originally aired in September 2005 on the cable channel AMC. We get a real nice mix of vintage camera-shot footage from the set as well as stuff from the movie's 10th anniversary reunion screening (meant to resemble going to a drive-in movie) and recent interviews with Linklater, a couple of the producers, casting director Don Phillips, and a glut of the cast members, including Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Anthony Rapp, Marissa Ribisi, Adam Goldberg, Christin Hinojosa, and Parker Posey, who, interviewed in a swimming pool, is looking and sounding a lot more like Ally Sheedy with age.

Linklater's commentary track got so much of the trivia and insight out of the way and he does kind of overlap, but I forgive that because what he says is always fascinating (he had no idea at the time of making a "pitch") and the added perspective of the cast & crew is a largely valuable asset. For instance, the scene with O'Bannion getting humiliated by the eight-graders was one fraught with on-set conflict, particularly between Linklater and producer/"mystery director" James Jacks, which resulted in Jacks (who comes off like the kind of Hollywood sleaze ball any God-fearing director would have a nightmare about) punching an inanimate object out of frustration. The cast members also explain the on-set camaraderie that made the filming experience feel more like summer camp.

The great thing about the documentary is that hear not just from the future stars, who brim with enough wit and recollections to power at least three retrospectives (dig McConaughey's explanation of his character's swagger), but also from Hinojosa and Wiggins, both very young and obscure at the time of filming and who had different experiences following the wrap compared to their older peers. They couldn't really adjust to L.A. life, depriving them of movie star careers. In the end, Wiggins had a job in Encino doing title effects for HBO soft porn and Hinojosa ended up realizing her fullest potential was as a social speaker. At the end of the day, though, making DAZED & CONFUSED would turn out to be beneficial for just about everyone no matter where the individual roads led.

23 minutes of VHS-quality auditions can be seen in their own menu. Here, we get footage of actors Michelle Burke, Rory Cochrane, Adam Goldberg, Cole Hauser, Christin Hinojosa, Nicky Katt, Jason London, Deena Martin (who plays Shevonne), Matthew McConaughey, Anthony Rapp, Marissa Ribisi, and Wiley Wiggins reading for parts, some of which were different from the ones they got (notice how London tries Goldberg's character on for size). Most of these cast members got their stuff down from the beginning, and seeing them at such an early stage in production do such a good job manages to be more of an enticement that it would seem to be in mere description.

The section called "Beer Bust at the Moon Tower" provides three more menus worth of features that can be played altogether as a random "FIESTA!" or in their separate categories with either individual remote access or a "play all" option. First of all, character interviews runs about 40 minutes and features 13 of the performers, which includes several of the audition personalities as well as Parker Posey, Cole Hauser and Deena Martin, as they explain their characters personalities and quirks around the first week of rehearsal. Although most of them provide nice insights, the highlights are definitely when Parker (Darla) and Sasha Jenson (Don) provide their own interpretations whilst in character. This feature is definitely in the vein of the audition tapes as they cement some of the rough talents on display.

Cast and Director Interviews (47:20) provides a lot more (and a lot better) candid reflections from Linklater and several of the cast members, primarily during filming (the disc ends with an outtake from the documentary interview with Linklater, McConaughey & Don Phillips). At the onset, we see the director the day before principal photography feeling very much like he was 16 again and we get to revisit him later as he is interviewed on a football field before the last day of shooting, when his initiation into making studio pictures seemed to be complete. Some of the better segments involve Nicky and Adam chilling together mere moments after their characters' fight scene and the moments with Wiley Wiggins both alone and with fellow actress Catherine Morris, who plays his love interest, Julie.

For those who just can't get enough raw behind-the-scenes material, the platter is completed by a segment to devoted to a half-hour's worth of behind-the-scenes footage that dates as early as a read-through with Linklater providing direction to Ribisi and spans all the way up to clips from the reunion celebration, in which Joey Lauren Adams drops a bomb on Linklater by saying that the cast members were authentically stoned on the last day. We also see footage of Affleck learning to drive a 1970s vehicle (as well as posing for "paparazzi" in his paint job), property master Robert Janecka showing off his bong collection, Wiggins going back to school at the end of the summer, costume tests, promotional photo shoots, and general outtakes.

Criterion doesn't stop with the discs, though. The packaging is meant to resemble the pages of a pop art yearbook, and located within is a replica of the film's original poster plus a 72-page color booklet with essays, color photos, credits, chapter listings, and more. There are three short but sweet articles on the film written by movie magazine editor Kent Jones, Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis and ESPN/Spin columnist Chuck Klosterman, who saw the movie 64 times and was high for all but one time, which was when he first saw the movie ("I know this because I was drunk"). A fourth article is basically a collection of text-based interviews with members of the cast and crew as edited by John Sprong of the Texas Monthly. Did you know that Jason Lee (who, like Joey and Ben, would be future Kevin Smith protégés) and Renée Zellweger were hanging out on the set? I've barely scratched the surface of just how awesome that particular piece is. Also noteworthy are reproductions of some of Linklater's actual notes to the cast and filmmakers and a collection of character profiles, "Profiles in Confusion," that provide amusing ancillary details for twenty characters.

If you haven't considered scrounging for this long-awaited special edition of DAZED AND CONFUSED, you'd best start now. Just remember this, motherf*ckers: I only came to kick some a** and drink some beer, and [it] looks like we're almost out of beer.