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DVD Ultimate Party Collection Widescreen Special Edition (Dazed and Confused/Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
A remastered set with new 5.1 Dolby Surround audio, commentary tracks, new documentaries and deleted scenes. Fast Times at Ridgemont High Before he became an overrated filmmaker, Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous) was a reporter for Rolling Stone who was so youthful looking that he could go undercover for a year at a California high school and write a book about it. He wrote the script for this film, based on that book, and it launched the careers of several young actors, including Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Phoebe Cates, and, above all, Sean Penn. The story line is episodic, dealing with the lives of iconic teen types: one of the school's cool kids, a nerd, a teen queen, and, most enjoyably, the class stoner (Penn), who finds himself at odds with a strict history teacher (a wonderfully spiky Ray Walston). This is not a great movie but very entertaining and, for a certain age group, a seminal movie experience. --Marshall Fine
Dazed & Confused 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
Review(s): DVD Ultimate Party Collection Widescreen Special Edition (Dazed and Confused/Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
An Oldie but a Goodie
This party pack should be a no brainer purschase for anybody fond of the 60's/70's stoner party era. "Dazed and Confused" is a movie which portrays a typical high school where the new seniors are eagar to start hazing the new freshman, a regular ritual preformed at the school. For the boys its a few paddlings to the butt with a wooden paddle that all the seniors make and take pride and creativity in making. For the girls it's less painful with only the freshman cheerleaders getting soaked in miscellaneous items such as raw eggs, ketchup, mustard, etc. The movie focuses heavily on one boy that breaks his way in to the senior group and ends up hanging out with them regularly including attending parties with them, hanging out at the pool hall, and even smoking weed with the guys. In the end it just shows a typical party night for that high school. All in all the movie is wonderfully done with accurate cars of the time and usual night activities (going to the drive-in diners and hanging out at the pool hall). The actors in the movie were excellent and some sparking the beginning to their very successful career with this movie. A must see! As for "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" this movie is similiar to "Dazed and Confused". It has similiar qualities Dazed in that all the kids in the movie are all about partying and having a good time. The main character of the movie, Jeff Spicoli, is a huge stoner that shows up to class late aggravating one teacher in particular, Mr. Hand the teacher that thinks everybody on dope, who ends up getting his "stole time" back from Jeff in the end. The movie also focuses on Mark Ratner and Damone, the man who helps Mark with his love life and ends up eventually steal Mark's dream girl away from her and getting her pregnant, something he pays for in the end. The movie is very good and shows high school life in a slightly dramatized comical way, a great movie for anybody who likes "Dazed...".
High-water marks for teensploitation/stoner comedy
This two-pack is an amazing pairing of like-minded high school comedies that are also suitable contrasts in that "Fast Times..." was generally a contemporary "classic" defining of its time (the frosted-blonde locks and Vans sneakers found their way IMMEDIATELY even to my burg of an Atlanta suburb high school in Lilburn, GA and fostered a class of Spickoli wanna-bes), whereas "Dazed..." was essentially a nostalgia piece, a throwback film designed to recall another time entirely.
Both films do as fine a job of depicting the reality of high school life as being equally dismal and comic, categorizing the cliques that were more specifically targeted in the John Hughes films of the 1980's as being less than specific sub-groups than being variations of the same theme; we're all somewhere between childhood and adulthood, and we're all equally screwed.
Both films are also similar in that they highlight the performances of actors who would eventually become well-established within the industry (even going so far as to win an Academy Award in Sean Penn's case) in the early stages of their careers; Sean Penn and Jenifer Jason Leigh in "Fast Times..." and Ben Affleck and Matthew McConaughey in "Dazed...", to say nothing of the actors in smaller roles (Nicolas Cage and Anthony Edwards in "Fast Times..." and Parker Posey Milla Jovovich in "Dazed...", just to name a few).
As a suburbanite old enough to remember both eras covered in these two films (I could've been anyone's little brother in "Dazed..." and could've passed for Mark Rattner in "Fast Times..."), I can heartily vouch for the authenticity of both movies as well as the competance with which both screenplays were written. The performances of all the actors as well as terrific soundtrack scoring in both films make this two-pack a no-brainer; both films are absolutely worth their price and should find themselves in the collection of anyone who thinks that the "American Pie" series is the perfect representation of young adult life in America. Both of these movies showed it first and portrayed it better.
Two Sweet-Azz Movies
These were my two favorite movies to watch on those all night parties back when I was in school, something good to have on in the background.
Dazed & Confused --
The year is 1976. It's the last day of school, and it's time for the new seniors to do some hazing on the new freshmen! Paddling the guys with those wooden boards, and making the girls look like fools.
Now that's that done, we spend the rest of the movie drivin around, getting dazed and confused; hanging out at the pool hall; and trying to find a party to go to.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High --
The year is 1982. Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll is the story of this movie.
Jeff Spicoli is a surfer dude who always being harrassed by his scrict teacher: Mr. Hand. The teacher won't even let Spicoli enjoy a pizza that he ordered in class; no respect for stoners.
We've got other characters like Brad Hamilton who's having a hard time finding himself in his senoir year, going from job to job - but he does find a cute girl swimming topless in a pool (played by Pheobe Cates). His sister explores her sexual life.
And of course, we have the nerd.
Like I said before, two awesome partying movies - like the name of the box set says.
Related DVD's Ultimate Party Collection Widescreen Special Edition (Dazed and Confused/Fast Times at Ridgemont High)
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While it suffered a nearly unanimous beating from critics, The Girl Next Door attracted more than a few loyal defenders during its brief box-office lifespan. It pales when compared to its teen-comedy role model (the 1983 classic Risky Business), but you've got to admit that any movie about a teenager whose new next-door neighbor is a 19-year-old former porn star has bona fide cult-movie potential. To its credit, this rather schizoid blend of sleaze and comedy boasts an engaging pair of costars in Emile Hirsch (as the smitten, voyeuristic virgin) and 24's Elisha Cuthbert (as his sexy new house-sitting neighbor). And there are some good laughs in a script that takes unexpected turns when we learn that Cuthbert's character is trying to leave her porn-star past... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Emile Hirsch - Elisha Cuthbert Director(s): Luke Greenfield DVD Release Date: Released the 24 August 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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