Alright, Alright, Alright audiobook

Yeah, five stars. What a delight and answered so many questions that I had gone into this skeptical about. Longer review to come... just, a great oral history that made me laugh and provided so much insight. Ready for that Dazed rewatch now... (and probably giving this as a gift this holiday season to some friends...)

Four weekends in a row were spent watching Dazed and Confused, simply because of reading this book. Alright, Alright, Alright will reinforce your love for Dazed and Confused, causing you to revisit the film as much as possible. I certainly won't be the only one for whom that's the case.That's what I'm talkin' about, man.

My catnip. Side note: I would like someone to do a book length oral history of Almost Famous.

Writer Melissa Maerz stitches together the story of a film that's become a cult classic, "Dazed and Confused," through the words of more than 100 people she interviewed for the book. The result is outstanding.I'm a big fan of books written in the oral history format because the story is told directly by those involved, rather than the occasional quote interspersed with the author's work. Add to that the fact that "Dazed and Confused" is one of my all-time favorite movies, and we have a book that I was incredibly excited to read. Maerz's book was even better than I hoped for, and is a book I will soon be adding to my own collection."Dazed" - set in a Texas town on the last day of school in 1976 – was director Richard Linklater's first big studio production after his highly regarded indie debut "Slacker," filmed in Austin, Texas. It was a pleasant surprise to read more about the making of "Slacker" in this book because it sets the stage for not only the approach that Linklater took to "Dazed," but also sets up the conflict faced by this young, determined director and his close friends (many of whom he brought with him from "Slacker" to work on "Dazed" as he navigated the Hollywood studio process. At its heart, "Alright, Alright, Alright" is a book about filmmaking in the 1990s, when the last wave of decent-budget independent films reached its high-water mark, when they still had some support from the major studios and before those same studios focused their time and money on remakes, sequels and superheroes. Readers get a behind-the-scenes look at arguments between the film crew and studio executives over the not just the making of the film, but the battles that came after with its soundtrack, marketing and distribution of the film and much more.At the same time, we also get insight into the camaraderie and summer camp-type atmosphere the actors experienced while making "Dazed" told through their own words. The actors all were in their teens and early 20s, and many of them were appearing in their first major film – including future stars Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey and Renee Zellweger. (Zellweger has a very small, non-speaking role and the book’s title is McConaughey’s most famous line of the film, and the most famous of his career.) Linklater intentionally took a hands-off approach to their off-screen behavior in hopes they would form a bond with each other and the result was a lot like the high school atmosphere portrayed in the film: romantic hookups, clique drama and intoxication while they weren’t on set (and sometimes when they were!) Linklater also gave these young, relatively inexperienced actors a substantial amount of freedom in shaping their characters and the film's dialogue, which may of them said was a freedom they haven't been given by other directors since "Dazed."Despite Linklater’s attempts to avoid turning "Dazed" into a nostalgia trip for the 1970s, many of us who grew up in the 1990s saw the film in exactly that light. That makes the ending of the book even more poignant, because Maerz and her subjects speak about ways in which the 1990s are now viewed nostalgically as the right before the crush of cellphones and social media and before the shift in priorities among the major movie studios.This book hit close to home for me in many ways and brought back some wonderful and awkward memories, and I still learned some new things about a movie I’ve watched dozens of times. I’m so grateful for the tremendous effort Maerz undertook to put this book together. Chad D. / Marathon County Public Library Find this book in our library catalog.

Delightful! Not much else to say, other than that it does everything you want it to, and that as I feared/hoped going in, there's something deeply sad about it all. Favorite fact: the guy who plays Don in the movie owns the rights to Rin Tin Tin.I do feel bad for the guy who played Pickford. Seriously.

this was such a blast to read—i feel like i have so much random knowledge about the movie now and i love it!! one of the big themes of the book was nostalgia and how every generation wishes that they lived in the generations before them, even if all they have is a romanticized idea of it in their head. what makes dazed and confused so special to me is that even though it’s set in the 70s the characters feel true to today, which is something that virtually everyone who has seen the movie has also said. i also loved reading about all of the cast drama:)(i wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy, unless of course we’re talking about my enemy shawn andrews. f you shawn andrews you know what you did.)

“Richard Linklater: Now, I don't think it's possible to make an anti-nostalgic movie. That's just the power of cinema. Do you remember in the book JARHEAD, all the guys are sitting around watching APOCALYPSE NOW and FULL METAL JACKET? And it's like, wait, these are anti-war movies! But the soldiers are just like, ‘Yeahhhh!’ There's a disconnect there. Cinema can't help but glamorize. Cinema doesn't give a shit if you're nostalgic or not. It's a nostalgia creator.”

Nostalgic look at the making of a film that tried to be anti-nostalgic. Reflections on two bygone eras: the 1970s and the 1990s. The author must be tremendously charming and patient, because she has managed to secure the participation of scores of people, many of whom are now very famous.

I saw this on a Booklist "Beach Reads" list yesterday, and when I saw my library had it in, had to grab it to skim. And then. I read. THE WHOLE. THING. This is not for you if you haven't watched Dazed, but if you owned a battered VHS copy in 1997-2003 and it was a core part of your movie collection, AND if you and your friends spent time picking out who you would be if you were in the movie (I, of course, was Cynthia) then oh my god, pick it up now. So many juicy little tidbits. So much early 90's Austin. While I ended up being a hardcore Kevin Smith girl by 1998, based on this book, it's entirely possible that I have Linklater to thank for that. (An open letter to 1992 Ben Affleck: From the moment my 7th grade class watched The Voyage of the Mimi, I had my eye on you.)

I thought this was a really fun and entertaining book about the movie Dazed and Confused. I was in grade school when this movie came out and I remember it was a few years later that one of my friends got their older brother to get it for us to watch. We thought we were such rebels 😂 There was cursing! Drugs! Making out! And a kick ass soundtrack to boot. This book was so well done - its such an honest and transparently done book and was fascinating to see the differences in memory and opinion between the cast. I loved that some of the biggest stars to come out of the movie such as Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck and Renee Zellweger (who is barely even in the movie) agreed to be interviewed for this book. I also thought it was really interesting to see that several of the cast still hold grudges about things 25 years later. Thank you to @Harper for providing me a gifted copy to read and review. Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is now available in paperback.

So this book was even better than alright, alright, alright. Okay that joke is terrible, but this book was a must for any fan of the movie. Just about everyone involved in the movie discusses the book including McCoughney, Affleck, Parker Posey, Joey Laren Adams, Jason London, Cole Hauser, Adam Goldberg, Richard Lanklater and more. You'll learn everything about just about every scene and how this incredible cast came to be. You'll learn how two actors were full of themselves and excluded themselves from the rest of the group. You'll learn how this movie was marketed very differently than originally intended. Good stuff and a quick read.

Endlessly fascinating, as a HS student in the early 90's, Dazed and Confused caught my eye and heart, to this oral history of its creation and legacy hit all the sweet spots for me. Richard Linklater's creative process, the actors and actresses reflecting on the power of that intense moment, and the ascension of McConaughey make this book a mosquito in the amber, a frozen moment in time, with great details on the soundtrack, the studio resistance, and the concordances with Linklater's own youth in Huntsville, TX. I recommend this highly for all fans of Linklater and D&C.

Fun vacation reading that let me geek out over a much-beloved movie. Maerz gets a lot of folks to talk, from major players to behind-the-scenes participants, and there's a lot of juicy gossip here. It's a quick page-turner and Maerz's research is meticulous. In fact, with 140 referenced interviewees, Maerz's research is almost too comprehensive - I regularly had to switch back to the opening "who's who" pages to remember who some of the interviewees were. Overall, though, highly enjoyable, and one that Linklater fans will especially appreciate.

does the heart good

Fantastic.