Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused

I should say first that Dazed and Confused is one of those movies that went straight into my bloodstream when I first saw it and has never left, a miracle of ensemble acting and pitch-perfect attention to detail. If you at all agree, you will likely devour Maerz's oral history, which quotes nearly everyone involved in its production to recreate how this odd miracle—a teen stoner comedy that can hold its own with the best of Altman and Renoir—happened. The answer comes, in part, from Linklater's stubborn and sometimes devious vision, but also from the people he brought together to inhabit and enlarge that vision. Some became stars, and some, for reasons tragic or inevitable or intentional, didn't, but there's a sense among all of them that, for one day at this fictional Texas high school, they all shone equally.