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

111 reviews for:

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

Melissa Maerz

4.46 AVERAGE

franceshaha's review against another edition

lighthearted reflective fast-paced

my warm/tepid enjoyment here is really not fair to this book on 2 counts: (1) that i also read the mad max oral history this year, because it's much more sparkly and extreme, and (2) that this is not an oral history of everybody wants some!!, which imo is linklater's best feature-length vibefest.

sjhastoomanybooks's review

4.0

Did I need to read 400+ pages about Dazed and Confused? Probably not. Was it enjoyable and nostalgic? Sure was!

librariann's review

5.0

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.)

booktrovertmary's review

5.0

reflective fast-paced

pnwlibrarian's review

4.0

There are so many delightful little nuggets in this book! My favorite bits tended to be tangential to the actual making of Dazed and Confused -- like Richard Linklater discussing what it was like to grow up in Huntsville, Texas, and Matthew McConaughey reminiscing about his father and some of the (truly) wild stories he would tell. I would have given this 5-stars, except the sections (as essential as they are) dealing with the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Hollywood studio system kind of lost my attention. Still, this is a fun read for any film enthusiast or obsessive. Highly recommended.