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This film started a number of careers, and it’s definitely a classic and a high moment in the career of director Richard Linklater (also known for Slacker, the disappointing Before Sunrise, and the new Waking Life).
It is an entertaining fictionalization of high school graduation weekend of the senior class of 1976 in Linklater’s former home city of Austin, Texas. Jocks, rednecks, cheerleaders, stoners, frosh, and the other high school demographic groups are all lovingly and respectfully rendered on Linklater’s canvas. Though I didn’t graduate until the mid-‘80s, I’m pretty sure that the amount of pot smoking is this film is not exaggerated. And as evidence of the director’s commitment to brutal realism, Foghat’s “Slow Ride” is heard not once, not twice, but three times before the end of the movie. Rock on.
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