No title better sums up the state in which high school leaves you — sometimes for life — than Dazed and Confused. The movie gets things right, too. Writer-director Richard Linklater — whose cult hit, Slacker (about Texas dropouts), was resolutely right now — has gone retro. Linklater set his new social satire in 1976, with a soundtrack of great relics ranging from Aerosmith to ZZ Top. It's the last school day before summer, and scarily, it all looks familiar. Trying to get blitzed on grass, beer, music, brawling and sex clearly transcends time. Hey, the world sucks.

Dazed is as postmodern and cool (huh-huh) as Beavis and Butt-Head. We know plots suck, too, so nothing much happens. Pink (Jason London), the school quarterback, and his babedogging pals Slater (Rory Cochrane) and Don (Sasha Jenson) get a little heated about Pink's decision not to sign the coach's pledge against drugs and alcohol. And eighth-grader Mitch (Wiley Wiggins is a star in the making) gets radically hazed.

Linklater, 31, is a sly and formidable talent, bringing an anthropologist's eye to this spectacularly funny celebration of the rites of stupidity. His shitfaced American Graffiti is the ultimate party movie — loud, crude, socially irresponsible and totally irresistible.

“Youth Knows No Pain”

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”