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Orange County
Paramount // PG-13 // June 18, 2002
List Price: $29.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Movie:
The teen comedy genre has gotten so tired in recent years that the presence of a new comedy that's at least moderately funny, witty and intelligent seems like cause for celebration. "Orange County", the new directorial effort from Jake Kasdan (son of director Lawrence), succeeds due to a combination of wonderful casting and smart, entertaining dialogue.
The film stars Colin Hanks (son of Tom) as Shaun Brumder, a carefree student - one of those rare folks who seems to be able to get good grades without much studying and still manage to surf with his friends. One day, he finds a novel in the sand and is transformed by it - he decides that what he most wants to do in life is become a writer and get into Stanford to study with the author (Kevin Kline).
Unfortunately, it seems as if this isn't meant to be. His confused high school counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends in the wrong transcripts under his name (the other person whose records were sent in with Shaun's transcripts reacts with hilarious amazement). To top things off, he doesn't recieve much help from members of his family - his father, Bud (John Lithgow) is too busy with work, but takes a few minutes to be horrfied about his son's decision to be a writer. His mother, Cindy, is a drama queen and is a bit too attached to the bottle. Most terrifying of all is brother Lance, a drug addict who doesn't mean to make trouble, but often does. At heart though, one suspects that he just doesn't want to see his brother end up like he has. Standing by his side throughout all of this is Ashley (Schuyler Fisk, daughter of Sissy Spacek), his bright girlfriend who doesn't want to see him go, but will do anything to help.
Off go Ashley, Lance and Shaun to Stanford to attempt to convince the Dean of Admissions (Harold Ramis) that it all was a big mistake and that Shaun should be let in. I don't want to go into too many details about the rest of the movie, but it proceeds with an unusually strong mix of nice character details and well-timed slapstick - there's no fat on this picture, it zips from point to point with no unnecessary scenes. Supporting performances from Harold Ramis, Jane Adams, Garry Marshall, Chevy Chase, writer Mike White, Ben Stiller and others also make a fine impression even in small-ish moments. All of the leads are perfect - Jack Black is at his insane best, while Fisk is sweet and enjoyable. Hanks offers a lot of the same comedic expressions as his father did in his earlier comedies, but to good effect.
I really enjoyed "Orange County". It's a movie that's edgy, funny and entertaining without having to resort to bathroom humor. It also boasts one of the best comedy casts that I've seen together in a while.
The DVD
VIDEO: I'm not quite sure what Paramount has changed, but hopefully they will continue to do what they're doing. Although I've always been very pleased with the image quality on their releases, their recent major releases boast a certain kind of appearance that's improved over their past titles - sharpness and detail are excellent once again in "Orange County", and the picture often boasts pleasing depth.
In terms of flaws with the image quality, there really wasn't much to discuss. Aside from a couple of brief specks late in the movie, the print appeared flawless. Edge enhancement was kept to a minimum and the picture was free of pixelation. Colors also looked terrific, as the film's bright, vivid color palette looked well-saturated and accurate.
SOUND: "Orange County" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Aside from an instance or two, the surrounds are really not put into much use, nor did I really expect them to be. The front-heavy presentation boasts very nice audio quality, as the music came through crisply and clear, as did dialogue.
MENUS: Paramount's animated main menu uses clips from the movie as backgrounds pretty well.
EXTRAS: Writer Mike White and director Jake Kasdan participate in a dry, witty and entertaining commentary that skips between offering informative discussions of the production and writing to enjoyable chat about the opinions of the two on how particular scenes ended up. Rounding out the supplemental section are four deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer and interstitial ads.
Final Thoughts: A smart, good-natured and very funny little movie, "Orange County" is definitely worth watching, especially for all of those kids facing the transitions between high school and college. Paramount's DVD edition offers very good audio/video quality and enjoyable supplements. A definite recommendation.
The teen comedy genre has gotten so tired in recent years that the presence of a new comedy that's at least moderately funny, witty and intelligent seems like cause for celebration. "Orange County", the new directorial effort from Jake Kasdan (son of director Lawrence), succeeds due to a combination of wonderful casting and smart, entertaining dialogue.
The film stars Colin Hanks (son of Tom) as Shaun Brumder, a carefree student - one of those rare folks who seems to be able to get good grades without much studying and still manage to surf with his friends. One day, he finds a novel in the sand and is transformed by it - he decides that what he most wants to do in life is become a writer and get into Stanford to study with the author (Kevin Kline).
Unfortunately, it seems as if this isn't meant to be. His confused high school counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends in the wrong transcripts under his name (the other person whose records were sent in with Shaun's transcripts reacts with hilarious amazement). To top things off, he doesn't recieve much help from members of his family - his father, Bud (John Lithgow) is too busy with work, but takes a few minutes to be horrfied about his son's decision to be a writer. His mother, Cindy, is a drama queen and is a bit too attached to the bottle. Most terrifying of all is brother Lance, a drug addict who doesn't mean to make trouble, but often does. At heart though, one suspects that he just doesn't want to see his brother end up like he has. Standing by his side throughout all of this is Ashley (Schuyler Fisk, daughter of Sissy Spacek), his bright girlfriend who doesn't want to see him go, but will do anything to help.
Off go Ashley, Lance and Shaun to Stanford to attempt to convince the Dean of Admissions (Harold Ramis) that it all was a big mistake and that Shaun should be let in. I don't want to go into too many details about the rest of the movie, but it proceeds with an unusually strong mix of nice character details and well-timed slapstick - there's no fat on this picture, it zips from point to point with no unnecessary scenes. Supporting performances from Harold Ramis, Jane Adams, Garry Marshall, Chevy Chase, writer Mike White, Ben Stiller and others also make a fine impression even in small-ish moments. All of the leads are perfect - Jack Black is at his insane best, while Fisk is sweet and enjoyable. Hanks offers a lot of the same comedic expressions as his father did in his earlier comedies, but to good effect.
I really enjoyed "Orange County". It's a movie that's edgy, funny and entertaining without having to resort to bathroom humor. It also boasts one of the best comedy casts that I've seen together in a while.
The DVD
VIDEO: I'm not quite sure what Paramount has changed, but hopefully they will continue to do what they're doing. Although I've always been very pleased with the image quality on their releases, their recent major releases boast a certain kind of appearance that's improved over their past titles - sharpness and detail are excellent once again in "Orange County", and the picture often boasts pleasing depth.
In terms of flaws with the image quality, there really wasn't much to discuss. Aside from a couple of brief specks late in the movie, the print appeared flawless. Edge enhancement was kept to a minimum and the picture was free of pixelation. Colors also looked terrific, as the film's bright, vivid color palette looked well-saturated and accurate.
SOUND: "Orange County" is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1. Aside from an instance or two, the surrounds are really not put into much use, nor did I really expect them to be. The front-heavy presentation boasts very nice audio quality, as the music came through crisply and clear, as did dialogue.
MENUS: Paramount's animated main menu uses clips from the movie as backgrounds pretty well.
EXTRAS: Writer Mike White and director Jake Kasdan participate in a dry, witty and entertaining commentary that skips between offering informative discussions of the production and writing to enjoyable chat about the opinions of the two on how particular scenes ended up. Rounding out the supplemental section are four deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer and interstitial ads.
Final Thoughts: A smart, good-natured and very funny little movie, "Orange County" is definitely worth watching, especially for all of those kids facing the transitions between high school and college. Paramount's DVD edition offers very good audio/video quality and enjoyable supplements. A definite recommendation.
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