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When my brother moved to California a few years ago, my parents and I went along to help out. One night, as my brother took us for a drive down the coast of Orange County (his favorite hangout), he asked my dad, “Why didn’t you move to California? Then we could have grown up here!”
Glancing around the surf-shop-lined streets filled with Ken and Barbie look-alikes, I called out from the back seat, “No one grows up here.”
My brother pointed out the houses around us, “See? All kinds of people live here,” he told me.
“That may be,” I replied. “But no one grows up here.”
And that, dear entertainment seeker, is where Orange County begins. Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks) finds a book buried in the sand one day as he’s taking a break from his daily surfing excursion. The book changes his life and inspires him to grow up and become a writer. The only way he can do that, he decides, is to leave the insanity of brain-dead Orange County and to go to Stanford University. Unfortunately, his flaky guidance counselor (played by Lily Tomlin) sends the wrong transcript, and Shaun’s application is rejected.
Convinced that his life will end if he doesn’t go to Stanford, Shaun goes on a mission to get his name on the admissions list. He’s joined on this mission by his girlfriend, Ashley (Schuyler Fisk)), and his perpetually-stoned brother, Lance (Jack Black).
I have every intention of watching this movie over and over -- to prove my theory that it’s one of those movies that you can watch over and over, and it’ll always be funny (like Better Off Dead or The Holy Grail). Orange County made me laugh until I felt sick. And while Hanks did a pretty darn good job for a rookie, this film wouldn’t have been as spectacularly hilarious without the help of a few of the pros -- like Catherine O’Hara, who plays Shaun’s alcoholic mother, and Jack Black, who can make me fall over laughing with a mere facial expression. Even the minor characters helped to make it a comedic success.
I’ll admit that the latter half of the movie got to be a bit slow at times, since the writers took away precious humor-time to give the story a moral of some sort. That’s fine -- I suppose every film has to at least attempt to have a point, but it could have been a little, well, funnier. I won’t hold that against the movie, though -- nor will I hold against it the fact that watching Colin Hanks and Schuyler Fisk was slightly disconcerting, given their overwhelming resemblance to their famous parents (Tom Hanks is Colin’s dad, and Sissy Spacek is Schuyler’s mom). But that’s not their fault. It’s just a little... strange.
So, overall, I’d have to give Orange County a rating of “Made Me Laugh So Hard That The Neighbors Came Over To See If Everything Was Okay.” Go out and pick this one up -- and watch it over and over (just make sure you warn the neighbors first).
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