Movie Shorts
These
days, teen comedies can’t seem to help but
fall back on (and all over) sex and fart jokes. Director
Jake Kasdan (son of Lawrence, director of The Zero
Effect) and writer Mike White (Chuck and Buck) have
minimally loftier goals in Orange County, namely,
to trace a speeded-up maturation process for new
high school grad Shaun (Colin Hanks, son of Tom).
Despite all outward signs to the contrary, the movie
is not dreadful, but makes the best of a bad generic
situation. Rejected by Stanford because his guidance
counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends the wrong transcript,
excellent student and aspiring writer Shaun is undone,
and endeavors to talk his way in, with the help and
un-help of several teen comedy staples.
The gross-out
material comes embodied by Shaun’s brother
Lance (Jack Black), as inappropriate as can be on
every possible occasion. The clueless-estranged-parents-who-just-need-to-get-laid
quotient is filled by Catherine O’Hara and
John Lithgow. And Shaun’s romantic interest
is the eminently sensible Ashley (Schuyler Fisk,
daughter of Sissy Spacek and art director Jack Fisk).
If you can get past the considerable distractions — Hanks
is eerily like his dad in affect and intonation,
the physical comedy (involving a wheelchair, urine,
ass-cracks, etc.) is very broad and the episodic
structure, even treated "ironically," gets
tedious — you might find some solace in the
generally fine performances
