Plot: What’s it about?
I’ll go ahead and address the issue at hand on the first sentence of my review…yes, Colin Hanks and Schuyler Fisk are the respective offspring of Tom Hanks and Sissy Spaceck (not together; respectively). That aside, I’ll say that Orange County is both new and inventive and at the same time some of the same old stuff that we’ve seen time and again. I’ll also go ahead and say that Jake Kasdan (son of Lawrence Kasdan) directed the movie. Did anyone ever say that nepotism played a big part in Hollywood? Considering a majority of our current stars are either second or third generation (Sean Penn, Drew Barrymore and Laura Dern…take a bow), it’s no shocker that the kids of these actors are just as good or even better than their parents. Naturally, it’s hard to be "better" than Tom Hanks, but you get the jist of what I’m trying to say. Orange County is more like a cross between Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Dead Poet’s Society. An odd, but very interesting combination that we’re going to find more about here.
Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks) is a "reformed" surfer punk. He, along with his group of friends, surfed whenever the time was right. The worse the weather, the bigger the waves equals the more the surfing they did. One day, after a friend of his met his maker surfing the waves of a tsunami, he finds a book buried in the sand and decides to read it. Finding that it has opened his eyes to the world, he soon gives up surfing and dedicates his Senior year to writing (his newfound dream) and wants nothing more than to be admitted to Stanford University. He decides to compose a short story that he sends to the author of the book he found (who just so happens to be a professor at Stanford) and surprisingly enough, it turns out to be about him and his friends in Orange County. Well, things are going great for Shaun until his half-witted guidance counselor turns in the wrong transcript for him and he is denied admission into Stanford. What to do?
This, of course, is only half the characters in the movie. Lest we forget Lance (Jack Black), Shaun’s loser brother who makes his living passing out on the floor from partying the night before and stealing his step father’s drugs to sell. Lance has the great idea to drive up to Stanford and meet face to face with the Dean of Admissions (Harold Ramis). They do and as one can imagine, all Hell breaks loose! What makes Orange County so fun to watch is that the cast is littered with "A" list stars ranging from John Lithgow and Catherine O’Hara to up and comers like Colin Hanks and Jack Black. It’s funny, but it tells a bit about the trials and tribulations of getting into college too. And it tells a little tale about life. Not everything works out the way we plan and sometimes we have to play the hand we’re dealt. For fans of the genre, a must see; for others, a must rent.
Video: How does it look?
Orange County is a picture perfect vision of what DVD’s should look like when they come directly from the theaters to disc. While it won’t be the most perfect disc in your collection, it does contain a very good-looking 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. As I have noticed with some of Paramount’s titles, there seems to be a bit of grain in some of the brighter scenes, but it more than makes up for it in others. No edge enhancement, artifacting or any shimmering of any kind can take away from what this disc has to offer. The detail is crisp and clean and shows a very clear picture. I wish all movies on DVD looked like this.
Audio: How does it sound?
There were two spots in the movie where I really looked up and around at my speakers as a result of the movie. While the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack isn’t the best out there, these two scenes really lit up the speakers and I then got my money’s worth. Dialogue is crisp and very strong (I usually watch movies with my A/C on and have to end up turning up the volume, but not so with this case) and lacked any distortion. The front three channels do most of the work here and as mentioned before, the surrounds do help out when they are used. Still, there is nothing wrong with this soundtrack and it more than serves its purpose here.
Supplements: What are the extras?
While not containing a whole lot of extras, Orange County does do it’s share for the supplements department. The most major (sorry, had to get that Southern California verb in there) extra is the audio commentary by Jake Kasdan and writer Mike White (the opposite of Jack Black). The track was fairly good, but not nearly as talkative as I thought. Kasdan seems like he’s drugged out or something and White only offers some comments here and there. A non-anamorphic trailer is shown as are some 15 television spots (called Interistials) and four deleted scenes add to the glamour of the disc. I felt the scenes should have been left in as they were all funny and the movie wasn’t that long to begin with (83 minutes), so why not? Still, it’s a good disc and a good movie…so give it a shot.
