ORANGE COUNTY review

I hate bad teen movies. Bad teen movies where you have the pretty boy faces and the pretty girl faces and gosh damn everything is so happy and so wonderful and the worst thing in the world is the evil jock or the fact that before you go to college you have to tell your girl one last time that you love her, but your car broke down and you were raped by redneck prairie dog hunters down back around the back forty. Luckily for me, this isn’t those films.

I didn’t find this one bland and uninvolving. This didn’t have a star with dead eyes like Freddie Prinze Jr. There was no jackal headed beast in this film. Also I like the fact that nearly every plot twist that took place in this film actually happened to me. That rules.

My senior year of High School was going great. I had aced both my SAT and ACT tests. My GPA was high, there was no way in hell I wasn’t getting into the University of Texas. It was a done deal. I had extracurricular honors out the wazoo. Science club, Spanish Club, Business Club, Band, Jazz Band (playing two instruments), Theater Arts, Extemporaneous Speaking, Debate, National Young Leaders of America kid… I was set to kick major ass in college.

I was motivated like a state trooper after a semi full of marijuana… I had my target, my goal and it wasn’t getting away. I was living in a town of 3000. 60 miles from the nearest movie theater. Most days you could smell horse shit, other days you could smell the cow patties. The radio stations played immense rotation of Barbara Mandrel and Alabama and the Oak Ridge Boys. Fun was going out to a metal barn in the middle of nowhere, hearing a C&W cover band called SAGE play line dances, while drinking fifths of vodka and Coors Light till you couldn’t hold your head up right. I had to fucking escape.

I’d see kids that were Seniors when I was in Junior High… Some working at the M-System grocery store… others at the ALLSUP’S convenience stores. My mom was a hopeless semi-violent alcoholic, my grandmother was crazy, both had guns and loved shooting at one another. I had to fucking escape.

I knew everything was fine, I was doing my time… making hash marks in the wall of my own mental prison. Counting down to the day where I could escape.

The day I received my rejection letter from the University of Texas was like the biggest slap to my face I’ve ever received in life. I was stunned. I did everything right. Nothing had gone wrong. I was worthy. I had been accepted to Syracuse, American College of Switzerland and Moscow State University… but I submitted to all of those knowing full well that my mother would never allow me to go that far from home and pay for college, thereby forcing her to pay for me to go to U.T.

The plan had gone astray. I reread the letter. Apparently they claimed to never receive my transcript. My guidance counselor never sent U.T. my transcript! She Never Sent My Transcript! SHE NEVER SENT MY TRANSCRIPT!!!!! ARGH!!!!

My best friend and I drove non-stop to Austin… took my transcript… I looked like a man destined for a noose. I was not a happy camper. I was never one to believe that all my life’s answers were going to be found in college, but ever since I could remember getting into U.T. was what it was all about. I used to wander the campus for hours as a kid… attend film screenings for the public and students… My love for cinema was birthed partly upon that campus.

My stomach felt like a blender spinning S.O.S. brillo pads and marbles… It just didn’t work. It was upset. As I sat opposite the Admissions person at U.T. and they told me they were full and that yes my transcript was solid and that I would have definitely been admitted, but there is nothing they could do… My heart sunk. She suggested I sign up for a semester at Austin Community College and transfer in the following Spring.

I left feeling like hell. Just terrible. My entire life was based on getting into U.T. For the past 6 years, it was nearly always near the surface of my thoughts. Everytime I hated a teacher or a class or thought about putting off studying it was there. Everything bad about my life was transformed into motivational reasons to excel in school… To get out. To go to U.T.

Not getting in suddenly… for the first time as a sentient semi-adult I realized that plans for life change, that you have to adapt, to roll with the punches… all that trite truism bullshit you tell yourself when you realize that life doesn’t obey your fucking whims like it goddamn is supposed to.

Did it end happily?

Well, I’m not a lawyer!

I found my own way, my own path and it wasn’t by the book… which I never did find a copy of.

Now, ORANGE COUNTY is about this exact same story and period… but the story belongs to Colin Hanks. He dreamed of going to Stanford to escape a similarly fucked up environment, to achieve similar goals. The beauracracy of student counselors conspired to ass-rape his dream like it did mine. Typical. Appropriate. So true. Is the film a poignant story about the meaning of life in that transitional state from being a High School Grub Worm to being a human being?

Well, with the proper amount of marijuana and malt liquor it might very well could seem to be.

Not that you should ever see it like that.

This was like seeing that period in my life told with the skinny son of Tom Hanks playing me. Winona Ryder’s BEETLEJUICE mom as my mom. Jack Black as my step-brother. John Lithgow playing something totally different from my father. Lily Tomlin doing a dead on impersonation of my High School Guidance Counselor Ms. Vita I believe her name was… I NEVER FORGET YOU PEOPLE! NEVER! I WILL SEEK REVENGE ON ALL YE THAT PUNISHED ME!!!

Colin Hanks is damn good. He feels like a very real, very obsessed, very motivated high school geek. Watching the film, you can see his father peek out of that face from time to time. It is spectacular. He very much plays it like he should. Someone that is in that same state I was… eager to change his life, move forward and to start that with college.

He out grew his friends, felt his girlfriend was a simpleton. But ultimately his pursuit of that dream leads him to discover a truth about life. Life and the people in college aren’t necessarily better than high school, they’re just different and there are more of them.

The moment where he discovers this… when he walks into that college party pursuing enlightened mega-hottie only to discover the horrible secret of college parties… Well… the look on Colin’s face… classic.

The Brumder family is just fantastic. Catherine O’Hara as the embarrassingly drunk and incompetent mother was wonderful. O’Hara simply does not make nearly enough movies to make me happy. Teaming her up with Lithgow as the ex-husband was genius though. They simply look right together in this film.

Jack Black could have been unredeemable and merely hilarious to me, but he plays this part to perfection. Jack plays the role as ‘portly’ aka ‘fat’ and what I like is he plays fat right.

You see, skinny fucks like to keep the fat man down. The skinny man likes to belittle the fat man. To make the fat man seem less than what he is. He is a large mammal. A creature of size that can not be ignored. However, the Fat Man can have elegance, style, grace and yes… he can even be a sexy bastard. What is great, is when Jack Black plays sexy fat… He plays it dead on right. There is that bit of ridiculousness. A feeling coming from him as if wondering how she would react. Then he can see the interest in her eyes. Oh yes, this mousy beauty can be mine. And then, suddenly… inexplicably… Jack Black exudes the sex power of the fat man, that hypnotic power that guarantees that fat men will get laid. That fat men will get laid by pretty, intelligent women that like laid back men that’ll take their time and be there for them. That will entertain their wildest fantasies because the Fat Man understands. Like I said. Jack Black understood exactly how to play the sexy fat man! Well done sir. You captured the sexual energy bottled in its pure form inside myself, Quint and Moriarty. Los Tres Gordos de Amor!

In addition to this, there is a wonderful wonderful comedic moment with Jack Black and Colin Hanks where they go to pick up the luminescent Schuyler Fisk. I can’t ruin it for ya, because that would be wrong.

Oh Oh Oh… Oh yeah, HAROLD RAMIS!!!!

Harold Ramis, sir… Please act more. Do it often. Constantly please. Watching his oh so abbreviated scenes during this movie and I was thinking… He’s freaking great. This is my favorite performance of his since his Egon Spengler in that little known flick back in 1984. His dean of admissions just killed me. Maybe it is just residual SCTV love for the man, but wow. I just loved him here. I literally just nearly gagged laughing at him.

Then there’s Mike White’s High School English teacher. I also met this teacher. Her name was Ms Jones. Other than a sex change, pretty much the same character. Mike also happened to have written the script for the film. Mike rules.

This brings me to Kevin Kline. I’m not a huge fan of Kline’s over the years. I remember getting screamingly upset when he won for A FISH CALLED WANDA. However, he has his roles. His turn in LIFE AS A HOUSE won me last year. His character in THE ICE STORM got me. I loved him in DAVE. His Fairbanks in CHAPLIN got me. Loved him passionately in GRAND CANYON. Hell I loved him in FRENCH KISS for some weird ass reason I can’t remember. But it all started with THE BIG CHILL for me.

In ORANGE COUNTY, the moment we see his face… we know how perfect the casting of him was. When Colin begins speaking to him, the moment was painfully honest and real. I’ve been on both sides of this fence. I’ve been the young nervous idolizing fanboy meeting his personal deity. I’ve also been to others that deity. Personally I’ve always felt painfully sorry for those that saw me that way, but it always warms me to make them feel as welcome and real as I can.

I’m not sure what it is in us that requires affirmation by those we admire. This past year, I had the rather painful task of handing my book to Quentin Tarantino to read and consider doing the introduction for my book. He’s never done a book introduction before. However, his first film festival plays strongly into the origin of how I opened my eyes to film the way I have. For me it was incredibly important that he write the intro. I was terrified.

I gave it to him at the beginning of his festival last year after finding out it was ok the day before to give it to him. I never asked about it at all throughout the event. I watched the films, talked with Quentin about those movies, KILL BILL and anything but my book. I figured if he didn’t like it or felt uncomfortable talking about it. Well, it sucked and fine and oh well…

The day he came over and just started quoting parts of the book back at me. There was a different look in his eye than usual. He was really excited about it (or he’s a brilliant actor). He agreed to write the intro.

When I read that intro… wow. I can’t explain the feeling, but for a second or two in Colin’s face, I thought I saw the feeling I had. The intro wasn’t kiss ass, it just nailed who I was. No lofty phrasing, just dead on comparisons that exactly punctuate the difference between me and most reviewers of film. (illiterate, juvenile, human) Ok, that’s not Quentin, but my own analysis.

It felt great. Really did.

This is a goofy funny film, but it has a heart and that heart pumps throughout the film. It plays with the absurd and the painful way families can be embarrassing. It just felt honest and real.

Sure the film wraps up in a neat tidy bow. Sure I bet you could see the ending well… now. But ya all knew the TITANIC would sink, many of you knew the beats in LORD OF THE RINGS, we all know Anakin becomes Darth Vader… It is that journey though and the characters we meet along the way that I love.

Bravo Jake Kasdan. I really really liked this film quite a bit. Way to go!