EXECUTIVE BRIEFCASE
by Andrew Simons
“ORANGE COUNTY”
Paramount Pictures; rated PG-13; starring Colin Hanks, Jack Black; directed by Jake Kasden; written by Mike White; co-produced by Scott Ruden, Van Toffler, David Gale and Scott Aversano
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Orange County is an easy, shallow, superficial place littered with spoiled white people. Hollywood still hasn’t opened its eyes, smelled the latte and lost the presumptions about its neighbor to the south. Thus we are treated to a low-budget teen flick titled “Orange County,” which wasn’t even filmed here, that teems with the usual stereotypes: vacuous surfers, scantily clad young women, fast cars and a man who takes a trophy bride while his divorced wife hooks an elderly, wheelchair-bound tycoon. The “typical” OC teen of this movie is Shaun Brumder (Colin Hanks). He lives to surf until one of his friends dies in a huge wave. Searching for deeper meaning of life, Brumder reads a book by a famous Stanford professor (Kevin Kline) and decides he wants to become a writer under the professor’s tutelage. But Brumder gets rejected when his bumbling high school guidance counselor (Lily Tomlin) sends in the wrong transcript. The rest of the movie follows Brumder as he tries to undo the mistake in a series of misadventures involving his deadbeat brother (Jack Black), hysterical mother (Catherine O’Hara), distant father (John Lithgow) and stoner friends. There are some funny jokes, especially about the north-south California rivalry,the audience applauded when surfers yell, “Screw Stanford!” at film’s end. But OCers will probably laugh most at the film’s simplistic depiction of life here. Certainly, few of the several hundred multiracial teenagers attending the early screening I attended bore any resemblance to the rich kids portrayed on the screen. I’ll admit: the movie was entertaining. But it will be interesting to see how well this fairy tale plays in Lawrence, Kan.
,Andrew Simons
