Orange County

 Orange County 2002

• Director: Jake Kasdan
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Schuyler Fisk, Catherine O’Hara, Mike White, John Lithgow, Lily Tomlin, Kevin Kline
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Colin Hanks – Mad Men, King Kong, Roswell
• Jack Black – The House with Clocks in Its Walls, Be Kind Rewind, Margot at the Wedding, Holiday, King Kong, School of Rock, High Fidelity, Cradle Will Rock, Mars Attacks, Dead Man Walking, Waterworld
• Catherine O’Hara – Six Feet Under, A Mighty Wind, Waiting for Guffman, Beetlejuice, After Hours
• Mike White – School of Rock, The Good Girl
• John Lithgow – Interstellar, Third Rock from the Sun, The Pelican Brief, Footloose, Terms of Endearment, The World According to Garp, Twelfth Night
• Lily Tomlin – A Prairie Home Companion, Tea with Mussolini, Nine to Five, Laugh-In
• Kevin Kline – My Old Lady, As You Like It, A Prairie Home Companion, Wild Wild West, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Ice Storm, Dave, Chaplin, The January Man, A Fish Called Wanda, Cry Freedom, Silverado, Sophie’s Choice, Hamlet  
• Why? The cast
• Seen: 3 September 2022      

       An Orange County surfing nerd Shawn (Hanks) with rich but neurotic parents (O’Hara and Lithgow) and a druggie brother Lance (Black) decides he wants to become an author and applies to Stanford where his idolised author Skinner (Kline) is a professor, but his ditzy counsellor (Tomlin) sends in the wrong transcript, and he’s rejected. The rest of the film is about the mad chase for him to get in.

       Half an hour into the film, I hate it. Stupid jokes, stupid characters, stupid story. I’m just embarrassed for all the good actors. The only ones who can get away with this drivel with their self-respect intact are Black, Lithgow and Kline. For their sake only the film, which deserves 0*, gets 

1 * of 5