Orange County

Shaun Brumder is a student at a high school in Orange County, California. He spends his time surfing with his slacker friends... then one day he finds a book buried in the sand and starts to read it. It changes his life; he determines to become a writer. To that end he applies to study at Stanford University, where the book's author is a lecturer. Unfortunately a bureaucratic mix up leads to him being rejected and it is officially too late to appeal. He isn't helped by his embarrassingly dysfunctional family. The only real help comes from Ashley, his girlfriend... and even she would rather he stayed on Orange County and studied at the same local university as her.

This was a surprisingly fun movie. There are plenty of laughs from start to finish as the story successfully stays just the right side of the line which divides hilarity and cringe-inducing embarrassment. Colin Hanks is solid as protagonist Shaun and Schuyler Fisk impresses as girlfriend Ashley; of the main cast of characters these are the most 'normal'. The other main characters are all fairly dysfunctional; especially Shaun's family. Jack Black stands out as his stoner brother whose attempts to help make matters worse... given the DVD box one might expect him to be on screen for much of the film but he is very much a secondary character; that isn't a problem though as he is funny when on screen but would detract from the story if he'd featured much more. The rest of the cast, which includes quite a few well-known actors in cameo roles is impressive. Comedies about teens seem to favour gross out humour these days but there is nothing really offensive here... unless the sight of Jack Black in his Y-fronts bothers you! Overall I'd recommend this to anybody wanting a good laugh.