everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Boring, long, and too preachy.

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Blistering performances.

An endlessly funny, fully realized universe that subverts its subjects and setting, all while clearly loving them. Almost like they were making a satire of turn-of-the-century teen life without denying its power ("Butterfly"). It has surprisingly strong things to say about idolizing your dreams, under appreciating what you have, and realizing the love you have for the family and friends who drive you crazy. An underappreciated and ahead-of-its-time teen comedy.

In my opinion, a movie comedy needs more than just an endless cast of characters who are such confirmed idiots that everything they say and do is either laughably stupid or so totally haywire that they never learn from the appalling results of their stupidity, but go on making the same blunders from first to last. Not only do they never wake up to themselves, the very few normal people they come into contact with, do virtually nothing to put them right. True, there seem to be only three or four normal people in the whole of Orange County, and they have very, very, very, very minor roles. Just about all the main characters are full-blown idiots, and those few support characters who are not full-blown idiots could well be described as half-blown idiots who should make some efforts to wake up to themselves. True, in many cases they are usually somewhat amusing, but in my opinion clowns, half-wits and dopes need to be surrounded by plenty of normal, everyday people, if only for contrast, let alone verisimilitude! The normal people need not be geniuses. In fact, they may not even be very bright, but they are not going to quickly slip on the carpet or immediately fall down the stairs, or tumble off a ladder as soon as they mount three or four rungs, or inevitably crash their cars as soon as they sit in the driver's seat, or accidentally set a huge building on fire by lighting a match.To sum up, in my opinion, brain diseases are not something to inspire hilarity. True, I laughed at some of the catastrophic episodes, but I feel guilty about it.

This movie suffers from what many modern (post 2000) slacker comedies are stricken with: the "Anything Goes" syndrome. There are few bounds in this independent film directed by Jake "Son of Lawrence" Kasdan, featuring cameos from Chevy Chase, Lily Tomlin and Lawrence's own stock actor, Kevin Kline. The story centers on a young man from... yep, Orange County, California, who spends his careless youth surfing and partying; then reads a book that "changes his life" and, along with a dream to become a writer, really wants to attend Stanford University to meet the book's author who works there. Along the way this desire (i.e. the plot) is outshined by the wacky side-characters, including two Beavis and Buttheadish surfer pals; a drunk mother (Catherine O'Hara) married to a crippled old man; a selfish father (John Lithgow) married to a gorgeous young "trophy"; and a stoner brother played by Jack Black (who's not in the movie as much as is promoted) - all vying to outdo each other on screen. When the main character - played by bland Colin Hanks, son of Tom - finally arrives at the college of his dreams, within ten minutes he's accidentally given the dean of admissions (a portly Harold Ramis) enough "X" to blind a horse, and to top it off, his zany drugged-out brother (using every stoner cliché in the book including the usual "WOW!") burns the admissions building to the ground. Nothing really matters at this point, and yet we have another (drawn-out and totally useless) half-an-hour to go. All the things that should have been peripheral eccentricities, which end up leaping to the foreground of every scene, are symptoms of that disease I already mentioned: "Anything Goes"... Which can be, as in this case, fatal. That is, without that one cure, substance... Something this movie has very little of.

I hate this film. it's so pretentious. and I can see that this was directed by some bratty son of a famous director, who thought he was some hot shot. I read a whole lot of great reviews on this film, which is why I bought the DVD. I can't believe people out there are such morons. the acting is all bad, Cos the script is bad. everything seems forced. the funny thing is that I'm one of those guys that never liked Jack Black, but the fact that he's the only funny thing happening in this film says a lot. There are all these other actors I've admired over the years-Catherine O'Hara, Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis-and it seems like they were just thrown in this movie randomly to save this poor excuse of a comedy. I guess since the 90's there hasn't been any good teen comedies. only cheesy ones like these. the 80's had bad music but it definitely had the best teen comedies.