Director: Jake Kasdan
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.5
Not a bad teen film - well, one with a little bit of intelligence - about a California kid (Colin Hanks) who becomes enamored with a novelist and wants to study under him at Stanford. Complications arise in his path to the quasi-Ivy League school - technically, the movie doesn't need anything after the first half-hour, because our good friend the lawsuit would have taken care of the whole mix-up - forcing Hanks, Jack Black and Schuyler Fisk to take a trip to San Francisco and talk to the Dean to settle things. The insinuation that going to a prestigious school is a 'waste of time' or 'overrated' (to quote the Jane Adams character) is preposterous - but then, I'm defending my pricey East Coast alma mater - though comparing out-of-class high school mentality and out-of-class collegiate mentality is frighteningly accurate (the Crazy Town song "Butterfly" is used in parallel scenes). Kasdan takes the 'dysfunctional family' too far - I wonder if Mr. Pynchon had to put up with all that? (Alt. note: I've noticed a growing trend in American movies and their disdain for collegiate life - perhaps representing the ongoing lack of young males applying to universities, opting, instead, to pursue careers in computers?)
