Old School: Unrated and Out of Control

Old School: Unrated and Out of Control

Mitchapoolza is officially on!

Mitch has a very drab life as a lawyer.  The only bright spot is his girlfriend.  When Mitch comes home early from a business trip, he finds his girlfriend watching some interesting material, which isn’t a problem.  What is the problem is when the naked couple that was housed in Mitch’s closest comes out and finds Mitch (they were hoping to find his girlfriend).  Mitch goes through a break-up and finds himself in a house near the campus of a university. Wanting to help Mitch recover, his friends Frank and Beanie throw him a helluva party to help with his downer of a life.  When the party is over, they find themselves face-to-face with the Dean of the university, who happens to be a guy they tortured in high school. Using the opportunity for revenge, Dean Pritchard deems Mitch’s new pad university zoned property.  Thinking this is the end, Mitch prepares to move out, but Beanie finds out that if they turn the house into a fraternity they can keep it.  Mitch reluctantly agrees and becomes the head of the fraternity, which consists mainly of lovable losers and older folks who aren’t even in college.  Pritchard, feeling undermined, begins to put together a plot to get Mitch and his fraternity removed permanently from campus. 

There were two breakouts here for me.  The first, Will Ferrell became funny as sin.  I knew that he had a comedy future, but I never knew how it would translate to film.  When he embraced film in 2003, really starting with Old School, it certainly couldn’t have started better for him.  He brought this innocent character to life through subtle humor that slowly showed that he didn’t have to be outrageously funny to get plenty of chuckles from the viewers.  His most memorable moment in the film will always be his streak to the quad. That could happen to anyone.  

The second breakout in this film was the comedy from Vince Vaughn.  I only knew him from Pyscho and a few other films (Jurassic Park II — CRINGE, that’s not a movie that’s what I do when I think about the sequel). I know that he was funny/cool in Swingers, but I had never seen him quite as openly comedic as he was in Old School.  His delivery is quick, precise and always witty.  He helped to make this movie what it is, especially the wedding scene in the film.  Just priceless. 

The two main folks aside, Luke Wilson drove the normal Mitch very well.  He brought the common man to life and surrounded himself by insane people.  Throughout, he kept true to his character and brought a genuine feel to a very innocent man who had been screwed over.  While not as funny as the above guys, he complimented them well.  You always need that grounded character in a comedy to off-set the other character(s) who are not grounded. 

So, is the film a classic comedy?  Without a doubt! This is the type of film you can watch on a Saturday evening with friends and not even give it a second thought.  Offensive? Yes. Timeless? It seems so.  Funny? You bet your ass.  It takes a very simple story and gets a great supporting cast to make it funny.  That’s the best type of comedy. 

You’re my boy, Blu!

The best type of Blu-ray is finding one particular scene that makes the HD shine.  The wrestling scene in the KY jelly looks beautiful in HD.  Just indescribably beautiful. I jest of course, it all looks good in Blu-ray.  Thankfully, this is one of the better HD transfers, little to no artifacts.  While it’s certainly not an action film (that genre generally benefits the most from HD), it’s nice to see some HD love given to a great comedy like this.  As for the audio, when you hear Master of Puppets from Metallica, you’ll get the full experience of how great TrueHD audio is.  Excellent in 5.1 (even better in 7.1). 

As for the features, you get what the DVD release of this had.  Here’s the list:

– Feature Commentary

– From The Cutting Room Floor

-Early Flight Home

-Legal Advice

-Beanie’s True Colors

-Planning Max’s B-Day Party

-Mitch Visits Dean Pritchard

-Original Locker Room Scene

-House Inspection

-Frank’s Soul Mate

-Old School Orientation

-Inside The Actors Studio Spoof

-Outtakes & Bloopers

-Television Spots

-Theatrical Trailer (HD)

Much like Tommy Boy – Schnike Edition, the features on this Blu-ray were on the previous iteration of the movie’s DVD.  That doesn’t make it any less enjoyable, but it doesn’t necessarily bring anything new to the game either.  I personally think it’s okay that they didn’t change up much.  The features they have already on the Unrated DVD pretty much went as far as they needed to go.  It’s still entertaining, especially for those who haven’t seen the DVD features yet.