Road Trip - Region 1 DVD

The film's humor is more democratic than politically correct, as everyone--women and minority characters, not just the hipster white guys--have a hand in the high jinks. Green plays Barry Manilow (no, not that one), a professional student (eight years and counting)--he relates the film's story to skeptical prospective students while leading them on a tour of the college--and thrill-seeking dork extraordinaire. In particular, in an already justly famous sequence of scenes, he sadistically anticipates and endeavors to accelerate a mouse's demise at the jaws of a python. It's very much in the vein of American Pie, perhaps a smidgen tamer, but at least its characters don't really learn any dopey lessons in the end. Director and coscreenwriter Todd Phillips, who earlier made the much-questioned documentary Frat House, again proves he's more adept at staging fictional comic sequences than real ones. --David Kronke