![[box cover]](../../reviewimgs/g/glorydaze.jpg)
Glory Daze
Before anyone gave a damn about Ben Affleck, he starred in this painfully bland 1996 coming-of-age college dramady from writer-director Rich Wilkes (who also penned mediocre screenplays for The Jerky Boys, Airheads, The Stoned Age, and XXX). Affleck stars as Jack, a Vanilla Ice-mulleted art student fearing the day his graduation launches him into the real world. Jack then attempts to cocoon himself in juvenile squalor with his buddies by clinging to their past-due rowdy lifestyle. As a first-time director, Wilkes shows no sense of pacing, aesthetics, or talent with actors. As writer, his work is well structured, but it fails to create any memorable people or moments. It doesn't help that one year earlier Noah Baumbach covered practically identical material with wit, warmth, and affecting sense of perspective with his 1995 sleeper Kicking and Screaming. Nevertheless, Wilkes managed to corral a fairly impressive stable of performers who would soon attain some measure of notoriety (save for sad sack Vinnie DeRamus, who may have one of the least gripping screen personas ever): Affleck is joined onscreen by Sam Rockwell, Alyssa Milano, the inimitably annoying French Stewart, John Rhys-Davies, Spalding Gray, and, in cameos, Matt Damon and Matthew McConaughey. Columbia TriStar's DVD release of Glory Daze presents the film in a good anamorphic transfer (1.85:1) and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Keep-case.
—Gregory P. Dorr
