Accepted [HD]

Silliness Highlights Important Theme (get it?)
My friend Suzanne took me to see Accepted three weeks ago, probably to celebrate my new hire as an adjunct lecturer in the English Department of Queensborough Community College. In the movie, high school graduate Bartelby Gaines--a name with literary overtones, at least the first name--can't get accepted to the staid Harmon College in his hometown in Ohio, or to any other school. To get his parents off his back, the inventive Bartelby (Justin Long), using his computer, invents an acceptance letter from the South Harmon Institute of Technology (get it?). Bartelby, to complete the ruse, gets his computer-savvy friend, Harmon freshman Sherman Schrader (Jonah Hill) to create a website for the bogus school. But the website works too well, and Bartelby is faced with hundreds of college rejects looking for acceptance. So in the confines of an abandoned mental hospital, Bartelby and friends create a college--really an adult education center or community center--where students design...

Reminiscent of Old School and PCU
Reminiscent of PCU and Old School, Accepted is part of the new generation of college movies. When he isn't accepted to any of the eight schools to which he's applied, Bartleby Gaines decides to create his own school--the South Harmon Institute of Technology (S.H.I.T.) In order to make it look legit, he has a friend create a website that details the school's mission statement, etc. What he doesn't expect is that other students will see the website and wind up applying. Before he knows what's up, his school has more than three hundred students with paid tuition and he has to design a curriculum.

This movie is funny and full of entertaining moments. As Bartleby is quick to point out, plenty of well-known people didn't go to college (Pocahontas, Corey Feldman, and Corey Haim to name a few). It's nice to see a movie that doesn't glorify the fun you'll have in those years and instead shows an honest depiction of the stress, lack of sleep, and workaholism that come with your...

Have you got Hobo Stab Insurance? ...
Accepted is probably the best executed teenage coming-of-age film since Ferris Bueller's Day Off. This film could've easily been titled "Bartleby Gaine's Big Plan" and no one would've complained ... well, maybe no one. "Accepted" is just fine.

Heavily laden with enough social commentary that through the humor, you won't be able to ignore it or tune it out, and you might be made to feel uncomfortable if you're the person that sold out, or drifted through the hell that Bartleby Gaines is trying to save you from. It's not Lenny Bruce or Noam Chomsky, but you can definitely sense it bubbling below the surface.

So, what happened to all the young teens from days-gone-by who grew up in the newly constructed suburbs and identified with movies like Ferris...

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