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Accepted
Movie Stats & Links |
| Starring: |
Justin Long, Lewis
Black, Johah Hill, Blake Lively, Maria Thayer, Columbus
Short |
| MPAA Rated: |
PG-13 |
| Released By: |
Universal Pictures |
| Web Site: |
www.acceptedmovie.com |
| Kiddie Movie: |
Lots of use of the
SHIT moniker. |
| Date Movie: |
Only if she enjoys
childish humor. |
| Gratuitous Sex: |
Lots of skimpy
outfits. |
| Gratuitous
Violence: |
Nah. |
| Action: |
Nah. |
| Laughs: |
A few. |
| Memorable
Scene: |
Uncle Ben as the
college Dean in front of Bartleby's parents. |
| Memorable
Quote: |
Uncle Ben: "What's
wrong with saying 'Nice tits.'?" |
| Directed By: |
Steve Pink |
| Produced By: |
Michael Bostick, Tom Shadyac |
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Accepted
A Movie Review |
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I suppose I’ll just hit you with the story for "Accepted"
and then give more a commentary rather than if the movie is
any good. Here’s the story…
Justin Long is Bartleby, or as his friends call him, "B."
He’s graduating high school, where he comes across as one of
those "too smart for their own good but doesn’t pay enough
attention in class to get the grades" students. Sadly for
Bartleby, he applies for eight colleges and gets rejected
by all of them. His parents now feel he is a loser, some of
his friends are in the same predicament, and to appease his
folks for a spell he creates the fictional "South Harmon
Institute of Technology." Yup, SHIT. He gets his buddy
Sherman (Johah Hill) to build a fake website so his dad will
actually think he got into college, dad buys it, even giving
him the $10,000 tuition. Bartleby thinks he has duped his
dad, but now mom and dad want to drop him off at school and
meet the Dean. What to do? Well Bartleby, with the help of
his friends who have also found themselves accepted to SHIT,
lease an old psychiatric hospital, clean it up a little bit,
and even convince Sherman’s wacky Uncle Ben (Lewis Black),
to pretend he is the Dean. With his parent’s fully duped,
Bartleby and his friends think they have the next few months
to figure out what to do next, that is until it turns out
Sherman made the website a little too functional, and a slew
of loser-type folks show up at the doors of SHIT, with
checks for tuition in hand. Not wanting to turn them away,
Bartleby, after do some investigating at the real Harmon
College, decides that if you are going to SHIT, you will
decide what you want to learn, and how you want to learn it.
And college life is going well for our loser-types,
especially at this school, but things can never be that easy
as the bullies at Harmon College want to close down SHIT,
and they figure out a way. But the SHITheads band together,
and all live happily ever after.
Pretty much the movie tries to pit the loser-type folks
against the hoity-toity folks at Harmon (which wants really
to be Harvard), and tests the long-term friendships
developed since who knows when.
"Accepted" had a great premise, creating a college where
you can major in anything you want, even if that is a class
that might be about how to be a good kisser, or another
titled "Wingman-ing
101." So pretty much you are spending tuition dollars to
find yourself rather than have someone else
tell you what you should be. And you have a killer time. The
problem with the movie, and maybe there will be the unrated
version when it hits the DVD market, but here is a movie
about maybe the greatest college ever, but it’s a PG-13
college. Your target market is pretty much the 17 to 22 year
old crowd, and yet no one gets naked. And you are stuck with
the PG-13 rule of only dropping the f-bomb once, complete
with the second occurrence by Uncle Ben being bleeped out.
Sure, by keeping it PG-13, now the younger ones can see the
film, but I’m guessing most high-school freshmen and
sophomores can’t relate yet where there are going to spend
their post high-school time partying. The movie just
couldn’t push the envelope of being a college movie
near-classic, on par with a "Revenge of the Nerds," "Road
Trip," or even "EuroTrip," first off simply because it got
lost in PG-13 muck, and I would have actually preferred they
show what some of the more creative classes like "Wingman-ing
101" were actually like. That would have had more potential
than the typical "us versus the frat boys" story.
I did laugh a few times during "Accepted," especially
during a lot of Uncle Ben’s rants, but man, I think the
movie folks really dropped the ball on this one by leaving
it for the younger teen crowd. Personally I think they
should have "R"’d it up, opened it in September when the
college kids are back, and publicize the hell out of it to
them.
Oh well, I’ll just wrap it up by saying "Accepted" as a
PG-13 movie gets 2 stars out of 5. If they had ramped it
up to the R side, it could have easily gotten 3 ½ or more.
That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!!
L8R!!! |