Accepted (2006) Reviews

• Original Plot with Funny Stuff

  ledzep292006-08-16

  I don't think I've yet seen a movie in my whole lifetime about a high school kid creating his own college, just to impress his parents. Nowadays, movies are either remakes or sequels, or plots that have been used in many different films. This one has an original story line and to follow it up by making it a comedy films only lightens the deal. With this well thought out story and with laughs mixed in, this is a good movie. Now I've seen better, but upon going into the theater I was thinking another drug/beer/frat party with some sexual innuendo tossed in (aka an "American Pie" flick) but I was surprised. To sum it up, I enjoyed the film and the next time your shuffling through the paper for movies, look for show times to "Accepted". If you want to laugh out loud, that is.

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• Ask me about my....

  Scufovo2006-08-19

  This is what movies should aspire to. Funny without being totally stupid, a little sexy without having every female in the cast show her boobs, biting without resorting to 'f-bombs' every line. I've been seeing Justin Long pop up in a lot of films over the past few years, I figured with the right role he could break out. (Mac commercials not withstanding.) This film just might put him on a fast track to the A list. The rest of the cast also did their jobs perfectly, this is an excellent little film with a nice message. (But you don't need to buy the message to have a good time.) Lewis Black is, as usual, hilarious, and Blake Lively is a fresh faced beauty. Take a couple hours and see this film, they will not have been wasted.

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• Delivers a message with a laugh.

  wiggaplease-12007-05-06

  From the creators of Bruce Almighty and Liar Liar! The film took a while to pick up from the start, at least for me seeing as I expected this was a run-along America Pie flick. But it was slightly different-- a fun-loving slacker who finishes high school and makes his OWN college, running it accordingly. As you can expect, there's a lot of parties and hot girls in bikinis but this film tried harder than your average teen flick. Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) encourages his students / peers to learn through freedom of expression and ultimately 'shove it to the system.' The humour was varied which I loved. All the cast delivered fantastic performances-- hire this one out with a friend, it's a bloody crack up!

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• Accepted

  Scarecrow-882016-11-04

  Look, the plot is preposterous and unrealistic but the film is so much fun it's charms won me over. Long is a likable lead, but honestly he's too cool to be portrayed as such a disregarded kid. I would watch him and how the film wants to create this downgraded high school kid who couldn't get into a decent college and is portrayed as such a loser...but he's got all these charismatic qualities that sort of challenge that perception of school invisibility where his character appears uncool and abandoned by the cliques that determine worth as a recognized figure amongst his peers. When Blake Lively takes to Long, it isn't the same as Montgomery going gaga for Carradine in Revenge of the Nerds. He seems like just the kind of guy who could appeal to her. Jonah Hill, still pre-stardom and on the heavier side at this point in his career, is the buddy of Long who is attending an ivy league school treating him like a fool. Lively is dating frat prick Travis Van Winkle who mistreats Hill, while Long, Columbus Short, Maria Thayer, and Adam Herschman join forces to start a fake college accepting all the kids not good enough for all the other schools. S.H.I.T (South Harmon School of Technology) becomes party central and all the college undesirables are happy go lucky, free to be themselves and get involved in building this college into something more than a place to crash on the parents' dime. Culinary, art, meditation, and this wall chalkboard that allows the students to comment on what they want from the collegiate experience become a starting place for the school to thrive. Stripper hotties wanting more, with one of them put in charge of school outfits, a vert ramp in the yard for skateboarding, a pool for the kids to swim, rock music, and this active and wild contingency of youth coming together as Long determines to corral them into achieving their own dreams outside of the traditional college curriculum. PG-13 rating pushed to the brink just by a game Lewis Black as this anti-establishment former teacher who speaks his mind, bluntly and profanely, lending a hand to Long and his crack team of friends out of their depth at the beginning. Van Winkle's pop (Anthony Heald) wants the land Long's school occupies (a leased dump: former mental hospital!) so he starts trouble. Eventually Long will have to deal with a board of accreditation in the hopes of legitimizing the school. Clearly this cast of talented performers shot from the hip a great deal and while the film is mostly commenting somewhat on academic inequality and voicing for a different kind of collegiate attitude for those students not recognized as worthy of schools limiting who deserves to be accepted, more often than not, there's some laughs to be had here. Could wind up being a college comedy cult classic. Mark Derwin, as the uptight and disappointed dad, and Ann Cusack, as the sorrowed mother, rebounding from their pain of their son's lack of success in getting in a college when the fake school tricks them into believing he was on his way becomes quite amusing as the ruse is more and more difficult to maintain. The students becoming enthralled with Black's ramblings, even giving him a standing ovation, tells what kind of comedy this is. This was a nice surprise.

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• What real school should be like.

  vampyrecowboy2006-08-29

  I for one was very anxious to watch this movie. Though I knew it was going to be another type of movie in the style of Revenge of the Nerds, I was still impressed. There is plenty of truth to the fact of this type of learning and believe very strongly that it should be allowed in a "new style of schooling". Conventional teaching methods do not always teach students what they need to know or should know or want to know. This approach to teaching should be further sought out in true academic courses. While there still was too much of the partying scenes, it obviously had to be thrown in there - for Hollywood's sake of making a comedy about college...even though we all know that life isn't really like that by any means. A touch unbelievable, still funny and with a killer ending. Awesome ending. Crucial to the entire story and very surprising. Without the final scene, the movie would have been half as good. I liked this movie and it didn't have to have overly amounts of swearing or nudity or gross out jokes for it to be good. Great crew and cast, story and even the generic typecasting of the obligatory "Hampton frat members" was well done. American Pie 1, 2 3 and American Wedding or whatever clones it makes doers not measure up to this by 1/3. Far better than most comedies about first year College with no demeaning stupid jokes to make somebody throw up with. I liked it, even though it was simple...it was interesting and even had heart...my only regret for watching this movie is that it wasn't longer.

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