All Everyone Wants Is To Be "Accepted"

Where everyone that applies gets in!

The Story:

Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) has graduated, but no college said yes to the potential freshman.  He hatches a plan with his friends and their only friend who got accepted into a college, Sherman (Jonah Hill) to create a website for a faux college where these others that got rejected could go in the fall.  They rent an old insane asylum near the campus of Harmon University so they actually have a place.  Then using Sherman's uncle Ben (Lewis Black) to improve as the Dean, the parents are fooled and Bartleby and the gang are set to enjoy a year off on their parents dime.  The only problem, the accepted button actually works, and a week after the guys think they've got a semester of slacking, suddenly find themselves with several hundred new applicants.  What's a fake college to do, except get serious about their education!

I find this movie to be hysterical.  Funny, well written, and Justin Long and Jonah Hill are masters at playing themselves in these roles.  The laughs come fast and furious, with most working perfectly to execution.

One thing I realized having not seen this one in a few years, Jonah Hill used to be Huuuuuge!  Dangerously so.  I have to give him credit for slimming down over the years and not getting bigger and exploding!

In a sense, this is the antithesis of Animal House.  Whereas they really didn't care about college, these kids simply weren't good enough to get in.

Yet a funny thing happened on their way to not-learning.

They actually learned a great deal, and come out better for it in the end.

The impassioned speech at the end as to why their school should be accredited and not become a boring clone of what works in other schools is in reality a wake-up call for what is wrong with the education system today, and it's getting only worse, not any better.

But that's way too deep for this movie.

: )

Final Grade: A-

Rewatchability/Purchase Factor: I own it, and considering how funny it really is, I don't watch it nearly enough.  I'll blame the language, as it's a pretty hardcore PG-13 film!