Accepted
Movie poster for Accepted
Directed by	Steve Pink
Produced by	Michael Bostick
Written by	Adam Cooper Bill Collage Mark Perez
Starring	Justin Long Lewis Black
Music by	David Schommer
Cinematography	Matthew F. Leonetti
Distributed by	Universal
Release date(s)	August 18, 2006
Running time	92 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	$23 million
IMDb profile

Accepted is a 2006 comedy motion picture about a group of high school seniors who, after being rejected from all colleges to which they had applied, create their own college.

[edit] Synopsis

When Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long), a high school burnout, discovers he was rejected from every college he applied to, he creates the fictional "South Harmon Institute of Technology" (S.H.I.T.) to fool his parents. When Bartleby's parents want to drop him off at the college, he and his friends are forced to rent and fix up an old mental hospital, and start the college without anyone finding out the truth. Bartleby's parents then want to meet with the dean, so they hire Bartleby's best friend's uncle Ben Lewis (Lewis Black), who was a former administrator, to be their dean. However, Bartleby's best friend, Sherman (Jonah Hill) accidentally make the school's fake web page functional and find hundreds of would-be applicants showing up for orientation, complete with their checks for a year's tuition.

At one point Bartleby wants to end the charade before it begins, but is overcome with pity after realizing that everyone in the college is in the exact same position he is in having been rejected from every other college. Thus begins the first year of classes, founded on the revolutionary notion of students choosing what they want to learn and teaching the very same courses. At the same time, Bartleby shyly pursues Monica, a friend from high school he has had a long-time crush on.

Eventually, the dean of neighboring Harmon University and an old rival of Dean Lewis, Richard Van Horne, attempts to get S.H.I.T. shut down in an underhanded move to throw Bartleby in jail and tear down the mental hospital to build a fancy entrance gate for his college. Bartleby's friend Sherman (Jonah Hill), despite being a freshman at Harmon University and a new pledge in a Harmon fraternity (BKE, or Beta Kappa Epsilon), applies for accreditation for S.H.I.T., and Bartleby successfully argues his way to a one-year temporary accreditation. The students return to the new college, with Sherman and Monica transferring from Harmon, and begin a full year of ad-hoc classes and partying.

[edit] Cast

• Justin Long as Bartleby "B" Gaines
• Jonah Hill as Sherman Schrader
• Adam Herschman as Glen
• Blake Lively as Monica Moreland
• Mark Derwin as Jack Gaines
• Ann Cusack as Diane Gaines
• Columbus Short as Hands Holloway
• Diora Baird as Kiki Dee
• Lewis Black as Dean Ben Lewis
• Maria Thayer as Rory Thayer
• Travis Van Winkle as Hoyt Ambrose
• Anthony Heald as Dean Richard Van Horne

[edit] Box office

• On opening weekend it made an estimated $10,023,835 in the USA and Canada.
• As of October 19, 2006, the movie has gained an estimated $36,323,505 in the USA and Canada.[1]

[edit] Soundtrack

• "U-Mass" by the Pixies
• "Gravity Rides Everything" by Modest Mouse
• "The Hives - Declare Guerre Nucleaire" by The Hives
• "Bole 2 Harlem" by Bole 2 Harlem
• "Eleanor Rigby" by David Schommer featuring David Jensen (originally by The Beatles)
• "TKO" by Le Tigre
• "Where Do I Begin" by The Chemical Brothers feat. Beth Orton
• "Sherman's Way" by David Schommer
• "Keepin' Your Head Up" by The Ringers
• "Don't You Forget About Me" by David Schommer
• "Holiday" by Weezer
• "Let The Drummer Kick" by Citizen Cope
• "To Be Young (Is to Be Sad, is to Be High)" by Ryan Adams
• "You Think We Suck" by Ape Fight

Other songs not included on the soundtrack:

• "Close to Me" by The Cure plays in the main character's room whenever the disco ball comes down
• "Holiday" by Green Day plays when the students are skating on the halfpipe. There has been some confusion over the fact that Weezer and Green Day each have a song by the title "Holiday" in the movie, but only the Weezer song is on the official soundtrack.
• "Everything is Alright" by Motion City Soundtrack plays during the DVD commercial.
• "Hangin on the Half Pipe" plays at the BKE frat party where Monica caught Hoyt having an affair with Gwynn and Sherman being humiliated in sperm costume. The DVD also featured a music video of the song featuring the casts and crew.

[edit] Video and DVD release

The movie was released on VHS and DVD on November 14, 2006, in both Widescreen and Fullscreen.

The DVD includes: "Adam's 'Accepted' Chronicles"; "Reject Rejection: The Making Of 'Accepted'"; Self-Guided Campus Tour; "Hangin' On The Half Pipe" Music Video; "Keepin' Your Head Up" - The Ringers Music Video; Feature Commentary with Director Steve Pink, Justin Long, Lewis Black, Jonah Hill and Adam Herschman, Audio Commentary, Deleted Scenes, Featurette, Gag Reel, Music Videos

and the HD-DVD:

Side A - High Definition: All Standard Definition Features plus - Picture in Picture Commentary with Director Steve Pink, Justin Long, Lewis Black, Jonah Hill and Adam Herschman; Production Photographs
Side B - Standard Definition: "Adam's 'Accepted' Chronicles"; "Reject Rejection: The Making Of 'Accepted'"; Self-Guided Campus Tour; "Hangin' On The Half Pipe" Music Video; "Keepin' Your Head Up" - The Ringers Music Video; Feature Commentary with Director Steve Pink, Justin Long, Lewis Black, Jonah Hill and Adam Herschman

[edit] Trivia

• The plot is similar to the 1994 film Camp Nowhere, except that Camp Nowhere is about a summer camp.
• Most, if not all, of the computers in this movie are shown to be made by Apple Computer, and/or run Mac OS X. Coincidentally, Justin Long became well known in the months running up to this movie's release for his appearance on a series of Get a Mac campaign advertisements.
• The Simpsons used the S.H.I.T. joke over a decade before this movie, with the Springfield Heights Institute of Technology; as did students at Rochester Institute of Technology once it moved from downtown Rochester to South Henrietta (a suburb) in 1968.
• The Harmon campus was shot at the Chapman University campus in Orange, CA. However, the climate portrayed in the movie is not inconsistent with Ohio ( e.g. average highs in Cincinnati only drop below 60 F in November; the movie supposedly portrays the months of September and October. )
• Harmon is based on Hiram College in Hiram, OH. This is noticeable in several places, notably that the film is set in Ohio and a reference is made to James A. Garfield attending Harmon; in actuality, he was president of Hiram.
• The infamous Japanese movie Battle Royale was referenced several times. In one scene, Bartleby asks his friend Glen what should they do with the large number of applicants for their fictitious Institute. Glen replies, "Battle Royale" (the movie's plot concerns schoolchildren forcefully sent by the Japanese government to fight to the death on a deserted island; those who refuse to do so are killed)
• The phrase "a little can-do attitude and some elbow grease" was taken from Dodgeball, a movie Justin Long was also featured in.
• With 62 "shit" words used in this movie, this film got the most "shit" words used than any other "PG-13 film". However, 1 out of the 2 uses of "fuck" was literally bleeped out in order to get a PG-13 rating.
• The scene where Bartleby is attempting to saw through a chain attached to a radiator is very similar to the movie Saw.
• "Uncle Ben" in the movie is called "Dean Lewis", which is in relation with his real name, Lewis Black.
• The Sandwich mascot is actually Justin Long's brother, Christian Long.
• The character, Rory, actually sharing the same last name with the actress who plays her, Maria Thayer, noting on the South Harmon's meditation garden at the ending of the movie.
• Rory's name may be a reference to Rory Gilmore from the CW television series Gilmore Girls. The latter Rory did get admitted to Yale.
• Anthony Heald (Dean Richard Van Horne) played the Harmon college's dean where he also played a vice principal in Boston Public.
• The home address of the main character's family, the Gaines', is 3507 E. 47th Place, Wickliffe, OH 44092. The city is not fictional (see Wickliffe, Ohio), however the address is.
• Bartleby's parents' names, Jack Gaines and Diane Gaines, could be a reference to the popular John Mellencamp song entitled Jack and Diane.
• The accreditation scene bares a very close resemblance to the disciplinary hearing scene from Animal House
• Bartleby's own name is very likely a reference to Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener.

[edit] Plot holes and goofs

• South Harmon's web page was created as a .edu site, yet this cannot be done without accreditation.
• South Harmon is given accreditation by the State of Ohio, however American colleges and universities are not accredited by the government, but by independent, non-profit accrediting agencies.
• The plot of becoming accredited to be legal is incorrect. Many organizations and private colleges exist today without being accredited yet being wholly legal. The process of accreditation is more about being able to transfer your courses to other colleges by teaching in whole or in part the same curriculum between schools after the accrediting board reviews the course work and attends for itself classes to ensure compatibility.
• In one scene Sherman is seen sending a text message using a T-Mobile Sidekick II phone. However the signal strength icon is alternating with an 'X', which means that the phone has zero signal. Thus, the text message would have never went through.

[edit] External links

• Official movie site
• Official MySpace
• The Ringers - Featured Movie Band Site
• Accepted at the Internet Movie Database.
• Accepted at Rotten Tomatoes
• Accepted at Metacritic
• Accepted at Box Office Mojo