Accepted
Directed by Steve Pink

Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long) is Accepted's variation of teen movie heroes like Ferris Bueller and Van Wilder: A legend to his friends, whose long list of achievements barely covers anything scholastic. Having been rejected from every university he applied to, Bartleby devises a plan so futile the movie barely looks like it can recover from the premise. He tells his parents he was accepted to the South Harmon Institute of Technology - a school that doesn't exist but which Bartleby and his pals now have to create from scratch. The pressure Accepted projects on high school grads to immediately get into a university is exagerrated. It isn't until S.H.I.T. (the school acronym is about as cheap as the gags get) takes off as a haven for kids wanting acceptance that the movie finds its leftist charm. But it's a charm that doesn't last. Though keeping worthwhile targets - like professors who want to see their most creative students fail - director Steve Pink (who wrote the John Cusack films Grosse Point Blank and High Fidelity) lets his punk inspiration slide into standard school rivalries and unrelated slapstick. It starts promisingly, and then turns as benign as a PCU remake.

Copyright, Mark Palermo