Accepted is a 2006comedy 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.
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. Bartleby does this by scanning a Harmon College rejection letter and then edits it to become a South Harmon Institute of Technology acceptance letter. 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.
"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.
"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.
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
Trivia
The plot is similar to the 1994 film Camp Nowhere, except that Camp Nowhere is about a summer camp.
Two references (intentional or not) are made to another film of the 'rebellious teen' genre, The Breakfast Club. First, Bartleby's sister demands a fake ID in exchange for her promise not to tell their parents about Bartleby's endeavor. When Bartleby insists that he won't let her drink alcohol, she sneers that she wants the identification so that she can vote. The same reasoning was used by Anthony Michael Hall's character Brian in The Breakfast Club when Andrew (Emilio Estevez) questioned why he had a fake ID. Secondly, a readaptation of Simple Minds' song Don't You (Forget About Me) is playing in the school party scene. The song was famously the theme song of The Breakfast Club.
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.
Harmon College and S.H.I.T. were also likely intended to be parodies of real world institutions Harvard University and M.I.T. respectively. Both Harvard and M.I.T. are located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, while Harvard is viewed by some as an elitist institution
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 bears a very close resemblance to the disciplinary hearing scene from Animal House
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 never have gone through.
The state seal shown during the scene for the accredidation hearing is not the actual state seal of Ohio, it depicts 3 bales of hay. The state seal of Ohio is a mountain (Mount Logan) behind a plain with a river seperating the two, a sun rising over the hole scene and a bale of arrows and bale of hay in the very foreground.
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