Accepted

Tonight, Jill and I had to take a trip to Fairmont to get her a new cell phone. Hers died last weekend, most likely because her contract expired and the phone company wanted us to buy a new one. So we decided as long as we were in town, we might as well take in a movie.

The movie we took in was Accepted. In the interest of all fairness, I went into this with very low expectations. Sure, the commercials looked funny, but that's the job of advertising executives. The fact that the previews included one for a certain movie made me worried that what we were about to see was going to be very, very low-brow.

In some ways, it was. I mean, all you have to do is consider the name of the fake college that's created by our intrepid hero, Bartleby Gaines (yes, that's his real name): the South Harmon Institute of Technology. Well, maybe not the name. The initials then. Figure it out yourself. They make liberal use of the initials almost to the point of eye rolling.

There were also some logical lapses in the plot, which in some ways was entirely predictable. I know one of my faults is that I overanalyze movies too much, but there was one glaring plot hole that just did not make sense to me at all. After careful consideration, I won't share what it is. It does kind of give away big chunks of the early plot, so I'll leave it to my intrepid readers to suss out what the plot hole was.

But now onto why I left the theater with a big smile on my face. First of all, the movie was fun. It was. Predictable or not, the story was a fun ride. I'll give you an example to look forward to. If you're paying attention, you won't be all that surprised by the way the movie ends. But it was still a great ending nonetheless.

Second, Justin Long did a fantastic job in this movie. At least, I thought he did. He evoked a sort of new millennium Ferris Bueller in his performance. He did seem to rely on slapstick gags a bit too much, but it was enough to truly drive me bonkers. It's almost enough for me to overlook those abominable Mac commercials.

Third, Lewis Black was a stitch every time I saw him. Loads of fun.

So there you go. Fun movie, go and see it.