[Please give me some feedback on my Daily Stream recommendations.]
It’s like a forgotten relic of the late 70s or early 80s, when even silly comedies came with a touch of social commentary and a bit of class consciousness — when they ate the rich instead of aspiring to be one of them. If 2006’s Accepted is part Caddyshack, part Breakfast Club, then its star, Justin Long, is Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd and Emilio Estevez rolled into one charming package. His oddball high-school graduate invents a fictitious college when all the real universities reject him, in order to fool his success-minded parents, only to discover that there are a whole lotta other oddballs who really like the idea of taking “classes” like Daydreaming 307 and Doing Nothing 405.
Sweet movie this may be, but this celebration of otherness and glorious eccentricity is also a kick in the pants of the twin devils of conformity and consumerism, which feels even more relevant today, as increasing numbers of us humans realize that too many of our jobs are bullshit and rampant capitalism is killing us and destroying our planet.
US: stream on Netflix (through Nov 15th); rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See Accepted at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
