Availability:
Estimated Arrival: Between Apr 02 and Apr 06. *ETA to USA Only
Accepted - What happens when you want to go to college but no school accepts you? If you're Bartleby Gaines (Justin Long), you invent a fictitious university and create your own destiny. Playing like a PG-13 version of OLD SCHOOL, ACCEPTED follows the Ferris Bueller-esque Bartleby as he and his assembled crew of college rejects dupe the world by building the South Harmon Institute of Technology from scratch. There's his nerdy friend Sherman Schrader (Jonah Hill), who is actually enrolled in the well-established Harmon College across the way but who helps Bartleby with the logistics; the hyper-smart Rory (Maria Thayer), who put all her eggs into one basket and got rejected by her dream Ivy League school; Hands (Columbus Short), a football player who lost his scholarship when he blew out his knee; Glen (Adam Herschman), a former quickie-mart employee who is about as dumb as they come; and, finally, Uncle Ben (Lewis Black), a former academic who gets talked into become the makeshift school's dean when he gets fired from his latest job selling sneakers at the mall. What begins as an innocent ploy to make his parents happy quickly spirals out of control when Bartleby realizes that several hundred kids have shown up for orientation. As he digs himself into a deeper and more irrevocable hole, something strange happens: Bartleby realizes that he's actually on to something. Steve Pink's ACCEPTED is a lighthearted comedy that has its heart in the right place.
Wet Hot American Summer - The staff members of Camp Firewood, feeling that they have squandered the summer of 1981, are determined to make their last day together count. Crunchy counselor Beth (Jeaneane Garofolo) finds an unexpected love interest in shy, neighboring astrophysicist Neuman (David Hyde Pierce), who is busy tracking an errant piece of Skylab. Elsewhere, everyman Coop (Michael Showalter) pursues longtime crush Katie (Marguerite Monroe), despite her ignoramus boyfriend, Andy (Paul Rudd). Uptight Susie (Amy Poehler) is determined to stage a talent show that will rival the average Broadway production, while divorced arts and crafts instructor Gail (Molly Shannon) seeks love advice from 12-year-old campers. While several counselors make a pilgrimage to a crack house, virginal Gary has an unexpected sexual awakening, and Vietnam veteran cook Gene finds a guiding light in a can of green beans and erotic fulfillment in the refrigerator.
Conceived by Michael Showalter and David Wain, members of comedy troupe THE STATE, WET HOT AMERICAN summer pays tribute to the teen films of the 1970s and early 1980s, most notably the Bill Murray summer camp classic MEATBALLS, with a straight face and an anything-goes brand of comedy. Mixing and matching from a checklist of youth film clichés and turning them into sight gags that often defy time and space, Showalter and Wain have crafted a film that manages to be a consistently funny tribute to the genres it lampoons.
Hamlet 2 - Much like the inspired protagonists of his two favorite movies, DEAD POETS SOCIETY and MR. HOLLAND'S OPUS, high school drama teacher Dana Marschz (Steve Coogan) is going to save the arts. Marschz's first obstacle: Shakespeare killed off all the major characters when he wrote Hamlet, which puts a damper on his plans for a musical sequel. Luckily, Marschz has an ingenious literary device to circumvent that last doozy: a time machine built in woodshop that will catapult Hamlet and his new pal, Jesus Christ, into the present day and back again just in time to save Gertrude, Laertes, and the gang. This brilliant piece of theatre is born in the mind of Marschz upon the announcement of the drama club's impending cancellation, prompting the failed actor to take the advice of a ruthless freshman drama critic and finally write something that isn't an adaptation of ERIN BROCKOVICH. But when authorities try to have the production banned because of its offensive material, it's going to take the inspiration of actress-turned-local-nurse Elisabeth Shue (playing herself), the will of Marschz's young students, and the wiles of a feisty lawyer (Amy Poehler) to get Hamlet 2 in front of an audience. HAMLET 2, the movie, is singular in its melding of grotesque theatre spoofing, schadenfreude, and complete subversion of the underdog-defiance genre's familiar trajectory. Rarely has a film hit conventional plot points only to take the wind out of their sails so effectively while nevertheless moving toward a destination not entirely unlike where its mainstream counterparts would go anyway. HAMLET 2's subdued lack of traditional filmic values and glaring music cues, as well as its performances, which manage to fold earnestness and deadpan into one another, amount to a movie that simultaneously deconstructs, skewers, and affirms. Like any good satire, it is what it's lampooning.
Bad Girls From Valley High - The teen horror-comedy BAD GIRLS FROM VALLEY HIGH is based on the acclaimed young adult novel by Paul Fleischman entitled A FATE TOTALLY WORSE THAN DEATH. It marks the feature filmmaking debut of John Kretchmer, who directed many episodes of the similarly-toned television series CHARMED. At Valley High, three girls--Danielle, Tiffany, and Brooke--are united by their wealth, dominance over the social scene, and a dark, murderous secret. When a foreign exchange student arrives and invokes the wrath of the girls, they begin to rapidly age. Obviously distressed, the girls realize that the new girl has something to do with the murder they committed about a year ago. BAD GIRLS FROM VALLEY HIGH is a horror twist on other teen comedies like HEATHERS and MEAN GIRLS.