movie, movie review, Uncategorized

September 1st, 2016 Movie – Old School

old school

Today is going to be a busy day for me. I am going to start the day off by picking up my pass for Dragoncon this weekend. Then, I found out some of my Texas family are going to be in town and invited me to the Braves game that afternoon, which I naturally said yes to going. Then, I have a couple of hours to kill, where I might head home and take a nap, before I head back downtown for the unofficial start of Dragoncon and watch some DCW, which has been moved to Thursday night instead of Friday. You might wonder when I would find time to watch today’s movie. Well I will answer that…later but for now, feel free to enjoy my review for today’s movie, Old School.

The plot: Mitch Martin is at a conference for real estate lawyers but is bored with it so he decides to leave early. After getting hassled at the airport, he returns home only to find his girlfriend Heidi has been having orgies while he is out of town. Some time later, Mitch is talking to his friend Bernard “Beanie” Campbell about the issue as they are serving as groomsmen for their friend Frank Ricard’s wedding and Beanie splits his time from telling Mitch to just go with it while trying to convince Frank to not get married. During the reception, Mitch gets drunk and runs into Nicole, a girl he had a crush on in high school, and accidentally spills coffee on her dress and embarrasses her when he tries to clean it while she is still wearing it. Some time later, Mitch ends up buying a house on the campus grounds of Harrison University and Beanie and Frank decide that he needs to have a party to celebrate being single again but Frank’s wife Marissa warns Frank not to over do it. As the party commences, Beanie pulls off a big surprise as he has Snoop Dogg perform at the party but Frank, having gotten drunk during the party, interrupts the concert to try and get everyone to go streaking with him. Meanwhile, Marissa is Beanie’s wife Lara and two of their friends and the girls talk about getting Marissa a present for an oral sex teacher when they spot Frank streaking down the street and an embarrassed Marissa tells him to get in the car. The next morning, Mitch wakes up to find a young girl named Darcie in his bed who leaves after thanking him for last night. Mitch heads downstairs to find Beanie just waking up on his couch and as the two talk and wonder about what happened to Frank, they hear someone at the door. Inviting the man in, they are surprised to see it is Gordon “Cheese” Pritchard, a kid they used to pick on during school. Pritchard tells them that he is the Dean of Harrison University and has gotten the house rezoned for school use only and tells Mitch he has one week to move out. Meanwhile, Frank is at a counseling session with Marissa and his responses puts a strain on their marriage. Mitch goes to work and his boss, Mr. Goldberg, is telling him a proposal he worked on is bad. When Goldberg’s daughter shows up at the office, Mitch is surprised to learn that it is Darcie and that she is still in high school. That night, Mitch returns home to find Frank waiting in his driveway and asking to crash at his place, having been kicked out by Marissa for the time being. As they walk inside, they find Beanie having a meeting with several people in Mitch’s living room and when they ask Beanie for an explanation, he says they are starting a fraternity in order to stay in the house. Although he is reluctant at first, Mitch agrees and the three friends proceed to kidnap their new pledges, several of which do not go to the school. As weeks go by, one of Mitch’s co-workers hears about the fraternity and wants to join but Mitch is reluctant to allow it. As he is talking to Beanie about it, Nicole stops by with her daughter to bring Mitch a house-warming present and Beanie invites them to his son’s birthday party. Frank tries calling Marissa and when he doesn’t get an answer, he decides to drive by the house and sees the girls having the oral sex class and mistakenly believes Marissa is giving the instructor a blow job and he sneaks in to attack the guy only to have the instructor flip him through a table before hitting him in the face with a tea kettle. At the birthday party, Nicole arrives and introduces Mitch and Beanie to her boyfriend Mark. Later, Mitch and Nicole are talking and she says that Mark came because she had a crush on Mitch in high school and Mitch admits to his crush on her. Later, Mitch catches Mark fooling around with one of the catering girls in the bathroom and Mark tries to convince Mitch not to tell Nicole. Later, Frank accidentally shoots himself with an animal tranquilizer and falls into the pool, and as he is underwater, he hallucinates that he is on the beach with Marissa and kissing her, but in reality, the animal trainer was giving Frank mouth to mouth and he kicks Frank back in the pool when Frank tried to kiss him. Pritchard and his stooge, Michael, meet with the student council president Megan Huang and try to convince her to cancel the temporary fraternity status but when she initially refuses, Pritchard blackmails her by offering to help her get into Columbia Law School. Mitch takes a look at the lease for a house she is buying and considers telling her about Mark but changes his mind and instead, asks to take her to dinner and she accepts. As she gives him a goodbye kiss on the cheek, two of the fraternity members, Weensie and Jerry, show up to talk about a problem they have with Blue’s birthday party and Mitch tells them that he will talk to them later so he doesn’t have to explain everything to Nicole. That night, the fraternity is having a KY wrestling matches for Blue’s birthday but as Blue gets set to wrestle two girls, he suddenly drops dead from a heart attack. At the funeral Beanie tells Mitch that Blue’s death isn’t his fault while Frank talks with Marissa, who tells him she wants a divorce. Meanwhile, Nicole is showing Mark the house and when she mentions Mitch saying it was a good deal, Mark tells her that he saw Mitch groping the caterer at the birthday party. Just then, Mitch calls and asks Nicole to meet him for a cup of coffee and she reluctantly agrees. Mitch wants to explain what is going on and when Nicole tells him what Mark said, Mitch tries to explain that it was really Mark but Darcie and her friend see Mitch and briefly talk with him, causing Nicole to leave. When Mitch returns to the house, he finds it boarded up and a note on the door from Frank telling him where everyone is. Mitch goes to the Comfort Inn and finds the group watching a video from Pritchard, saying that the students that were in the fraternity will be expelled. The student’s are upset about being expelled but Mitch tries to find a way out of it and, with the help of two co-workers that he promises can pledge the fraternity, he finds a loophole that will allow them to overturn the ruling by competing in a series of challenges designed to test their academics, school spirit, athletics, debate, and contribution to society. Pritchard tries to stack the odds against the fraternity and when Megan approaches him about not getting into Columbia and his not following through on his bribe, Pritchard admits that he bribes people all the time before walking away. During the course of the challenges, Frank manages to beat James Carville in a debate and the group passes the academic test, thanks to some hidden microphones and earpieces from Beanies store that allow Mitch’s co-workers to tell them the answers, but they lose points when Frank accidentally burns himself while trying to jump through a flaming hoop during the school spirit challenge. The fraternity hopes to regain the points in the athletics competition, but Pritchard tries to hinder them by picking Beanie and Frank to compete in the floor routine and rings while having Weensie, an obese student, to do the vault but all three manage to perform flawlessly in the events. As the group celebrates successfully completing the challenges, Pritchard tells them that they failed as he had Blue still listed on the roster and counted his not competing as 0’s, which dropped their average to a 58%. As Mitch tries to comfort Frank, Pritchard decides to mock them some more when they are approached by Megan, who plays a tape of Pritchard’s confession to her. Pritchard grabs the micro-cassette recorder and runs off, with Mitch and Frank chasing after him. Frank catches up to Pritchard and the two struggle over the tape but when Mitch arrives, Pritchard grabs the recorder and runs for it but Frank had managed to take the tape out of the devise. Pritchard ends up being fired and the fraternity is given a full charter. As Mitch is moving out of his house, Nicole stops by and tells him that she caught Mark cheating on her and the two decide to pursue a relationship. Meanwhile, Frank is now working at the campus radio station and taking over as president of the fraternity. Meanwhile, Mark is driving his car and loses control of it and it ends up crashing off of a bridge and falling onto Pritchard, who is fishing in the stream below, killing them both. Frank runs into Heidi at the grocery store, who invites him to a party that she is having and Franks accepts.

Old School met with mixed to positive results from the critics, holding a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus on the site is that, “While not consistently funny, the movie does have its moments.” The movie is considered a forerunner to the Frat Pack, as the nickname was given to that group of actors (which includes Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Will Ferrell, Luke and Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, and Steve Carell) shortly after it’s release. Old School was a modest hit at the box office, earning over $87 million off of a $24 million budget.

This is a funny movie to watch. Luke Wilson (Mitch), Vince Vaughn (Beanie), and Jeremy Piven (Pritchard) did good jobs in this movie but Will Ferrell absolutely stole the show with his portrayal of Frank the Tank. To be honest, the story


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