Freshman Orientation

2004 "Your Home Away From Home"
5.2| 1h32m| R| en
Details

A bored college student sees a prime opportunity to score with a hot coed who has made the assumption that he is gay, and he decides to play along when she follows her sorority leader's assignment to seduce then cut loose a series of misfits and losers.

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Reviews

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring
SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie
Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
BeSummers Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.
moonmonday This is one I always kind of hesitated to watch and ended up finding reasons not to sit down and just watch it. But when I finally did...wow. I wish I hadn't.Freshman Orientation (the better of the two titles it was best known as) is one of those movies that you watch and you can see that there were some good ideas and maybe even some good intentions in there, but literally none of them is even remotely well-realized in the resulting movie. While there may be points later where it seems to pay off, it takes too long to get there, doesn't make up for the time wasted, and really isn't worth the extremely unpleasant journey.It takes every opportunity to toss out offensive epithets, unfunny attempts at gutter humor, and caricatures that the main audience probably wouldn't recognize. If you do recognize the characters they're supposed to be...you'll be offended at how poorly they're done. There's so much comedic potential here, it's just never brought to a point where it's funny. It could have been a fantastic satire and commentary on these types of people we all know and have met, but it failed in every respect.And while I'm not saying low-brow gutter jokes are inappropriate -- college frat settings are perfect for that -- it takes a special kind of failure to fail at that kind of humor. How can you miss on that? Gutter humor is made to amuse the lowest common denominator!The whole affair is so abominably poorly-done that it's really hard to figure out who you're supposed to care about, as the audience. All of the characters are horrible, stupid, or in some way completely unsympathetic. They seem to be going out of their way at every moment to be hard to like. At no point will you ever think "that character seems like somebody I'd like to be friends with" unless you are a psychopath.When you get down to it, perhaps the largest and greatest problem this movie suffers from is that it has no audience. If you're a fan of "fun frat" style movies, you'll have no fun at all with this movie. If you're gay or lesbian, you'll find this movie unpleasantly ugly and offensive, as well as annoyingly smug and self-satisfied, with no reason for it to be. Audiences that are here for fraternity silliness and boobs (which the film does provide) won't want to experience the piled-on homophobia and hate, and they won't recognize most of the cartoonish caricatures. Audiences familiar with the hardship of being gay and out probably won't find any entertainment in experiencing one unpleasantness after another related to it that strike a little too close to home, without any real comedy that manages to work balancing it out.Anyone else will find it difficult to watch, much less enjoy, a film that has zero likable characters, zero jokes that actually work, and zero fun. Please, watch something else. You will regret the time you spent in this horrible abomination that wastes what few decent actors it gets on something that I can't imagine they were too proud to put in their portfolio.
Woodyanders The premise alone reeks of desperation: Determined college freshman Matt (a likable performance by Sam Huntington) pretends to be gay so he can score with the sweet and enticing Amanda (a charming portrayal by the fetching Kaitlin Doubleday). Sound hilarious? Well, it just ain't. Writer/director Ryan Shiraki pours on the crude and idiotic jokes about puking, farting, masturbation, and attempted date rape with an excruciatingly heavy hand, thus ensuring that said jokes elicit groans instead of laughs. Moreover, the characters are generic one-note stereotypes (snarky sorority bitch, stuck-up frat stud, abrasive lesbian, and so on) and the narrative follows a straight down the line predictable trajectory in which various folks learn the truth about themselves and become better people in the process. In addition, it's downright painful to see such talented cast members as Heather Matarazzo (saddled with an unbearably obnoxious character) and John Goodman (surprisingly bubbly and amusing as a friendly gay bartender) wasted on the sophomoric material. While this movie unfolds at a snappy enough pace and has a few moments of genuine heart, it's overall about as funny as slowly dying from colon cancer.
jfgibson73 Freshmen Orientation is a comedy about a guy who pretends he is gay to get closer to a girl he likes. She is going out with him to fulfill a sorority pledge challenge in which inductees have to date some sort of "freak" and then dump them to purposely be hurtful. The movie tries to get political when the main character starts attending support meetings for gay and lesbian students. We see plenty of stereotypes, none more pronounced than the militant activist lesbians who are ready to rally a protest at the drop of a hat. In the end, both characters admit they were being deceitful and they end up together after a heartfelt talk on a park bench.It wasn't so much that the acting was terrible, it was just that the script make the actors sound bad no matter how they delivered their lines. I liked the actress who was in charge of the sorority (she played Suzane Somers in a Three's Company t.v. movie that I really liked), and I kind of liked the ex-girlfriend who was now lesbian (the only likable character in the movie). The guy playing the lead is hopeless--you just can't expect someone with that little ability to carry an entire film.I think most people would agree that the images of gay and lesbian students in this movie are more damaging than progressive, even though I get the sense that there might have been good intentions behind the making of the film. Even though it tries to treat some of the characters with empathy and respect (the roommate, the ex), it just doesn't work in a crude sex comedy that appears to be marketed to horny high school boys. I hated it.
craftercool You know, this movie have that light comedy that I like to watch sometimes, its not that kind of movie that tries to make you laugh every time, but its still funny. The title in Spanish was translated and it means "How to seduce a girl?" I think it makes the point, but you'd better watch it. Sam Huntington its a very good actor, another movie of him that I consider a 10 its "Detroit Rock City" even if you are not a rocker you enjoy it a lot, the story is simply funny and original, as this one but you know in this case I gave to Home Of Phobia a vote of 9 that is still good. Note: If you are homophobic you better don't watch this movie