Freshman Orientation (2007)

OK, it's official: I no longer care about 18 year olds.

Theatres showing it will likely have as many conspicuously empty seats as the classrooms and barrooms in this picture, which was apparently shot on such a shoestring that they couldn’t even get enough extras to fill a set.

Freshman Orientation barely rates a passing grade.

A genderbending teensploit turning on a clever twist of the genre's trademark theme. For while most makeover movies feature a female making herself more attractive, this flick has a male deliberately doing the opposite.

Writer/director Ryan Shiraki certainly adds some youthful exuberance to his debut feature film, but it's all wasted on a tremendously misguided and exhaustively dim screenplay

There are other things to like about writer-director Ryan Shiraki’s college comedy, mainly that it feels more real than most... Just one problem: It isn’t particularly funny.

Blessedly shrewd where it counts and deserves notice. The lessons develop naturally and aren't jammed down the viewer's throat like the hypocritical sermonizing in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

I was honored and privileged to say that I saw a film at Sundance that actually captured the fun of pretending to be gay to win a sorority sister.