read this before deciding to see 'Freshman Orientation'

Go to rottentomatoes.com and check out the reviews. They are some of the harshest and dismissive reviews I have ever read. The message? The movie is an amateurish slop of poor writing and poor directing. Just about every review described John Goodman and Heather Matarazzo giving a brief relief from an otherwise tedious story. Most ugly of all, many of the reviews from larger media groups dismissed the film as just not funny. Just not funny.

And if you read the painfully pretentious director's notes on the Freshman Orientation website (complete with the pre-requisite "vainly-posed" headshot), the sheer awfulness of the movie comes into even sharper focus. If Shiraki believes he really achieved what he claims to have achieved in the conception and production of the film, then he is even more deluded than most Hollywood parasites. Its a good thing he felt validated at Sundance, because I doubt he'll ever get much validation again.

I saw it at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and agree with most of the negative criticisms. I can't find one redeeming observation in any of the more positive reviews. The performances by all three of the "standouts", John Goodman, Rachel Dratch and Heather Matarazzo, were all terrible. All of the acting was awful. But, to be fair, the actors had to work with a very poorly written script, amateurish in both tone and content and excruciatingly obvious.