4/10
I Now Pronounce You Gay & Straight
15 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
I'm not sure what the sexuality is of the director/writer of Freshman Orientation (Or, Home of Phobia), Ryan Shiraki, but after watching this "feel-good" about being gay movie, my suspicion is that he's straight and did all the research on that opposite "lifestyle" to make this movie. Much like, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (made afterward), both movies throw every cliché, every "Dorothy" comment, every stereotype in as if they just read a bunch of old Advocate magazines and took notes.

That's not to say it was a bad movie, in fact, Freshman Orientation was a relatively sweet movie at times, thanks to Huntington (which was interesting to see him away from his (probably) one-time stint as Jimmy Olsen) and Doubleday. Sure, it was filled with said clichés both with the homosexual references and the college types, predictable as all Hades and a tad bit uneven, and yet, I would recommend for a slow movie night.

Clay (Huntington) arrives at college to meet all the usual suspects in these college-dayz movies. Amanda (Doubleday) says goodbye to her familiar drunk single, stuck-up mother and arrives at her sorority house of the normal smiling bitches. She gets taken by the boring ladies down her path to find & humiliate a "fag" to pledge herself while Clay and new friend, Matt (Erwin), try to join the fraternity brothers and WHAM!, the two stories collide.

Clay's mistaken for gay and is used for her sorority sister prank while he uses her to, well, just get laid by acting gay. He must learn to "be gay" to get the girl, if that makes any sense while she must learn to open up to someone and reject her stuck-up lifestyle. Meanwhile, Clay's roommate, Matt, must learn to accept his homosexuality (sure, that's supposed to be a secret, but it's blatantly obvious from the get-go) and come to feelings he has for Clay.

Sure, the conclusion is seen a mile away and writer Shiraki must have known that too, because a lot was put into the finale, including some hideous lovey-dovey relationship between the straights and the gays after a faux pas gay-bashing subplot. Weird ending, and makes you despise activists, but it's not a "straight" forward movie to begin with.

Recommended, slightly, for the touching portrayals from the actors. Not groundbreaking, but at least its heart's in the right place.
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