Andrew Bergman’s tongue-in-cheek comedy The Freshman keeps the spoofing low key, underplaying the outrageous situations even as he piles them higher. Young Clark Kellog (Matthew Broderick) had no idea film school would drop him into the hands of a real-life Godfather, but after a street punk robs him during his first day in New York City, that’s just where the road leads. Marlon Brando lets everyone know he’s in on the joke with his hammy, good-humoured performance as the bulldog-jowled Mafioso Carmine Sabatini, the man Clark’s prissy, self-important professor swears was the real-life inspiration for Don Corleone. Carmine has a modest proposal for the naive kid from Vermont involving Carmine’s gorgeous daughter Tina (Penelope Ann Miller) and the illegal importing of an endangered lizard. And if the sight of a six-foot-long lizard scattering shoppers as it runs wild through a New York City mall doesn’t do it for you, there’s always Bert Parks’ rousing rendition of Bob Dylan’s "Maggie’s Farm".--Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com