Fantasies

So apparently John Derek is the ex-wife of an old fart who's 30 years older, and made several movies with Bo. It's one thing for a 20 year old to get hitched with a 50 year old, but making rated-R romance movies together creeps me the **** out. Nevertheless, in lieu of a tingle down there, my B-movie senses tingled instead. But of course, by this point I hope the movies I pick at least have something redeemable about them. So before I watch the one I'm most interested in regarding this infamous pair: Tarzan, I'm heading to this freaky little number: Fantasies, also knows as, And Once Upon a Time.

Damir is a young man who is extremely bossy to his adopted sister, Anastasia, who's longing to be treated like a woman. They travel together to an island where our man wants to redevelop the island into a tourist trap. But his anger gets him into trouble with locals and with his sister, who he now has to learn to let go and live her own life. But Damir soon realizes that his overprotective behavior might've blossomed into true love.

Now this plot is pretty underdeveloped. What I described in the summary is pretty much a good portion of the movie. We get lengthy work scenes being mingled with so-so shots of the beautiful landscapes, which do little to distract from the truth. Basically, very little happens, and you can guess the plot and ending within twenty minutes of the movie.

But the real reason this movie sucks so much is simple: acting, characterization and dialogue are equally bad. First of all, Peter Hooten's lead character is so bossy and unrelatable that it's disgusting. The whole first half I wanted to kick his ass before he finally starts to calm down and shut the hell up. And his obnoxious behavior remains in the second half, which is supposed to come off as playful but makes him look like an idiot. And every time Hooten screams "No!" or some junk, I think to myself, "He couldn't even get a role on Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills."

Bo Derek's character is all about wanting to be a woman, but her behavior is so five-year old and cheesy that her terrible acting is sadly perfect for the job. To add to the creepiness, she's a 25 year old playing a 16 year old girl, undressing with her Commander Hoo-Ha's visible.



Sorry, I've been watching Hell's Kitchen Season 11 and Nedra wouldn't shut up about her hoo ha's.

To add to this criticism, the dialogue is just effing terrible. I mean, all this stuff between an adopted brother and sister about "you've been bad, you've been a bad girl" is not only unrealistic but intolerable. The movie tries to come off as philosophical, but any five year old could write the dialogue if they just saw a rated-R romance movie.

There is only one redeemable thing about this movie, and it barely counts towards what I was saying in the intro to this review: there are plenty of moments that aren't as annoying as the bad dialogue or the cheesy acting. And ironically, this usually comes with the work scenes. Otherwise, this is the kind of movie I wanna shut off because the less bad but still meh scenes just can't come quickly enough.

Yokay, my first venture into the Dereks' movies was a total disaster. This was less than B-movie quality on all levels, tasteless whether intentionally or accidentally and doesn't do any favors for the pair this movie's known for. I honestly feel that American Flatulators has a better sense of art. This isn't gonna stop me from checking out the other movies with this actor-director pair, as I believe this might be their worst movie already since it can't get much worse. But this director-actor pair makes Jovovich and Anderson look like Burton and Carter.

= 4

John Derek needs two more movies to get a score.