This is a softcore skin flick and when you're watching one of these, you can only hope for one of two things. Neither is that it actually be good because people who can make good movies don't make softcore skinflicks. One is that is not be so awful you feel ashamed to be watching it. The other is that it be so astoundingly terrible that it veers into "so bad, it's good" territory. Ocean of Dreams is fortunately the latter.
The story concerns troubled married couple Melinda and Greg (Charlene Smith and Wesley O'Brian) taking a cruise as Melinda's last hope for reconnecting with her workaholic husband. While that's going on in the present, the film also constantly flashes back to high school sweethearts Melinda and Greg being reunited on a hospital ship during the Vietnam War. And by constantly I mean like every five frickin' minutes. Using an assload of stock footage to establish those two settings, Ocean of Dreams serves up some mediocre sex scenes surrounding by hilariously bad storytelling, set design, accents and editing. I laughed out loud at this thing more than I have at anything in a long while.
Charlene Smith and Wesley O'Brian attempt Southern accents that are so fake Kevin Costner's dialog coach from "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" thought they were the worst he'd ever heard. The sets are so cramped and cheaply made that most of the movie appears to have been shot in someone's basement, with the rest being filmed after someone threw their old patio furniture out on the beach. I was in high school plays that had more convincing sets than this. The story not only has flashbacks within flashbacks, there are two separate dream sequences within flashbacks. This is the first movie I've ever watched where the ultimate trifecta of crappy filmmaking seemed possible, but a flashback within a dream sequence within a flashback never occurred.
The "so bad, it's good" reaches its peak early on with the use of stock footage during two sex scenes. I don't why they did it and only did it with these two scenes but it is one of the funniest things I've seen. During a flashback to Vietnam and during a dream sequence set in ancient Egypt, these filmmakers would use establishing stock footage as a segue between sexual positions. So, the 'Nam one was like "missionary, missionary, missionary, jungle, reverse cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, helicopter, missionary, missionary, missionary, soldiers" and the Egypt sex dream was like "missionary, missionary, missionary, Pyramids, cowgirl, cowgirl, cowgirl, Sphinx, spoon, spoon, spoon, Nile."
Now Charlene Smith is beautiful and the other women who also take their clothes off aren't half bad, but it's the unintentional comedy that makes Ocean of Dreams fun. When you get bored with laughing at how much it sucks, you can turn it off and feel confident you won't be missing anything but you'll get a side-splitting 20 minutes or so out of this movie.
The story concerns troubled married couple Melinda and Greg (Charlene Smith and Wesley O'Brian) taking a cruise as Melinda's last hope for reconnecting with her workaholic husband. While that's going on in the present, the film also constantly flashes back to high school sweethearts Melinda and Greg being reunited on a hospital ship during the Vietnam War. And by constantly I mean like every five frickin' minutes. Using an assload of stock footage to establish those two settings, Ocean of Dreams serves up some mediocre sex scenes surrounding by hilariously bad storytelling, set design, accents and editing. I laughed out loud at this thing more than I have at anything in a long while.
Charlene Smith and Wesley O'Brian attempt Southern accents that are so fake Kevin Costner's dialog coach from "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" thought they were the worst he'd ever heard. The sets are so cramped and cheaply made that most of the movie appears to have been shot in someone's basement, with the rest being filmed after someone threw their old patio furniture out on the beach. I was in high school plays that had more convincing sets than this. The story not only has flashbacks within flashbacks, there are two separate dream sequences within flashbacks. This is the first movie I've ever watched where the ultimate trifecta of crappy filmmaking seemed possible, but a flashback within a dream sequence within a flashback never occurred.
The "so bad, it's good" reaches its peak early on with the use of stock footage during two sex scenes. I don't why they did it and only did it with these two scenes but it is one of the funniest things I've seen. During a flashback to Vietnam and during a dream sequence set in ancient Egypt, these filmmakers would use establishing stock footage as a segue between sexual positions. So, the 'Nam one was like "missionary, missionary, missionary, jungle, reverse cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, reverse cowgirl, helicopter, missionary, missionary, missionary, soldiers" and the Egypt sex dream was like "missionary, missionary, missionary, Pyramids, cowgirl, cowgirl, cowgirl, Sphinx, spoon, spoon, spoon, Nile."
Now Charlene Smith is beautiful and the other women who also take their clothes off aren't half bad, but it's the unintentional comedy that makes Ocean of Dreams fun. When you get bored with laughing at how much it sucks, you can turn it off and feel confident you won't be missing anything but you'll get a side-splitting 20 minutes or so out of this movie.
