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R-Marshall
Reviews
The Sleeping Dictionary (2003)
A nice movie for a Saturday evening in front of the fire
I didn't think they made movies like this anymore. I was on my own, recovering from flu, CH turned up, fire on, snuggled under a goose-down duvet on the couch and I clicked on my hard drive and played this one, saved off Taquilla. I liked it a lot. The photography, helped by the location, was superb. Nobody got punished in the film for being politically incorrect. It was as far removed from one of those English, "filmed in the North wherever everyone must suffer" movies as you can get. OK, Bob Hoskins isn't the greatest actor in the world, nor is Hugh Dancy. But Jessica Alba makes up for both of them. It does not matter that they were not her tits. They were nice tits. It does not matter that Jessica is not Indonesian. She is delicious. If Indonesia can come up with someone more delicious, let her appear in future movies of this type. At least Jessica looked more convincing than Ava Gardner in a 'cross-ethnic' role. Or was it Jennifer Jones? Anyway, Indonesia doesn't offer anything better at this moment in time, as they say. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong in this movie. The new bright eyed and bushy tailed new English would-be colonial future governor refuses to sleep with native language tutor, Jessica Alba, even when she says she has been allocated to sleep with him. OK, religious beliefs can be strong, but could any religious belief be THAT strong? Eventually, the resident English tribe in this part of 1938 Sarawak ship over a suitable English virgin for the young rookie to marry. Alas, by then he has cast off his religious convictions and started shagging Jessica. But he still marries the virgin English rose and is shipped back to England for a year to get over his local passions. On his return, both the women he has slept with are either pregnant or bringing up his baby with the help of another man. How does it all shake out? Well to find that out, you'll have to watch it. 9 out of 10. A mark is lost because as we all know, they weren't Jessica tits. I bet she has inverted nipples.
Moonlight (2002)
Sheer indulgence
This is just about as bad as it gets folks. If this is 'European art' then the words 'Emperor's clothes' springs to mind. The only skill the director and producer have is to lead you along so that just as you think it can't get much worse, it does. The number of flaws in the plot is countless and I won't list them all here. The baddies drift around in their car; we are led to think they are following the two main actors, in which case why don't they just pounce. The final image of the girl, rotating as it does back and forth, summed it up for me: No one knew where this movie was going and no one knew how to finish it off. Uggh. I hope this was not made with European taxpayers money, but I have a horrible feeling it was.