Best movie of this year hands down!

Instant Favorite.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The best moments are with Leslie Jordan and the scene with the women meeting at Beth Grant's character's house. Then there are the interview scenes with the returning son and the bizarre "Thelma & Louise" scene with the women pulling guns on the men and making them cross-dress. These scenes could have been shorter or left out altogether.The storyline is a bit odd considering Brother Boy has been locked up for years (most as an adult), solely based on being a cross-dresser? Suddenly, after 20 years the characters feel guilt? His reason for incarceration could have been better written.With all of the minimalist blocking, you never forget you're watching a movie based on a play.

Del Shores directed and wrote this adaptation of his own play about how an elderly woman's (comical) accidental death causes her family and friends to rue her passing while digging up ancient misgivings. Low-budget film played the Palm Springs movie circuit for months but didn't hit many other towns; easy to see why, it's rather like an R-rated sitcom lost on the big screen. While Shores isn't exactly erratic as a director, he's possibly too flexible with his material and his group of actors, and the movie sometimes resembles nothing more than a stunt. There's not much plot (it's just an exercise in showcasing the worst possible sides of humanity for a dirty laugh), yet some good things do come out of this. Leslie Jordan pulls off a difficult transvestite role with un-self-conscious relish; not played for pitiable sympathy or all-out laughs, Jordan's Tammy Wynette-worshipping drag queen amiably walks a fine line--it's a portrayal dead-on in its accuracy, and Jordan is never a pain like the other characters. Delta Burke and Bonnie Bedelia visibly strain to punch up their scenes, while Olivia Newton-John opens the picture with a rousing song but is given nothing else important to do. Too many of the gags are recycled, rehashed and rerun, and the jokes tend to stem from various humiliations. Strictly as a curiosity, the movie certainly lives up to its oddball reputation, and there are some outré laughs for those in the proper spirit. ** from ****

This movie is a very funny and touching depiction of experiencing a death in a small town. I saw it the first time about six months before my mother died, and laughed until I was in tears, because I had witnessed a lot of what happens in a small town when someone dies. When my mother died, I had to go back to a small town, and sure enough, it was very much like that, complete with people taping their names on the bottoms of his/her casserole dish. I even found myself saying, as people were leaving from dropping off food, "We'll see you at the funeral". In spite of my sadness, that caused me to laugh, because this movie and play tap into everything that, no matter how much we don't want to deal with it, we all eventually have to, and everyone has a few characters in his/her life.I highly recommend this movie, if you want a good laugh. I would also recommend "Kingdom Come".

This film might have been a merciless skewering of Texas white-trash culture, but instead, manages none of the wit or affection such a parody would require. Instead, it is barely able to hold its head above water as a bad TV movie. It lacks continuity, flow, and decent camera work, and that's just on the technical side; it also falls sadly short of a believable plot or smooth transitions from one story arc to another. What we are left with, after these items are minused out, is a hashed story and poor production. And we haven't even discussed the plot problems.Grandma Peggy has upped and died, after tripping over her lover's wooden legs in a sleazy motel room. The lover, GW Nethercott, (Beau Bridges) is a lush and a jerk, but his wife Noleta (Delta Burke) must love him anyway, even though she seems hell-bent on revenge instead of forgiveness. This plot point makes very little sense, and feels as if it was inserted after the rest of the screenplay was written, to provide some sort of reason that we have to allow Bridges to play his thoroughly detestable character. The family gathers for the funeral, and sisters Latrelle (Bonnie Bedelia—she must have needed cash badly to sink this low,) and LaVonda (Ann Walker—ditto about the cash,) fight like harpies over trivial crap, in front of Peggy's sister Sissy (Beth Grant, in one of the few able performances of the film,) who quickly reaches her boiling point. Latrelle is a conservative fundamentalist (of course) and LaVonda a loose cannon who is more irritating than interesting. The film descends very quickly into a scream-fest that is utterly shrill and predictable. Then, abruptly, it shifts focus to Latrelle's gay son Ty,(Kirk Geiger) in therapy because he can't seem to reconcile being gay and being from Texas. There are some genuinely poignant moments in this therapy session, but they can't rescue the plot, since they seem jarringly out of place after the cartoonish beginning. Of course, he has to show up at the funeral, and we have no doubt he will, but we can't seem to drum up any interest in what might happen when he does. After being subjected to this pathos, the film once again makes an abrupt shift to Earl "Brother Boy," (Leslie Jordan) a screaming transvestite, who has been locked up in a mental institution for over 20 years, being "worked on" by a predatory therapist who wants to turn him heterosexual so she can be on Oprah. He is so broadly drawn that we have a hard time being sympathetic to either him OR Ty. Of course, we all know he will be released just in time to sashay down the church aisle in heels and blonde wig during the viewing hours. Then, once again, the film shifts like a California fault line back to the sisters and a badly-done parody of Thelma and Louise, starring LaVonda and Noleta. They get jailed for their hijinks, to no one's surprise.The only performance in the film that was surprising and interesting was that of Bitsy Mae Harling (a well-disguised Olivia Newton-John) who provides a sort of Greek chorus soundtrack for the background of nearly every scene. I almost didn't recognize her with the numerous earrings, tight tank top, red lacy bra peeking out, tattoos and constant cud-like gum-chewing. Even her voice seemed disguised. Probably just as well under the circumstances. The title song which she performs, is badly rhymed and after the third repetition, feels like a hammer over the head.All in all, not worth much unless you get to see it for free.