A Texas Funeral

A bit bizarre, ‘A Texas Funeral’ worth seeing

QUINTON JONES and Martin Sheen in "A Texas Funeral."

“A Texas Funeral” is not your average movie.
Some call it a comedy. Others a drama. Maybe. But it is definitely a fantasy.
The year is 1968. Lyndon Johnson is in the White House. There’s civil unrest throughout the country. Vietnam is raging.
And young Lil Sparta is coming face to face with the corpse of his grandfather, Sparta, in a sticky Texas funeral home. Lil Sparta is played by Quinon A. Jones. Grandpa is Martin Sheen.
Now Lil Sparta may live in Texas, but he doesn’t like death and guns at all. He isn’t happy when his parents urge him to go up and get close to granddaddy’s corpse.
But later, when everyone else leaves the room with the body, we see something a tad unusual. Sparta’s widow, played by Gracie Zabriskie of “Big Love” fame, goes up to the casket, pulls out a knife and hacks off her deceased mate’s ear. Then she licks it. Yes, this is a strange movie.
Lil Sparta observes this with the door ajar. In fact, Lil Sparta sees a lot with various doors ajar.
The family’s name is Whit and we later learn all of the men have ears that drive women wild.
Lil Sparta, after witnessing this, stops talking. Whether that is the reason he stops talking, I’m not sure. But he stops talking.
Now Quinton Jones, the Lil Sparta actor, was only 8 when he played this role and a part in an episode of “Texas Ranger” besides this. So if his acting ability is in question, not having to memorize many lines is probably a plus.
From the calling hours, the clan is off to the mental hospital to pick up Aunt Miranda, played by Joanne Whalley. She doesn’t seem too much zanier than the rest of the zany family.
So what else would your normal, Texas-living, ear-licking family have? Why a camel, of course. It’s Big Sparta’s camel. He comes from a long line of camel keepers. Their heads are posted about the barn.
How do we know about the family’s affinity for camels, dating back to the Civil War?
Why from the ghosts of Lil Sparta’s ancestors, whom he visits on the second floor of the barn.
The colorful characters all have stories to tell. And somehow, Grandpa the ghost still has his ear attached as a ghost.
This strange set of characters have dinner, build a coffin for the dying camel and square off over money issues.
A young, African-American who joins the family, learns his daddy was murdered by the Sheen character. Oh, you may think you know the circumstances behind the shooting, but you don’t. The answer to the mystery of the shooting decades earlier is more bizarre. Everything about this movie is bizarre.
Bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.
Is that bad? Mmmm, not necessarily. You just sit wondering what will happen next. It’s sort of mesmerizing in its lunacy.
It’s definitely something different.
The least of the zaniness is the African-American character, played by Isaiah Washington, who has a romantic fling with crazy Aunt Miranda. OK, it’s 1960s, redneck Texas, but nobody objects. He kisses her in front of the whole clan, nobody cares.
There’s also another cousin, who also has a delicious ear, who can’t shoot, can’t fight. Heck, he can’t pound a nail. He adds to the craziness.
“A Texas Funeral” was released in 1999 and might be better viewed a big tipsy or after partaking in some other mind-altering substances.
Or not. I enjoyed it after imbibing in nothing stronger than Diet Vanilla Coke.

A TEXAS FUNERAL

• Directed and written by W. Blake Herron.
• Rated R for sexual content and some violence
• Runtime: 98 minutes
• 3 stars out of 5

Imaging Argentina

EMMA THOMPSON sits in her cell in “Imagining Argentina.”

‘Imagining Argentina’ needed concentration more on people

It’s a story about life in violent Argentina in the mid 1970s, where people often just “go missing.”
“Imagining Argentina” stars Antonio Banderas as a theater owner. His plays often include younger people. How they make money, I’m not sure.
Emma Thompson is his wife, Cecilia, a journalist whose writings include some criticism of the government.
As happens with many people during that time, she goes “missing.”
Her husband prints up flyers. He takes to the streets showing people her photo. He even goes to the government for help.
Now the Banderas character’s problems are not unique. Many people have missing relatives. Heck, during a public meeting to discuss the problem, government henchmen kidnap some of the people in attendance.
When Carlos’ play gets political, soldiers in attendance machine gun the front facade. Then they kidnap the meek, largely blameless theater manager.
Carlos also develops a gift, he can hold someone’s hand and describe the fate of a loved one.
One person escaped the bad guys and would soon reunite with family. Another doesn’t have such luck.
The plot is interesting enough, what with the political intrigue and all, so why are there long stretches of, well, boredom?
The Banderas character and his daughter, played by Irene Escolar, try to live as normal of a life as possible.
Meanwhile, we see the Thompson character being raped by soldiers, with the exception of one soldier who just doesn’t think it is right. But he stays, because he needs the job.
After the political theater, the government bullies don’t stop with the theater manager. Daughter stays with friends but decides to stay home with Daddy for just one night.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The bad guys go in and grab her and whisk her off to be reunited with her mother.
It isn’t that the captors have soft hearts. They now have a fresh, younger female to rape and torture.
One young, sadistic guard even decides Mom should decide who should rape daughter next. She’s not keen on the idea.
After long passages where little happens, it suddenly gets exciting.
But the ESP angle, the introduction of fantasy, sort of softens the impact of the story.
Then, after all of this brutality, we suddenly get a nice ending. Well, yes, it is a fantasy.
Somewhere in here is a good, thought-provoking movie about a brutal, nasty government and what it does to its citizens and how it impacts people.
The writers and producers apparently thought that wasn’t enough of a story line so they added more. Maybe they should have concentrated more on the people and who they were and what they were like and the end result.
Yes, I’m imaging a better movie.

IMAGINING ARGENTINA
• Directed by Christopher Hampton
• Written by Lawrence Thornton and Christopher Hampton
• Rated R for violence, torture and brief language
• Runtime: 107 minutes
• 2 1/2 stars out of 4