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