Get ready for laughs the size of Texas when Olivia Newton-John, Beau Bridges, Bonnie Bedelia and Delta Burke lead an all-star cast in this twisted, white-trash tale “that puts the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’” (Toronto Sun). The hilariously sordid details about a southern family surface with a vengeance when relatives converge for the funeral of “Grandma Peggy,” who died after tripping over her lover’s wooden legs! Toss in a couple of feuding, big-haired daughters, a jumpy aunt who just quit smoking, the scorned neighbor from hell, and crazy, cross-dressing “Brother Boy” – and you’ve got an outrageous “train wreck you can’t help but watch!” (Chicago Tribune)If you’ve got a taste for big hair, broad Texas accents, and gay rights, this mixture of white-trash comedy and coming-out melodrama is for you. Sordid Lives starts out as chicken-fried farce, as a funeral is prepared for a woman who died when she tripped over her adulterous lover’s wooden legs; about midway the emphasis shifts to a drag queen unfairly held in a mental institution and the dead woman’s grandson, an actor in Los Angeles who hasn’t come out to his mother. The tone shifts wildly, and the humor depends on your fondness for the white-trash genre–if you like it, this will tickle your ribs; if you don’t, it’ll fall flat as the panhandle landscape. But it must be said that the cast (including Bonnie Bedelia, Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, and Olivia Newton-John) dives right in, no matter how over-the-top their characters get. –Bret Fetzer
Buy “Sordid Lives” For Only $5.10
February 24, 2006
#1
Easily the worst flick ever made. I had to pull the disc out of the player during the graphic gay orgy scene. Olivia sings the B word and the S word. The acting and writing are so bad as to be bizzare. The best way to put it is this movie is like 400 pounds of poop stuffed into a 5 pound bag. It is really full of it.
February 24, 2006
#2
Hello, why do gay-themed films have to be so middle-of-the-road? I would give this film a 3-star rating, but seeing the overall rating it’s getting (4 1/2 stars) I’m giving it a 1 to bring down the average.
February 24, 2006
#3
About halfway through this movie I was torn:
Push the STOP button on the remote.
OR
Hurl a brick into my television set.
Since I wasn’t in the mood to go out an buy a new television set, I chose to push Stop. This “movie” is SO incredibly BAD and UNWATCHABLE that I can’t even begin to dissect it. Just do yourself a favor and don’t waste even one second of your precious life on this excrementally horrid… thing. If someone gives it to you as a gift, just use the DVD as a drink coaster or pretty frisbee.
February 24, 2006
#4
I hate this movie and Olivia Newton-John needs to watch her language.
February 24, 2006
#5
I don’t know where to start with how godawful this movie is! First there’s the “direction” or lack thereof. Then there’s the script, which just wasn’t funny, especially when compared to the riotous humor of “Greater Tuna” and it’s sequels, which poke fun at small-town Texas life without belittling EVERY SINGLE character! Oh, and then there’s the embarassing star turns from Beau Bridges, Delta Burke, Bonnie Bedilia, etc. Olivia Newton-John’s character was superfluous; she just seemed to show up to sing a song, then leave. The lesser known actors should look for another line of work because they were just too sad for words, esp. the psychiatrist and the prerequisite “young closeted actor.” The few standouts were Beth Grant who truly inhabited her character and Leslie Jordan who was much funnier in, well just about every other thing he’s ever done in his career. This movie is offensive to Texans, Southerners, gays, straights, the living and the dead. And it’s especially offensive to anyone who had to pay a dime to view it.
Do yourself a favor: find a copy of “Greater Tuna” or “Tuna Christmas” to see how truly hilarious small town Texas life can be where the writing, direction, and especially the acting are far superior than this Lone Star dud.