A Texas Funeral

The performances are excellent. I did not even recognize Olivia D'Abo.

It would be impossible to explain the plot of this film, and that is one of the reasons why I like it so much.

The film touches on the importance of family ties, without being sappy. It touches on the the importance of forgiveness, without being preachy.

It has plenty of "quirky" characters and situations, but not so much as to make them ridiculous. That is not to say that they are not absurd, and that is a good thing.

It is not a ghost story as some synopses might cause one to believe. (Albeit, I might not have watched it if it were not for my being given that idea from a Comcast blurb.)

I recommend A Texas Funeral to anybody who likes films that have plots that are difficult to detect in which direction they are going to go, but are a joy to follow.

An entertaining but overwrought exercise in American Baroque, the best way to describe this film is to say that it begins in David Lynch territory, rambles through Tennessee Williams country, and was last seen heading dangerously close to Waltons Mountain. Set in Texas in the late 1960s, the plot - dark secrets emerge when a family gathers for a family funeral - is hardly original, and while the Texan self-image comes in for some welcome satire, the cosy self-satisfied way in which the whole thing is tied up at the end would have a serious dramatist like Tennessee Williams spinning in his grave. Martin Sheen is much too decent to play the wicked old patriarch, and while any film that includes Joanne Whalley, ear-sucking, and camels can't be entirely bad, this is not a good advertisement for any of them.

I bought this movie at Blockbuster for about 6 bucks, I thought that it was a western and since it had Sheen and Patrick in it I thought "EH why not?" The movie wasn't really what I expected but it kept me watching all the way through. This is a great dramatic comedy, the acting was great all-round! A bit of a different role for Chris Noth, but I couldn't help but like his character. The script was really well written and movie doesn't really ever "drag" on. The comedy was pretty decent and I didn't find the story overly predictable. Well worth the 2 hours and 6 bucks that I put into it. I'd definitely recommend this one. Enjoy

Given how long this film took to get from filming to any sort of release (and I'm still not sure how widely it was ever released in theaters) I had feared that it would be a stinker. I followed it because one of my vintage cars was used in filming, and I'd just about given up on ever actually seeing the finished product. My car never made it on screen, having been barely out of frame in a scene set at a hospital, but the movie turned out to be quite, quite good. I wonder how well it might play outside of Texas, and seriously doubt it would have much international attraction, but for me it was a breath of fresh air. Characters full of enough eccentricities to be actual Texans like me, but not the typical overblown 'Hollywierd' caricatures of Texans that make me sick. Somewhere in the production crew, there was obviously someone with at least a fair understanding of Texas folklore and culture. Not quite the skill and depth of Tim McCanlies' Texas-based movies ('Seconhand Lions' and 'Dancer Texas' which for me set the standard by which all Texas-based films should be judged) but still with a similar feel.

"A Texas Funeral" could have been better, but there wasn't anything resoundingly bad about it. It was a quirkily comical view of a family reunion brought about by the death of the family's atriarch, and the characters had an authentic 1960's Texas flavor to them.

Everyone except grandma had at least one moment of personal revelation, and everyone got something good out of the deal. It was a pretty "feel good" kind of movie, and it was sufficiently funny to compensate for its lack of depth.

If you see rent this on video as an excuse to eat hot buttered popcorn, you won't be disappointed. If you are expecting great cinema, you will be.