This comes across as if it were written for the stage. I beg to differ with those who think this an accurate portrayal of the people and situations of the time and place. Not even close. I done been there then. Open on the setting of the entire movie. Small town Alabama in 1969. A family whose patriarch was once married to a woman that left him and married an Englishman twenty years before receives the news she has died. Also, her body accompanied by her widower husband and HIS family is coming back to Alabama for burial. Score ten points if you say this is the type of "Set-up" that multiple black comedies and more recently many more Black as in African American Comedies have been built around. This is neither. I don't honestly know whether that sentence should have started with "Unfortunately".
As a result of this event the American family is brought together and many old wounds, scars and stories surface. SPOILER: The two families couple with one another like a group of drunken speed freaks playing spin the bottle at a company picnic for Searle. Well, not quite. They blather about endlessly before, after and instead of. Hey, that IS how I remember speed parties, more talking than poking. At one point Silly Bob Thornton takes off all his clothes in the woods showing what are supposed to be the 80 percent burns he suffered in a WW2 plane crash -- certain the best technique for getting some "pity p***y" I have ever seen. Finally -- and we should be thankful they don't introduce a GAY sex scene here --- VERY VERY grateful..... Robert Duvall and John Hurt, who both are widower of the same woman become bosom buddies. Remember that is just an expression. Pals. Pals with 160 some odd years between them. They take a ride over to see the eponymous Car. Whole scene could be left out, no excuse for it. Like that big ugly seed inside a Mango nobody would miss it were it not there.
Next morning, they head out into the nearby forests for a bit of out of season hunting unaware that Duvall has been given some LSD in his iced tea. Now, as someone who used to sell the stuff and has taken hundreds of trips with dosages many times those used by mere mortals I can say that the Acid Trip experience of Mister Duvall is the most accurate portrayal I have ever seen in Cinema. I would guess that he, also, has left this world of Newtonian certainties more than once. Oh, that I could find a ticket today. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Who cares? Tim Leary... Timmy.... Timmy.... My kingdom for a Collie -- a transcendental Lassie to fetch you back... Timmy .... Timmy.... Oh, the movie ends.
Like that.
As a result of this event the American family is brought together and many old wounds, scars and stories surface. SPOILER: The two families couple with one another like a group of drunken speed freaks playing spin the bottle at a company picnic for Searle. Well, not quite. They blather about endlessly before, after and instead of. Hey, that IS how I remember speed parties, more talking than poking. At one point Silly Bob Thornton takes off all his clothes in the woods showing what are supposed to be the 80 percent burns he suffered in a WW2 plane crash -- certain the best technique for getting some "pity p***y" I have ever seen. Finally -- and we should be thankful they don't introduce a GAY sex scene here --- VERY VERY grateful..... Robert Duvall and John Hurt, who both are widower of the same woman become bosom buddies. Remember that is just an expression. Pals. Pals with 160 some odd years between them. They take a ride over to see the eponymous Car. Whole scene could be left out, no excuse for it. Like that big ugly seed inside a Mango nobody would miss it were it not there.
Next morning, they head out into the nearby forests for a bit of out of season hunting unaware that Duvall has been given some LSD in his iced tea. Now, as someone who used to sell the stuff and has taken hundreds of trips with dosages many times those used by mere mortals I can say that the Acid Trip experience of Mister Duvall is the most accurate portrayal I have ever seen in Cinema. I would guess that he, also, has left this world of Newtonian certainties more than once. Oh, that I could find a ticket today. Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Who cares? Tim Leary... Timmy.... Timmy.... My kingdom for a Collie -- a transcendental Lassie to fetch you back... Timmy .... Timmy.... Oh, the movie ends.
Like that.