Cinema Notes From All Over (Double-Wide Division)

CELLULOID-LAND, The Universe--We just watched a ten-year-old comedy called Sordid Lives and can't think of one reason you shouldn't too.
   Shot for next to nothing, based on a play of the same name, and billed as "A Black Comey About White Trash," it stars the extraordinary Bonnie Bedelia and, in an expanded cameo, Olivia Newton-John. 
   Packed with vivid performances, the film tells the story of the death of a matriarch of a poor but spunky Texas family. Her passing sparks all manner of family and small-town drama both madcap and solemn. 
   The film's main theme is the way it takes courage to to live one's own life, propriety be damned. The matriarch's grandson struggles to be honest about being gay; her son comes to grips with being a Tammy Wynette-obsessed cross-dresser. One of her daughters and a friend go on a Thelma-and-Louise-inspired tear, confronting the men who have in some way denied them agency. 
   Sordid Lives also limns the importance of family, no matter how non-functioning the brood might be; the claustrophobic nature of life among the lovably eccentric characters in a small town; and the odd ways that, in the end, love, truth, and a solid sense of spirituality trump life's complexities. 
   If this sounds a little earnest, that's our fault. Sordid Lives is a fun little comedy, camp beyond compare. Do yourself a favor and see it. And invite friends over. It's no fun to laugh alone. 
   (A side note: the movie contains gay themes and momentary full-frontal male nudity. If this is a problem for you, then why on earth are you reading First of All?)

Crime of the Century (A Son, A Mom, A Bra Division)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A Memphis man was jailed on Thursday for allegedly stealing prescription pain pills - from his mother's bra.
  The Memphis Commercial-Appeal reported on April 29 that Charlie Boyd, who is twenty-eight, was discovered by his mother, when she woke before sunrise on Wednesday, to be rifling through her bra, where she stashes her prescription pain medications so that her son, Mr. Boyd - don't you see? - won't unearth and then pilfer them. 
  Commercial-Appeal reporter Cindy Wolff leaves unclear whether or not the mother was wearing the bra when she noticed her son attempting to purloin the pills. If so, well, ew.
  The woman, whom the Commercial-Appeal did not name, tried to restrain Mr. Boyd, but he made off with the goods - in this case, Xanax, one of pharmacology's vaunted vacations-in-a-pill. 
  Mr. Boyd apparently was planning a long vacation. Police searched him after discovering him hiding under a neighbor's sport utility vehicle, and ascertained that he was in possession of twenty-two generic Xanax pills. 
   Later, in Mr. Boyd's room, police found what they said were crack pipes, needles, a spoon with meth on it, other drug paraphernalia, and pills. 
   It is not for us to say, but it sounds like Mr. Boyd (below) may be living with a substance-abuse quandary. This, then, is a sad story. A man's demons possessed him to allegedly steal drugs from his very own sainted mother, and to do it by trifling with her unmentionables. 
  Mr. Boyd's mom was right to find inventive places to stash her medications. But drug addicts are a crafty lot. Therefore, the best place to hide drugs is right next to the truth, because no strung-out addict will go within a mile of that.