'Sordid Lives' sequel opens at Palace Picture House

Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, Dale Dickey and Ann Walker, from left, star in Del Shores' "A Very Sordid Wedding."
Bonnie Bedelia, Leslie Jordan, Dale Dickey and Ann Walker, from left, star in Del Shores' "A Very Sordid Wedding."

Brother Boy is back!

That wig-wearing, Tammy Wynette-dressing Earl "Brother Boy" Ingram, brought to life by Chattanoogan Leslie Jordan in "Sordid Lives," returns for the new comedy sequel "A Very Sordid Wedding."

The sequel, shot last summer in Winnepeg, Canada, made its world premiere in March in Palm Springs, Calif. It has been screened in limited release to selected cities across the country: Dallas, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Atlanta last week.

Tonight "A Very Sordid Wedding" opens at Chattanooga's Palace Picture House, 815 Georgia Ave., with multiple shows through July 13.

"Sordid Lives," written by Del Shores, was the outrageous comedy that opened as a play in Los Angles in 1996 and ran for 13 sold-out months before being released in a film adaptation in 2000. Twentieth Century Fox released the DVD in 2002, which has sold more than 300,000 units. The film was re-released in 2014 as "Sordid Lives: The Series" a 12-episode TV prequel to the film.

"That movie became a cult classic," says Jordan in a phone interview about "Sordid Lives." Jordan is an alumnus of Brainerd High School and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

"I played a man in a mental hospital who thought he was Tammy Wynette. People still recognize me for that role. Years after the movie, I'd be walking down the street in London and taxi drivers would call out to me," says the actor, who won an Emmy Award for his role as Beverley Leslie in "Will & Grace."

Shores has enjoyed similar reaction to the project.

"Not a day goes by where someone doesn't write me asking me for more 'Sordid Lives,'" he says in a news release.

"So many of my LGBTQ fans have come out to their folks by showing them 'Sordid Lives' because the humor helped them share their own story."

So 20 years after the debut of the play, Shores calls Jordan and says he wants to shoot a sequel.

The ensemble cast of 32 actors is led by Bonnie Bedelia ("Parenthood"), Caroline Rhea ("Sabrina, the Teenage Witch"), Dale Dickey ("Winter's Bone") and Jordan, along with cast members from the original "Sordid Lives" film: Newell Alexander ("August: Osage County"), Rosemary Alexander, Kirk Geiger, Sarah Hunley, Lorna Scott and Ann Walker.

"This time, Brother Boy has gotten out of the mental hospital and is living in Longview, Texas," says Jordan of his character's update. "In the mental hospital, Brother Boy only dressed up to entertain the patients. Now, Brother Boy is dressing all the time.

"He's doing a skit as Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton called 'We Three Queens of Oper-y Are.' I've been fired because the new show-runner of the bar says nobody wants to see that old material."

Whereas "Sordid Lives" dealt with coming out in the conservative South, the wedding sequel will explore questions of bigotry and the fallout in the weeks following the U.S. Supreme Court's same-sex marriage equality ruling.

"A Very Sordid Wedding" is set in summer 2015 after the Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state-level bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. The court's ruling stated that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the refusal to recognize those marriages performed in other jurisdictions violated the due process and the equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

In the movie, an Anti-Equality Rally is being planned in Winters, Texas, protesting any same-sex wedding being held in that county. Tired of the town's anti-gay bigotry, sisters Latrelle (Bedelia), LaVonda (Walker) and Aunt Sissy (Dickey) decide to hold a protest to protest the rally. The sisters believe a wedding is exactly what the town needs.

"Bonnie Bedelia's son, my nephew in the movie, is getting married. Since he has come out to his family, we know it will be a gay wedding," Jordan reveals. But who the nephew brings home to meet the family is a surprise. There's even a cameo by Whoopi Goldberg.

The Huffington Post called "A Very Sordid Wedding" much more than "a wonderful movie," but a "game-changer in LGBT politics."

"I'm excited to bring my characters up to July 2015, where they are hit with the reality of Texas having full equality," says Shores.

Tickets to "A Very Sordid Wedding" at Palace Picture House are $10.

The movie will be shown at 6 p.m. today; 2, 4 and 6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; 6 and 8 p.m. Tuesday; 6, 8 and 10 p.m. July 12-13. Order tickets at chattpalace.com.

Contact Susan Pierce at spierce@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6284.

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