First I saw this was back in the ol’ sweaty days when Hyperreal Film Club screened in Hotel Vegas. I sat with frequent Calendar contrib Lina Fisher on a rickety fold-out chair while we and everyone else enjoyed what has to be one of the MOST Texas movies ever made. Biggest gut busters from my audience were at the expense of Texas’ spineless executive branch, who’ve yet to gain any moral backbone in the years since Miss Dolly Parton’s comic classic premiered. Anything a shade bluer than a Sunday church service gets treated as evil incarnate, which is the fate that befalls sweet local business owner Mona Stangley and her Chicken Ranch. The long-running brothel gets busted by a moral-panic-mongering transplant, which causes a lotta hijinks and a lotta laughs. – James Scott
