I bought a copy of that movie, "Daddy and Them," and thought it was hilarious. The plot is very similar to the story of "In Spite of Ourselves," which John and Iris sing during the final credits. Prine does a great job as a quiet, bookish, slightly nutty character. I'm surprised he wasn't in more movies after that. And I don't understand why the movie wasn't more popular, especially with the all-star cast. The only problem I could see with it was there were too many long, slow-moving scenes involving just the two main characters. But with a DVD you can fast-forward through those. Or women might like them.

Thornton and Laura Dern play an insanely jealous couple in a small town in Arkansas, with Diane Ladd as her mother and Kelly Preston as her older sister who's also his ex-girlfriend, and with Andy Griffith and Sandra Seacat as his senile parents, Prine and Jeff Bailey as his eccentric brothers, and Jim Varney as his Uncle Hazel who's wrongly accused of attempted murder by a suicidal man he tried to help at the suggestion of his wife, an English psychologist played by Brenda Blethyn. Hazel is supposed to be defended by a mom and pop law firm played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Affleck, but they get into an argument and break up their marriage and law firm.

It was written by Thornton, but the dialogue sounds like something from Roy Blount or Eudora Welty:

"Dewey, I have to feed a woman that acts like they ain't gonna be no more food, and skinny as a rail, I don't get it. She ordered a goddam C.O.D. elephant. A ceramic elephant, C.O.D. Her signator was right on it. You don't know what it's like, man."
"Now Duane, you hadn't oughta take the Lord's name in vain when you're talkin' to a deacon of the church."

"How come she's gotta come down here at all? It ain't her kinfolk that's locked up in jail."
"Honey, the whole family's gonna be there. Now your daddy and them is my family, and vice-a-versa; other words, Mama and Rose is your family. Now my family should be involved in any big-time situations, other words a crisis situation."
"But how come we hafta wait for her to come all the way from Nashville just to ride 81 miles? Why don't she just go to Little Rock? We'll done be there and meet her."
"Honey, it's what she wants. She ain't gettin' any younger."
"You know all she'll talk about is your ex-boyfriends. Who wants to listen to that shit in their right mind?"
"Honey, she's got somethin' she wants to talk to us about. She's gonna get a taxicab at the airport in Little Rock to bring her out here; then she's gonna ride up to Little Rock with us so she can talk to us. See? Want some candy corn?"

"Well, tell him to come back and fix it. Oh, yeah? Well how'd he like to get his ass whooped? Tell him that. It wouldn't be nothin' for me to whoop a plumber's ass."

"Aw, Ruby, can't I even have a head-on collision in peace?"