Plug of the Day #1: New “Hollywood to Dollywood” DVD is chock-filled with wonderful bonus material

Last night, I watched all the special features on the DVD of Hollywood to Dollywood, the wonderful documentary about gay twins Gary Lane and Larry Lane and their cross-country trip from Los Angeles to Tennessee in their quest to deliver a movie script to Dolly Parton.

The film itself is only 79 minutes but this new DVD has more 90 minutes of BONUS footage including interview with the twins who update us on all that’s happened in the two years since the movie was shot.

What has happened is a lot: the movie has screened at 60 film festivals and won 25 best documentary awards and the twins have traveled all around the world promoting it including Australia and Scotland. They have appeared on talk shows hosted by Marie Osmond, Jeff Probst, and Rosie O’Donnell.

The movie served as their public coming out to their small hometown in North Carolina. They had hoped it would help their mother, a devout Christian, accept them as gay men.

“As far as family, mom still not seen the documentary,” Larry says in the update. “Dad has so dad’s a lot more supportive.”

Their dad reached out to Gary’s partner Mike Bowen via Facebook: “I just want my sons to be happy and I’m so happy that you’re in love and taking care of him.”

Added Gary: ‘We’ve had a lot of people we went to church with, aunt and uncles have seen it. So it’s definitely getting out there. … We’re hoping with everything that’s happened she eventually will want to see it but right now, she doesn’t want to see it.”

Gary said he and Mike are thinking of having their own Christmas this year and starting their own traditions in LA. But they still talk to their parents every day on the phone and for now, they are agreeing to disagree.

The bonus features are filled with gems including extended interviews and footage from film festivals of some of the celebrities who appeared in the film.

Chad Allen recalls being outed in a tabloid. He wanted to come out to his parents before they saw the tabloid story so he sat down and watched the documentary Doing Time on Maple Drive and “it gave me a certain amount of courage.”

He watched the movie then drove to his parents house, sat them down and recalled how he “said everything I ever wanted to say to my mom and dad for years and years and I literally did not stop talking for hours.”

Chad shares how it took his father a long time to look him in the eye but today they have “an amazing relationship.”

Dustin Lance Black shares with us how he met Gary and Larry: “I remember they were the cutest two gay twins I’d ever seen in my life showed up at some pool party and I struck up a friendship with them.”

He has remained friends with the pair and helped them edit down the script they wrote with a plum part for Dolly.

Leslie Jordan shares how he first spotted the Lane twins at Bossa Nova restaurant in West Hollywood, a popular restaurant located across The Abbey: “I went to meet some friends for dinner and there sat the cutest boy I’ve ever seen in my life and right next to him was his identical twin. I said, ‘Oh my gosh are y’all twins?’ And they said ‘yes’ and I said, ‘God is good.’

Jordan appeared with the twins and director John Lavin at a film festival in Palm Springs and talked about his relationship with his mother which mirrors that of the Lane twins and there mom in some ways.

“My mother will never be Betty DeGeneres, she’ll never mark in a PFLAG parade,” he told the audience.

Jordan recalled when he was opening off-Broadway in a play he wrote called Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies about growing up gay in the Baptist church.

“My mother came to New York and it was the scariest thing because there’s a point in the play where I just finally look at the audience and I say, ‘Let’s just face it, it’s hard to be a good Christian and a cocksucker too!’

He was going to cut the line but the director would not let him. So he bought out four seats around his mother and had his friends sit in them. Right when he said, ‘It’s hard to be a good Christian,’ they all coughed so his mom could not hear the rest of the line.’

Said Jordan: ‘To this day my mother says, ‘Well, I missed the big laugh.”

There is also footage of the press conference in which Dolly herself talks about the documentary for the first time: “They’re sweet sweet precious boys. … There was a lot of love and understanding and I think they felt that. … I have a lot of gay fans because they know that I just accept people as they are . i ain’t God and I ain’t running for office.”

This movie, especially with these bonus features, would make a GREAT Christmas gift! Go to the Hollywood to Dollywood homepage to order!