Flavorwire

Sling Blade

Billy Bob Thornton liked them French fried potaters in Sling Blade, but before his Academy Award nomination for best actor and a win for Best Screenplay, he appeared in the same role for the black-and-white short Some Call It a Sling Blade two years earlier. Thornton wrote and starred in the 25-minute movie — alongside Molly Ringwald and J.T. Walsh — as a mentally challenged man released back into society after murdering his mother and her lover. The script is based on a monologue from Thornton’s 1986 one-man show, Swine Before Pearls. A falling out with director George Hickenlooper has made the curmudgeonly star tight-lipped about his film. “I would have been glad to have talked about the short if George hadn’t bad-mouthed me all over town,” he once grumbled to the press. Follow the YouTube links to watch parts two and three of Some Call It a Sling Blade.