Posted on 12/16/2005 11:51:26 AM PST by goldstategop
If you are smart, you will skip "The Family Stone," a dreadful movie about a "loving," hippie-style left-wing family fighting with their son's mean, conservative, uptight girlfriend, played by Sarah Jessica Parker.
The pot-smoking family consists of, among others, all the politically correct elements: a swearing, way-too-sexually-open mother; a gay, deaf son and his Black boyfriend (and their Black child); and a film producer son who lives in Berkeley.
Painful to watch. I wish I'd walked out. Wasted time from my life never to be redeemed. This "movie" was just plain awful.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Thanks for the advice. I will not see it. Horse face doesn't excite me as an actress anyway.
Sounds like it's loaded with what my favorite reviewer Stephen Hunter calls TULWC...... The Usual Left-Wing Crap!
I saw a preview for this when I went to Walk the Line. It looked incredibly DUMB. I didn't even pick up on he hippie vs. conservative thing. It just looked like a very stupid movie. They put all the dumb gags which weren't even funny in the preview. So, you know that the rest of the movie is going to be idiotic in that "Hollywood thinks you should laugh at this" way.
Painful to READ let alone pay to watch in a theater. Wish I hadn't. Sounds absolutely stupid and barren of any creativity.
Speaking of the aforementioned Mr Hunter:
Editorial Review
Braying, self-righteous, predictable, morally superior and, worst of all, loud, the Stones are the subject of a film called "The Family Stone" that means to celebrate them but only denigrates. Mysteriously prosperous, they live the good life in a generic Northeastern suburb, and the ordeal that unites them in scorn and smugness this Christmas season is the arrival of favorite and most successful son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) with his soon-to-be fiancee, Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker). One look at her tight, constricted hair-in-a-bun, her perfect girl makeup, her prim, twitchy body language, her need to succeed and her willingness to be the bad guy in a workplace situation and we know: She's an emissary from the empire of repression. That makes her a mortal enemy of the wonderful Stones.
There are many ways to define the shrieking awfulness of "The Family Stone," from the general lack of wit to the cheap exploitation of cancer to its casual cruelty, but it's writer-director Thomas Bezucha's casting that really goes awry. As mre and pre of the Stone clan, Diane Keaton and Craig T. Nelson are completely wrong. Then there's Mulroney as Everett. He's 42 in real life, and so far beyond juvenile it's almost embarrassing to see him in the role of a fellow who brings a gal home for his family's approval. Rachel McAdams is Amy, so impossibly pretty that you're disconcerted by her bitchiness and wonder what the point is. Luke Wilson is the laid-back third brother, who looked like trouble to me from the get-go.
As for poor, beloved Sarah Jessica, she's again wrong for the part, adorable as she is. She's too adorable. You cringe at her humiliation. An actress with an edge of ego and intractability would have worked much better. Agh, the whole thing gave me the willies.
-- Stephen Hunter
They forgot to include the daughter who got aborted and the son who blew his mind out on drugs.
Sarah Jessica Parker might be mean, and uptight, but conservative she ain't. Nor is her character. A real conservative, already mean and uptight, would have spun on her heel and hurried back down the steps. A kindly, gentle and understanding conservative, of course, would not have been caught in such a conundrum, as there would have been no compulsion to carry around a personal freak show.
Hollywood is sinking faster than the Kursk, and it keeps cranking out sewage like this. If ever there was an industry that deserves to die for its sheer arrogance, it's the American film business.
Hollyweird is attempting to sway younger moviegoers over to the dark side of the leftwing. They've been doing it successfully for several decades but only recently it's been discovered for the fraudulent crap it is. It's one of the many ways the insidious socialists in the DNC can "get" to the public.
This is more of the same. I'm sick to death of it. I haven't wanted to see any movie in ages.
I don't know - The MSM is giving them a pretty good run for that distinction. :=)
Certainly there are other industries that qualify. But none that SURPASS Hollywood in sheer, willful irrelevance.
Excellent turn of phrase - very apt.
Sarah Jessica Parker as a conservative? That says it all.
Agreed. What I find especially unfortunate is that Hollywood exports its twisted view of America to the rest of the world. No wonder so many in this world have a negative view of the US.
I saw the preview with a liberal friend of mine and even she said it looked stupid. I wasn't really paying much attention.
But...but...the NYTimes gave it a glowing review (and panned The Producers).
This is anything but an accident. In a world without substance, form becomes everything. Image trumps all. And Hollywood is very successful at manufacturing images. Where else would bubbleheads like Meryl Streep or Rob Reiner or Mike Farrell or Ed Asner or Barbra Streisand or Martin Sheen or any of the rest of those vacuous twirps be considered experts on anything except in an environment where what you PERCEIVE is what IS?
So the Left wisely took over the image factory years ago, and has made good use of its machinery, producing an endless stream of anti-American crap spun out of lies, self-loathing, and simple-minded idealism.
She looks like a foot!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.