The Family Stone

Townhall.com ^ | 12/21/2005 | Megan Basham

[moviewatcher]

Pot-smoking, gay adoption, and mothers gleefully discussing how their daughters lost their virginity. Ahh, just what the Christmas season is all about. What? Not in your family?

Then you must not work in the film industry. Because apparently there, like doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodle, these things add up to a heartwarming holiday.

The Family Stone is yet another case of movie marketing bait-and-switch. Playing on Christmas nostalgia, which most Americans share, the trailer promised a rollicking, good-natured comedy about family foibles and the frustrating moments that eventually become our favorite memories.

What the film delivers is a ham-fisted primer on blue-state values.

[Froufrou]

I saw it and everything they're saying in the review is true. I wish I'd known, since we just lost my MIL and the whole hankie bit was NOT what we needed to see!

[exile]

The last time I saw Sarah Jessica Parker in a movie I was upset. After seeing her face I thought it was a remake of all of the "Francis the Talking Mule" movies. But it turned out to just be a piece of crap.

[dead]

Dermot Mulroney? When has this so-called "eye candy" ever done a decent piece of acting?

I don’t think I’ve ever seen him act in anything, but I’ll give the guy credit for one thing. He was in a band called “The Low and Sweet Orchestra” that recorded one of the best albums of the nineties. Sounded sort of like a blend of The Pogues, The Band, Tom Waits, and Ween. It was the only album they made, but it kicked ass.

I still don't even know what Mulroney looks like.

[frogjerk]

The Family Stone

This Family should be Stoned

[Tax-chick]

Sorry to hear about your mother-in-law.

[Dr. I. C. Spots]

It is not wrong to have an agenda, but when it is constantly force fed on a daily consistent basis, and no other agenda is tolerated, that's when vomiting occurs. I for one am sick of the homo-genda, that is continually stuffed down our throats at every movie or flick of the channel. I have stopped watching any sick-coms and I always screen... no I think I like the word censor,... anything that my family watches. These are sick days, and now the Hollywood Fruit society is sticking Elton Homo in our faces. Best advice,... don't give them your money,and flip the switch.

[Borges]

In the case of MDB and The Crying Game the entire plot was centered around a 'secret' that couldn't be revealed in advertising. Both films were ridiculously overrated btw. And with the other two I guess they just assumed people who had read the best selling novels or had heard about them would know the subject matter. If it's about Virginia Woolf...

[americanMel]

Dermot Mulroney? When has this so-called "eye candy" ever done a decent piece of acting?

The only role in which he was worth anything was Young Guns.

"Did you see the size of that chicken!"

Loved that movie when I was a teen.

[Gumdrop]

All Freepers should go and see Pride and Prejudice. It's a PG movie with lots of old-fashioned sexual yearning without any blatent exhibitionism. It has a lot of comedy, satire on English family life, excellent acting, and a wonderful original soundtrack renminiscent of Mozart and Beethoven. And, fellas, there are several great manly men in this film too.

[Gay State Conservative]

Maybe the black "partner" is a convert to Islam?

No,that would be too predictable."He" is a Scientologist.

[Tax-chick]

Of course ... what was I thinking?!? LOL!

[SuziQ]

Sounds like the Family Stone is a very Sly.

*snicker*

[Borges]

All Freepers should go and see Pride and Prejudice.

Or better yet, read the novel which should be read by anyone who is fluent in English.

[dbehsman]

My buddy at work last night was mentioning this movie and asked if I had heard about it. I said no, and he told me that his wife (he and his wife are born again Christian and very devout) went with one of her friends on the weekend to see it. He said that she walked out because she found it highly offensive. When she got home she refused to talk about it, only saying that she regretted going to it at all. He and I were wondering what that was all about. I forgot about it till just now when I saw the posting hear. It's ashame that Hollywood nowadays has to hoodwink people into the theaters instead of just being upfront.

On Sunday night, I watched the president give his speech on Fox. I've never had cable T.V., just the garbage that's on the airwaves. For about the past six months, with the sole exception of DVD movies, I have not even watched T.V. After the speech, I left the T.V. on and "Family Guy" the cartoon suddenly came on next. I thought I would watch it, as I used to find it pretty funny. Within TWO OR THREE MINUTES I counted about four or five insults about Christians. Click, the T.V. went off. I cannot even get two or three minutes without being slammed or insulted. I guess the T.V. will remain off for a while.

In a way, perhaps it's a good thing. I've been doing more reading, and I think that's a much more worthwhile past time anyway.

I hope you were able to get a refund on the admission to the movie.

[IronJack]

The other movie I find a disgusting entry for the Christmas season is The Ringer, about some clown fixing the Special Olympics.

Aside from the obvious poor taste, to open a movie with this theme around Christmas is just phenomenally stupid marketing. Just what we've come to expect from the people who brought you Brokedick Mountain.

[Borges]

Sounds like the Family Stone is a very Sly.

I wonder what audience they had in mind. Certainly not Everyday People...

[Borges]

Family Guy makes fun of everybody.

[x]

Armond White at the New York Press read the film as a satire of the liberal, politically correct Stones. In fact, he was pretty enthusiastic about the filmmaker's send up of the self-righteous Stones. You can read his review here.

Here's an excerpt:

But don’t misread The Family Stone as simply a red state attack on blue state America. It’s the Stones who are politically correct liberals and though their hostility to Meredith (pointing out and exaggerating her conservatism) is funny, it’s also cruel. Bezucha knows that’s the way liberals can be. (“The left are really great haters,” Pauline Kael wrote when taking exception to Mike Leigh’s class comedy High Hopes.) Although Meredith’s prissiness may deserve a little derision, she’s merely a fledgling version of the obnoxiousness that the Stone family has mastered. (When Meredith says “I don’t care what you think.” A grinning Stone answers, “Yes, you do.”) Meredith would like to join the Stones with their Waspy class confidence, but she is an unnerving reflection of what the Stone family doesn’t like in itself: insecurity.

If the Stones are as bad as Megan says they are, it's not likely that the writer-director is really offering them and their way of looking at the world as an ideal. White may not be right either, but if the film can be interpreted in such different ways, it's probably deeper and more conflicted than Megan says.

Satire can also be affectionate or loving about those it needles. Maybe that's what's going on. In any case it would be good at this point to hear from people who've seen the film, as the rest of us don't have much basis for informed judgment.

[Borges]

'The Ringer' was made by completely different people then BM. And the bad taste is the point. Think Mel Brooks. Were you offended by 'The Producers'?

[Sybeck1]

It does have Rachel McAdams though.