The Family Stone

Meredith Morton & Everett Stone are a socialite couple in Manhattan, but when Everett takes Meredith home for Christmas she clashes with his family so badly that Meredith refuses to stay at the house and calls her sister Julie in to help her out. While Everett tries to convince his mother to give him his grandmothers engagement ring so he can propose to Meredith the rest of the family becomes more and more sure that Everett & Meredith should not get married.

The Family Stone is a film I really wanted to see because of the cast. There are great actors littered throughout this film and all of them are actors that I enjoy greatly. However, I was very disappointed in The Family Stone.

While watching The Family Stone I got the impression that the film thought it was a quirky comedy with a slightly dark underlining. However, I almost didn’t get through more than half an hour of The Family Stone because the film is downright angry and depressing. These characters are really horrible people. Without any explanation more than one or two lines of dialogue you find out one character dislikes Meredith and the rest of the Stone family (who has never met her) immediately begins to hate on her. After about half a movie of being a really boring person Meredith turns out to be downright insulting and continues to say really horrible things to members of the family or scream at people. Not a single character in this film is developed or likeable. The only reason I watched the entire film is because I felt the need to see if possible the ending redeemed the film. It doesn’t.

The ending of the film is almost worse than the rest of the film. It’s a complete and total cop out. Again the writing and direction leave much to be desired. Rather than finding a way to motivate all of our characters into their conclusion a few lines of dialogue are delivered about couples breaking up, other couples share longing looks and then we flash to the next Christmas where all the issues are magically resolved and we’re never told how or why.

No family real or fictional can solve the kind of problems the Stone family had that Christmas in the course of twelve months. It’s just not possible, especially after the rest of the film built up nothing but an intense hatred for Meredith.

I know I’ve probably insulted a ton of people that absolutely adore this holiday movie and think I’m completely wrong in my analysis. To those I say this: can you tell me why these characters deserved an hour and half of my time?

Director & Writer: Thomas Bezucha
Julie Morton: Claire Danes
Sybil Stone: Diane Keaton
Amy Stone: Rachel McAdams
Everett Stone: Dermot Mulroney
Kelly Stone: Craig T. Nelson
Meredith Morton: Sarah Jessica Parker
Ben Stone: Luke Wilson
Thad Stone: Tyrone Giordano
Patrick Thomas: Brian J. White
Susannah Stone Trousdale: Elizabeth Reaser

Meredith: What's so great about you guys?
Sybil: Uh, nothing... it's just that we're all that we've got.

Scream 2

Adjusting to life post-Woodsboro Sidney Prescott is safe and happy as a theatre major at Windsor College; her life has now escaped feeling like a horror movie and is about to be committed to the horror movie genre literally. Gale Weathers wrote a follow up book to her torrid tale about Maureen Prescott’s murder telling the tale of the Woodsboro murders and it is being turned into the latest and greatest slasher movie – Stab. Sidney prepares for the release of the film and the worst time of her life to be rehashed in a melodramatic teen horror movie until the killer returns and it becomes apparent that the killer too is obsessed with sequels and he wants to recreate the Woodsboro murders.

While I cannot definitively say which of the first two Scream films is my favorite I do have to say that for just a pure, fun watch I adore Scream 2. In Scream 2 the movie about a movie factor is heightened, the sequel cliché’s are played to a T and the college campus setting is a way to inject yet more youthful arrogance into the mix and allow for a much larger body count with very little effort.

Perhaps my favorite joke in all of the Scream series is Stab the movie. Stab is not only pulls directly from the characters conversations in Scream but the name Stab is a direct reference to the name of the movie. My favorite joke about Stab is that in Scream Sidney worries that if her life were made into a movie she would be played by Tori Spelling, and in Stab Spelling is the actress that lands the role of young Sidney. The irony and tongue-in-cheek humor is readily apparent and fabulous.

All of the Scream films were made while Courtney Cox was on Friends and Scream 2 decides to use the popularity of Friends (and Cox’s good standing with the cast) to throw in a few subtle references to her Friends co-stars. At one point we find out that Dewey was played in Stab by David Schwimmer and Gale tells of naked photos of her on the internet were her head on Jennifer Anniston’s body. The jokes work on their own, but if you are aware of Cox’s connection to Friends they play even better.

As someone who went to film school, the fact that Randy is a film student is absolutely fabulous to me. Randy and Mickey the rival film students are my kind of geeks and their opinions make me laugh.

In the end I cannot separate my love for Scream from my love for Scream 2. Both movies are fabulous thrillers in their own right and Scream 2 is a great sequel that lives up to its predecessor while managing to feel like its own film with its own set of rules.

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Sidney Prescott: Neve Campbell
Gale Weathers: Courtney Cox
Dewey Riley: David Arquette
Randy Meeks: Jamie Kennedy
Derek: Jerry O’Connell
Mickey: Timothy Olyphant
Cotton Weary: Liev Schreiber
Debbie Salt: Laurie Metcalf
Hallie: Elise Neal
CiCi: Sarah Michelle Gellar
Maureen: Jada Pinkett Smith
Sorority Sister Murphy: Portia de Rossi
Stab Casey: Heather Graham
Stab Sidney: Tori Spelling
Stab Billy: Luke Wilson

Mickey: Oh come on Randy, with all due respect, the killer obvious patterned himself after two serial killers who were immortalized on film.
Guy #2: Thank you!
Film Teacher: So, you're saying that someone is trying to make a real life sequel?
Randy: Stab 2? Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!