Movie of the Week #9 - Home Alone

I think the movie holds up.

Like you said, it's surprising that the cartoon violence is only the last 20 minutes. So what's the rest of the time spent on? My thesis is that it's what the film focuses on during nearly the entire run that makes this such a great holiday movie.

It focuses on the ambivalence of being around family during Christmas.

Kevin starts the movie hating being around his family, because not all of them are his favourite people, and everyone is too busy to spend quality time with him and he has his own rich little inner world that gets somewhat invaded by a household full of people. These are all extremely relatable feelings, as expressed by a child. Kevin loves being home alone, but he can also feel scared by things outside, and scary things inside the house, and he can definitely feel loneliness when his family had been gone too long especially on the big holiday. He feels so lonely he even went to church.

It's not that he's having a hard time. He's still having fun. But it's that little bit of wanting to trade perfect peace and quiet in for rowdiness with not the nicest people, especially when they seem so happy to see him at the end.

As a bonus, Kevin's childlike fear of the basement furnace and the spooky shovel guy turns out super nice.....I think us adults really want the things we fear to turn out small and okay as well.

It's a film that makes us feel like a kid again, in a good way, with its many nuances of ambivalence about being alone vs in a crowd.

The finale is what we all remember and talk about, but nobody re-watches just the last 20 minutes eifher, because it's such a fantastic film.

I wouldn’t say me or my family have specific movies we watch during Christmas. At least not anymore, back when we had cable we would watch those stop motion Christmas movies on ABC family every year. I think the last time I consciously saw a Christmas movie during the holiday season was in 2019 when Disney+ first came out and I watched both Home Alone movies.

When I think of Christmas movies I immediately think of the first two Home Alone movies. I think it perhaps has to do with them playing on cable so often during December and I would watch them every single time they were on.

I love John Hughes, now anyways that I know who he is, and I think these are really intelligently written films. I think I prefer Home Alone 2 to the first one. Because I just love the Tim Curry gags in it, and it’s a wish fulfillment film of being able to be rich around a big city as a kid.

Yeah I would say it’s a quintessential Christmas movie.

I also didn’t understand just how huge this movie was when it came out until I started paying attention to box office stuff. I don’t think anyone that wasn’t there quite understands how big it was. It grossed nearly 300M domestic in 1990. Adjusted for inflation that’s 700M DOM. That’s what Top Gun: Maverick grossed last year. And it had a healthy international gross too which was not super common back then. So this was the equivalent of a billion dollar movie today. Imagine that, Home Alone a billion dollar movie.

Edit: Also here’s a video explaining how Home Alone informed Chris Columbus while he was making Harry Potter.

I saw it in the cinema when I was 12. I guess it was ok.

I just had the realization that this movie is basically Die Hard. Checking the web, this is a rather novel observation. Don't know if it's a coincidence, but the similarities are striking.

On christmas eve, an ordinary guy, physically and socially estranged from his family, has to defend a building from a gang of thieves all on his lonesome using wits and resourcefulness. The thief leader with a memorable smile initially try to pass himself off as a good guy, but our hero sees past him. Foot trauma. Teddy bear. Stair cases. Firework. In the end, when our hero is just about to lose, the heroes lonesomeness is broken when an ally (who initially was a complete stranger) pops up to take out the baddie. End with emotional family reunion (hugging).

There is also the theme of isolation in crowds (corporate christmas party, crowded airport) and Kevin McCallister is played by Macaulay Culkin who is the nephew of Bonnie Bedelia who played John McClane's wife.

There is also some movie nostalgia, with Kevin watching the black and white Angels with Filthy Souls and John "saw too many movies as a child" and being partial to Roy Rogers.

John McClane and Kevin McCallister sound kind of similar, too.

So when I was around Kevin's age (maybe a little younger), my neighbor across the street had their house broken into while they were on vacation. I vividly remember the police coming to our door to ask my parents if they'd seen anything and the entire thing just TERRIFIED me. It completely shattered any sense of security and safety in my own house. Then around that time I saw Home Alone and that just amplified the fear and anxiety tenfold. But what really did it was Marv and Harry deciding they'd break into Kevin's house at 9pm specifically. My small child brain turned that into "9pm is when burglaries happen", and if I wasn't asleep at night before 9, I would sit in bed scared out of my mind that we were going to be burgled. This kicked off a multi-year phase where it took me hours to fall asleep every night and many nights where I couldn't sleep unless I was on the same floor of the house as my parents. My parents treated it like normal childhood fears, but in retrospect it was pretty clear I had an undiagnosed anxiety disorder of some sort. I mean it was obsessive terror. All I could think about at soon as the sun set.

But anyway, I do still love this movie a lot. And I loved it as a kid, too, I would just FF past the "9pm" part (again, this was my kid brain). My wife and I watched it a few nights ago and I think it holds up really well. The humor is spot-on, the message is fantastic (overcoming fear, learning to appreciate family, creating an attempted murder house, etc.). And I appreciate the story of the snow shoveling neighbor a lot more than I did as a kid. I appreciate that he didn't let his issue with his son get in the way of him being a part of his granddaughter's life. It's very sweet.

It’s such a thoughtfully put together movie. I love all the attention to details. The set pieces, the score, the interactions between characters. It’s a nostalgia fever dream of pizza, micro machines, BB guns, ruling to roost and ridiculous grocery store uniforms.

I think Home Alone 2 is also really solid l. Though it gets a little too goofy with the hotel characters and requires some dispensation of belief. I do enjoy the lethality of the ending trap sequence and the brick scene is just an amazing opening volley of violence to come.