I’ve written before that I don’t consider “Home Alone” a Christmas movie. Yes, I know it happens at Christmas and there’s a bunch of Christmas stuff in it … blah, blah, blah. But, I’ve always looked at it as a kids’ adventure flick that’s really well done (overcoming Macaulay Culkin’s generally smarmy demeanor). However, after yet another watching of its sequel, “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” I’ll bow to the obvious and say both are good Christmas flicks – and you can watch them at any time of the year, but both do a nice counter-point to the seemingly endless rotation of “A Christmas Story” (click here for my review of that one). I’m not doing a specific review today, but just a general look this 2016 Christmas season at the two films.
‘Home Alone’
(1990; 103 minutes; rated PG; directed by Chris Columbus and starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern)
‘Home Alone 2: Lost in New York’
(1992; 120 minutes; rated PG; directed by Chris Columbus and starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern)
ANOTHER CHRISTMAS IN THE TRENCHES!
It’s all too easy to dislike Macaulay Culkin as a child actor. He’s a little too smarmy, a little too perfectly groomed and clothed and he had the good looks of a prototypical Hollywood kid star. Yuck, yuck and yuck. However, upon reflection, he does a really good job in what became his signature role of “Kevin McCallister” in “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” He’s just enough endearing that you almost forget that you don’t want to like this kid.
(CLICK HERE FOR ALL MY MOVIE REVIEWS)
(CLICK HERE FOR MY REVIEW OF ‘HOME ALONE 3’)
For years I haven’t considered the “Home Alones” as real Christmas films, such as “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (click here for my review) or a classic such as “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Today, I’ll rewrite my opinion. I was wrong as both are really Christmas films you can watch any time and enjoy them.
Of course the two best things about both are:
- Director Chris Columbus … an Oscar nominee (not for this one) Columbus, who also directed the original and wonderful “Adventures in Babysitting” (click here for my review), does an exceptional job balancing the vagaries of a child-star headliner and an extremely talented and solid supporting cast that makes sure the film doesn’t founder with the spasms of a movie left to the devices of that child star. Columbus has only 19 credits as a director, but it is a total A-list that includes “ Doubtfire,” the underrated and mostly forgotten “Only the Lonely” and was at the helm for two “Harry Potter” films. He was nominated for a best picture Oscar as producer of “The Help.”
Writer John Hughes … and what needs to be said about this late legend? From directing “Brat Pack” offerings of “Sixteen Candles,” “The Breakfast Club” and “Weird Science” (click here for my review) to helming films such as the classic “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to “Uncle Buck” (also with Macaulay in the cast – click here for my review), it is Hughes’ writing that is actually much more accomplished. He wrote the original stories for National Lampoon that became the “Vacation” franchise (and he wrote the original’s screenplay) and had nearly six times more writing credits than directing credits on the day of his death in 2009.
Just as Hughes’ writing would have elevated another director’s effort and Columbus’ direction would have elevated a lesser screenplay, the two together are simply magic in these two films.
In case you’ve read this far and are not familiar with the films, the plots are straightforward: a boy is accidentally left at home as the family goes on Christmas vacation to Paris in the first and he gets separated from the family traveling to Miami for Christmas and winds up in New York (and meeting U.S. President-Elect Donald Trump at the Plaza hotel). He’s pursued in both by a couple of entertainingly bumbling crooks and, of course, manages to foil them all.
I especially enjoy the black-and-white noir films he plays in each one and the staccato gangster talk stays with you for a long time (“you filthy animal”). It is small details such as this that makes this film better than a Christmas film such as “Jingle All the Way” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and produced by Columbus (click here for my review).
Here’s a look at some of the supporting cast in both films:
- Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern play crooks “Harry Lime” and “Marv Merchants” respectively. They both dispatch their roles with aplomb and become synonymous with both bumbling and tenacious in their following of Culkin.
- John Heard and Catherine O’Hara play parents “Peter and Kate McCallister” and do workmanlike, solid jobs as bridges between many scenes. The single funniest scene in the sequel is when they are giving information to a police officer they comment that even though they’ve lost their child again, they never seem to lose their luggage! A terrific scene and another example of Hughes’ wonderful pen.
- Gary Bamman plays obnoxious and cheap “Uncle Frank McCallister and obviously has fun with the role. I liked him better as part of “Runaway Jury” (click here for my review). In the second film, Tim Curry is notable for his supporting turn as “Mr. Hector” the concierge. I’m sure he was cast because of how his face segued perfectly to that of the Grinch cartoon character. Even so, Curry did a wonderful job.
After these six actors, there isn’t much to discuss of the others. John Candy is great in the first, but outside him there’s not much left. In each film there is an outside party who affects Culkin’s adventures (in the first a neighbor; in the second a homeless woman) and both do solid work, but not really worth mentioning.
In the end, both of these films are extremely watchable multiple times because they never let you down. They are solid from the beginning to the end.
“Home Alone” was the No. 1 film at U.S. theaters in 1990 with $285.7 million, which kept it ahead of “Ghost” and its $217.6 million. “Home Alone 2” was slightly less popular than the original as it came in No. 2 with $173.5 million, right behind Disney’s “Aladdin” and its $217.3 million. Here are the films from those two years that I’ve reviewed for this blog:
1990: “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” (crap) – click here for my review; “The Hunt for Red October” (good) – click here for my review;” “My Blue Heaven” (absolutely terrific) – click here for my review; and “Tremors” (uneven sci-fi) – click here for my review.
1992: “The Distinguished Gentleman” (great Eddie Murphy) – click here for my review; “Sneakers” (underrated Redford thriller) – click here for my review; “Under Siege” (good action with Segal) – click here for my review
Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):
- “Home Alone” was nominated for two Oscars for music (original score and original song), but it was more that it was the legendary John Williams nominated than the film itself. The sequel was not nominated. Williams is a five-time Oscar winner and has a staggering 31 other nominations over six decades of work in entertainment.
- Pesci apparently forgot he was working on a family-friendly film as he kept spouting some F-bombs during his character’s tirades. Columbus reportedly told him to say “fridge” instead.
- John Candy reportedly improvised all his lines in “Home Alone.”
- Culkin got $4.5 million for his work in “Home Alone 2” and that was the highest paycheck for a 12-year-old in Hollywood at that time.
- Directly from IMDb.com: “In Home Alone (1990), Kevin watches a movie called ‘Angels with Filthy Souls.’ In this sequel, he watches that film’s sequel, ‘Angels with Even Filthier Souls.’”
- Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “The swimming pool scene was shot at the Four Seasons in Chicago, Illinois due to the fact that the Plaza Hotel doesn’t have a swimming pool located on-site.”
- Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page for “Home Alone.”
- Click here for IMDb.com’s extensive trivia page for “Home Alone 2.”
© Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples, 2016.
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without
express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner
is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that
full and clear credit is given to Chuck Curry and A Gator in Naples
with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
