And Now For Something Totally Different.
Home Alone is a film that I was not expecting I would enjoy. I've seen clips before of the two villains getting their butts handed to them on a silver platter, but I never saw the whole thing.
The story centers around eight-year-old Kevin McCallister who gets left behind by mistake when his family leaves on a Christmas vacation to France. While his mother frantically tries to get plane home, Kevin faces off against two thieves, Harry and Marv, who are trying to burglarize the McCallister house. The result is some of the most iconic mayhem in cinema history.
The only real beef I have with it is at the very beginning when the whole family is treating Kevin like dirt; older brother Buzz in particular was completely unlikable. But this is easily overlooked once Kevin realizes he misses his absent family. To paraphrase Spike Jones, people always hurt the ones they care about. Kevin learns this lesson when he meets his misunderstood older neighbor in a church on Christmas Eve.
Kevin himself is a lot of fun to watch. His adventures are every child's wish-fulfillment fantasies about what it's like to have adult responsibilities and to defend yourself from people who want to hurt you. We feel his frustration with his family and his pain when he realizes how much he misses them. And we're cheering him on the whole time as he takes on Harry and Marv.
The best part of the movie, though, is of course Harry and Marv, known as The Wet Bandits for their habit of leaving the water running in the houses they rob. They are delightfully cocky and overconfident, like two live action versions of Wile E. Coyote from Looney Toons. And just like the cartoon canine, they get their fannies kicked at every turn, except with someone else's traps and not their own.
And of course I cannot forget the score. John Williams' music for Home Alone may not be as easily recognizable as the music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Harry Potter, Superman, or Jaws, but it is nonetheless beautiful. I would almost call it underrated. Somewhere in My Memory is a magnificent tribute to what the family ought to be. It is a song full of longing, passion, and love. It is also the fourth song I know of that Maestro Williams has written for film.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I give it a 12. See it.
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