Home Alone: C/D?

I didn't even know there were four of them.

I'm all for the "Die Alone" idea, though.

It was cartoonish violence, but the movie isn't a cartoon.

WOOOOOT

why did it not occur to me that this thread was about the movie, not the act of being

I like in the second movie when Daniel Stern keeps getting hit in the head with the brick and it stops being slapsticky and starts getting... ehhh... kind of sad really. At least that's how my ten-year-old self took it.

I watched this movie every day when I was a kid

the violence in HA 2 is pretty sadistic actually

not that i'm complaining

The best is when Daniel Stern gets electrocuted and you can see his skeleton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jokw-dCVKxk

^^Who woulda thought electricity could be so not-boring!

I like it when the kid stabs him with a machete and his naked ladyfriend runs screaming through the woods

wait i'm thinking of one of the Friday the 13ths

nm

"Marv, looks like we got outsmarted by a kindygardener!"

20th anniversary O_____O

of the first movie, otherwise i would celebrate with a gif of joe pesci lighting his head on fire while doing a headstand in a toilet bowl

This is the movie my parents took me to when I was eight to celebrate me being baptised. We saw it in June at the second run theater because my parents were either poor or cheap or both.

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/3sw4202905.gif

best movie

even the third one is pretty fun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PDuqk_DSMw

gif w/ sound

this was the movie I watched obsessively as a kid, every day. man, I wish had a family like that.

There used to be a website or something where a real physician went through every injury and described what it would really do to a human body and what type of recovery it would take (for the non-fatal ones).

I like in the second movie when Daniel Stern keeps getting hit in the head with the brick and it stops being slapsticky and starts getting... ehhh... kind of

Brutal.

Was just going through YouTubes of Oscar-nominated scores and didn't realize to just what extent John Williams, um, parodied Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaFsnk1gCJo

Jerry: What, you rented "Home Alone"?
George: Yeah.
Jerry: I thought you saw that already...
George: No, I saw "Home Alone 2."
Jerry: Oh, right... But you *hated* it!
George: Well, I was lost, I never saw the first one.

if this were on tv right now I would watch it

probably home alone 2 also

<3 this film

i remember the speech by the estranged old man being inappropriately gruesome though i could be conflating it with phoebe cates "our dad suffocated to death dressed as santa in our chimney and that's why I hate xmas" speech from gremlins.

I loved this movie when I was a kid. I saw it again on tv earlier this year and you know what? It's still good. It really understands how to see the world through a kid's eyes. Catherine O'Hara's fantastic in this.

man, I wish had a family like that.

otm. I remember wishing at least that our christmases looked & felt like that... so busy and colorful and dynamic... ~*movie magic*~

ps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dGOfFbzvq4

merry christmas, you filthy animal *gunz*

"and christmas time means laughter"

kevin's solo sucked lol

if this were on tv right now I would watch it

i think abc family showed all four of them today. i wasn't aware a fourth one existed, let alone that it featured the villainous antics of french stewart and missi pyle.

Any iPod Christmas playlist without the Home Alone soundtrack on is NO PLAYLIST AT ALL

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Winnetka-Home-Alone-House-Sells-for-15M-141948463.html

haha, the URL made it look like it sold for $15,000,000 and I was like, uh, no way

LOOK WHAT YOU DID YOU LITTLE JERK --cutty (mcutt)

Buzz, your girlfriend...WOOF!

Make some gifs http://woofmaker.com/

Here's one I made using a photo from my brief copstache period from last month...
http://i.woofmaker.com.s3.amazonaws.com/zdS6CQ0xYvsotb3U.gif

http://thehairpin.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/photo-76.jpg

x-post - hahaha that's amazing

this movie rules, f the haters

^^

Me and you crut

You know how every kid had a movie they'd watch obsessively

This was it for me

you're what the french call les encompetents!

i wouldn't let you sleep in my bed if you were GROWING on my ASS

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/did-kevin-from-home-alone-grow-up-to-be-jigsaw-a-deadly-serious-investigation/

the last time i saw it i couldn't stop thinking about how insanely violent it was. nail gun to the face? jesus christ kevin.

Saw the final part of 2 yesterday. Good fun.

For me it was this movie, the Goonies, and UHF

Also lol, had the exact same reaction as J.D. upthread when I watched the second one, and I was about the same age as him. As if Hollywood doesn't do that for basically every damn sequel. Innocence lost.

rewatched Lost in New York last night for maybe the first time since it hit theaters (tho i'd seen some of the last act on a bar TV a few years ago) - GOD is it awful. most of what's sick and wrong about it is already in the first one, but I remember that at least hanging together as an engaging Christmas comedy until the violence starts. and you had Roberts Blossom's old man, and some believable "kid home alone" episodes, and O'Hara got to do scenes with John Candy. man if only Eugene Levy had played the dad in these....

Not that I had any particular desire to revisit, but I doubt I could ever watch the second one again for perhaps the most obvious of post-2016 reasons.

As for the first one, my family tends to watch it (read: it tends to play in the background while we carry on like a bunch of hooligans) every holiday season. It's my sister's fave xmas movie but I might have ruined it a little when I pointed out that Kevin's elderly neighbor tends to smack his dentures with every line of dialogue.

yeah the Trump scene was... not welcome. but by that point IIRC we've already seen Kevin chilling atop one of the Twin Towers so i was at least braced to bracket it as a historical artifact.

.... still though

I was on a panel who watched the horror film 3615 code Père Noël, the French horror film about a cunning kid with unique tactical skills has his home invaded by a homeless man dressed as Santa who attacks him. It's been compared to Home Alone, but the thing I pointed out in the panel is:

*The child in this film does only what he needs to survive, and just wants the violent nightmare to be over. He even sacrifices himself at one point!

*Kevin is a sadist and by the end of each film he seems to be viscerally stimulated by fucking with Pesci and Stern

Eugene Levy had played the dad in these....

"Now, Kevin...I feel that we should, um, talk about what happened. It's...*good* to get our feelings out there on the table. And your mother and I, just....want to make sure you...weren't thinking about calling CPS. "

"Huh, Dad?"

"We're good parents, Kevin, and I think you'll find that...good parents make....mistakes. Wasn't this just a mistake, Kevin?"

"Dad, what are you talking about?"

"Attaboy. I knew you'd see it our way. Great talk, son."

"What just happened?"

lol

had the same experience as dr casino last year with home alone 2, such a piece of junk, and i actually like home alone 1.

in home alone 1 one of the good parts is obv the semi-magical feeling of kevin waking up and finding his family has disappeared. in 2 one of the things that galled me right off the bat is that kevin actively chooses to be separated from his family - he gets on the wrong flight but finds out his mistake directly upon landing, and just immediately is like "free vacation with dads credit cards!!" the script tries to set it up similar to 1 by having kevin wish he could have a vacation alone, but by having him accomplish it due to being deceptive is just so gross and unsymapthetic. kid needed his ass kicked.

dunno if ive mentioned it elswhere but one of the most fun moviegoing experiences of my adulthood was watching a screening of home alone few years ago in a theater filled with kids 5-10 who obviously hadnt seen it before. there was a wonderful moment early on in the climactic home invasion sequence (when if you didnt know what was coming you might not realize how violent things are going to get) daniel stern slipping down the icy steps, huge noisy pratfall ending in THUD on his back... theater was as quiet enough to hear a pin drop with shocked kids, and I just hear one kids voice in an amazed half-whisper: "WHOOOOOAH."

xpost - totally!! and it extends to the ending scenario: kevin outruns the bad guys, has photos of them robbing the toy store, and the TalkBoy (tm) recording of their murderous threats. he could turn them in right now! instead it's like "well, I spent three hours" (we see a clock on this) "setting up all these destructive traps, and i wanna inflict some pain!" we see him gradually turning up the voltage when he electrocutes Stern and he's basically already The Good Son.

also "dark row house under renovations with holes in the floors" is just a real different vibe than "cheery John Hughes upper-middle-class suburban manse full of Christmas decorations." not to mention he really fucks up his uncle's house and multiple times risks setting it on fire. what a horrid little shit.

i love the slapstick violence, loved it as a kid too.

I wish I could find the article from several years ago where a doctor details all of the actual trauma the Wet Bandits would have suffered and how many times over they would in all likelihood have died at Kevin's hands.

i remember seeing 2 a couple times as a little kid and having no earthly idea where he was at the end or why that space was like that. i dont think i understood what renovations meant.

xp: https://theweek.com/articles/469307/diagnosing-home-alone-burglars-injuries-professional-weighs

Ah, thanks!

was talking about it elsewhere a couple of days ago. never seen the film and never want to!

It's one of those movies that if you didn't see it as a juvenile and retain some nostalgic feeling about there's really no reason to ever watch it for the first time now.

howdy do. this is peter mccallister -- the father.

haha, i also in this rewatch had this realization of "oh, they actually do explain what that house is," as a kid that washed over me and it was just like this evil playground. it's also right after he goes to the attic of Carnegie Hall with the Pigeon Lady (yeesh) which has some similar set-dressing, it all runs together.

Home Alone 2 has some good moments. if you're ever stuck in a room with french stewart home alone or really any home alone after 2, you'll be begging for rob schneider, tim curry, and dana ivey.

I look forward to your reviews of Home Alone 3-??? (I have no idea how many post-Caulkin sequels there are but I'm certain it's more than literally anyone ever wanted).

in one of them, the little kid is trying to stop a team of professional criminals from stealing a "defense microchip" from his neighbor's house!

Sounds very Christmas-y!

i also remember laughing at 2 over how tim curry's character fucking hates kevin for no motivated reason. iirc theres a scene where he first sees kevin just walking into the hotel like a normal boy and he stops what hes doing to stare at him across a huge crowded hotel lobby and give him a look like "i will fucking destroy you" like the t1000 spotting the terminator

yesssss. 2 is such a rehash of 1. but taking the pizza delivery, toothbrush, grocery store, etc setpieces from 1 and putting them in a sandbox with those 3 characters was great.

xpost - per wiki, five so far with a sixth in development for Disney+ staring a bunch of current and former SNL folks, and cameos from Kevin, Buzz and the Wet Bandits themselves

the pizza delivery boy didn't really deserve the Angels with Filthy Souls trauma in 1. that bit is actually better in 2, including the joke with the old security guard.

yeah i was just reading a plot summary of 3. i guess i give them credit for mixing it up.... trying to keep evil spies from getting a dangerous weapon is at least some kind of motivation. i was disappointed to realize it's just a totally new character; it would be kind of funny if they recast Kevin McAllister and asked us to accept that these increasingly crazy scenarios just keep on happening to him. actually i wish Home Alone 2 had paid homage to Die Hard 2's "How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?" line. not sure if Speed 2 has one of those lines, but it should.

haaaaa i had the same thing with Curry! the moment kevin walks into the lobby, he focuses in on him with pure malice. then Curry has to do stuff like sneaking into the hotel room and lengthily pausing in the bathroom for what he believes is THE FAAATHER taking a shower and singing along to "Cool Jerk" --- why would he do that!??! really distracting to me imho, and it's all just another unfair transposition of the original elements. in the first one, Kevin plays these creative deception tricks on the burglars who are casing his house. even the "Cool Jerk" thing is a reminder of something ugly, when Uncle Frank yells at him earlier in the film.

there's also a running gag of the McAllisters giving shitty tips to the bellhop played by Rob Schneider. stick of gum... used gum... that was so mean-spirited i almost started to wonder if this whole thing was an intentional satire of these rich assholes. but i think we're just supposed to laugh because Rob Schneider is known for playing obnoxious jerk characters, even if they forgot to write in any obnoxious-jerk material here.

it has "we did it again!"

that's a fair point about the pizza delivery guy. i didn't love the Filthy Souls sequel (the timing/delivery of it felt rushed and less believable as an old movie), but it arguably sustains a fuller series of gags. basically its script is less beautiful as fake gangster-movie dialogue, but more satisfying as a little writing puzzle to get these lines to work perfectly both for the movie and for the movie-within-a-movie.

I agree with all of that. Kevin's nervous energy surrounding the original Filthy Souls, peeking through his fingers, also brings something to the first time that can't really be repeated in 2.

another great point. first movie Kevin is afraid of things! his experience helps him grow up and conquer this (with the furnace as a trial run), but it means the version we meet in 2 is this smug monster. nice that they don't try to completely hit the reset button, but it's just not as enjoyable.

reminds me a little of how the new Marty McFly in BTTF2, the one who grew up in a rich house with a nice truck, watching his father boss Biff around, is an insecure privileged fuck easily manipulated by calling him "chicken." an interesting if entirely unstated exploration of the time-travel plot's implications, but a basis for a more annoying and less sympathetic lead character. at least he eventually learns the lesson though!

It sounds like the second one suffers from 'comedy sequelitis', which is a condition I've noticed in a number of comedy sequels but most immediately recall in the Police Academy franchise, wherein the first couple are dopey but have some funny gags which are then repurposed in later entries in such a way that it betrays the repurposer's understanding of why the gags worked in the first place. Just mindless aping of shit people laughed at before in a context that essentially turns the joke into a non sequitur.

yeah kevin being scared in #1 is very charming and relatable, a big part of what makes it work for me. a very good capturing of that certain age when neighbors and certain parts of your home could be scary, the sheer terror and intimidation of doing things like going into a store by yourself for the first time. which by definition doesnt work when you do it, yknow, a second time.

Agreed, I think this is the main problem with 2. Kevin is more annoying and less sympathetic. His fears and selfish desires are less "cute" and forgivable in 2. In 1, he's overcoming fear of the basement furnace. It's selfish that he wants his own cheese pizza, but I do want him to have it (because Buzz is a dick). In 2, his selfishness has grown into a 3rd scoop of ice cream from room service. He redeems himself by learning his lessons, but he's dug himself a deeper hole, as his growth from the first movie has seemed to be reset a bit. I'm not sure he grows more in 2 than in 1, so we feel overall lower at the end.

Every McCallister is kind of terrible. 2 opens with the family laughing at Kevin's high singing voice for fucksake. The pizza injustice in 1 is even more forgivable than the bullshit that happens in the beginning of 2. Fuck these people. Is Kevin even happy to be reunited with them in the end?

fwiw I believe it is meant to be Kevin again in some of the later sequels

And the bandits come back with different actors too

yeah even the ways that hes selfish and annoying to the extent that he is in the 1st one i found relatable as a kid bc they felt true to my lived experience of that whole confusing and scary and agitating brew of 10y/o feelings - being mad at yourself for being bad enough to make your family mad at you but also being mad at them for not being less mad at you etc etc. but by #2 his character is just The Worlds Greatest Prankster and idgaf about that what happens to that kid

Fuck these people. Is Kevin even happy to be reunited with them in the end?

Does slapping aftershave on a child's unshaven cheeks really sting?

you mean the remorse at your sentencing?

Culkin's read of the line "I got the milk, eggs, and fabric softener" at the end of the 1st film always tickled me, very odd line read.

Then Heard goes "what a funny guy" and everyone laughs. Very wonky scene

i have seen this maybe more than any other movie. we had the VHS and watched it every xmas. this thread is making me realize what an impact home alone has had on my life. you want me to PACK my SUITCASE?

I saw it in the theatre and i've watched it every Christmas subsequently, must be my most watched movie also

i remember my mom taking me to see it as a kid, and afterward her thinking it was weird that i said i loved it but i didnt laugh once, and i didnt have the words but in my head i was thinking "lady are you nuts? he was HOME! ALONE!"

in recent viewings i've noticed how ridiculously green and red the house is.

also, harry and marv steal worthless knickknack crap.

Culkin's read of the line "I got the milk, eggs, and fabric softener" at the end of the 1st film always tickled me, very odd line read.

Then Heard goes "what a funny guy" and everyone laughs. Very wonky scene

― Babby's Yed Revisited (jim in vancouver), Friday, December 18, 2020 12:19 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this scene does feel like a reveal that they grew Kevin in the backyard or he is a ghost or an alien.

is this toothbrush approved by the american dental association?

harbl, me too. I didn't watch it at the time it came out, my parents didn't really take us to see films. but my kid brother watched it on vhs all the time, before he moved on to Jumanji.

We saw Home Alone at a theater in Merrillville, Indiana. Must have been there for an older brother or sister's basketball or volleyball thing. My dad is a nice guy, but he could be pretty serious about things in those days. I will never forget how he laughed hysterically during the final boobytrap portion of the movie, so loudly and at a higher register than I'd heard before. At one point, he removed his glasses to wipe tears from his eyes. We were not poor, but he was an accountant with 5 kids. We ate at a place called Miami Subs earlier that day where we would have split 3 or 4 philly cheese steaks (the famous Miami sandwich) and one diet soda (because of free refills). I always felt his financial anxiety, the pain he felt in spending any money. When I watch Home Alone, I still get a bit high off that memory of dad, his head clearly too full of the movie to remember the $60 we'd probably spent on popcorn and tickets.

That's lovely!

"you're what the French call "les incompetents"

i gasped as a kid when Kevin told his mom "why don't you get off the phone and make me?", cos in my house, that woulda resulted in some fireworks

also was angry that the novelization changed his older brother's line from "I wouldn't let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my ass" to "I wouldn't let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my arm"

Here, hope this makes up for your disappointment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIXxWGxHx_4

Love yr reminiscence btw, Sufjan

was the theme song inspired by the two note melody that plays when the fasten-ur-seatbelt light goes on in certain airliners?

Thanks, OL and kinder. Started HA2 just now. 5 year old chose it over HA1. It was just revealed that Uncle Frank implied to Kevin in conversation that he has a big trout sniffer.

Kevin runs right by Tortas Frontera by Rick Bayless without stopping. A believable character?

Home Alone is good, a gem.

Harry and Marv arrive to NYC in a seafood truck -- as literal trout sniffers.

Kevin catches Rob Schneider digging through his bag without permission. This sets up the poor tipping gag.

Hole Alone 6: Kevin the Incel

*home

whoa, happy gilmore

Grinch's face on the limo tv fading to Curry's smiling face looking at "STOLEN" on the 7-segment credit card display is good

Just this evening realized the first three are on Disney+, for those interested in following along at home.

Would rather jerk off a dead clown

you'd rather write and direct the newest home alone?

I already have a draft saved

Marv just fell through a hole, looked up, and said "wow. what a hole." wish i had posted that instead of my hole/home happy gilmore line now.

need to make a mixtape labeled "bad guys saying they'll kill me"

The 2nd one is somewhat redeemed by Tim Curry for me. The reading of the line "a limousine and a pizza" delights me

Pee-zcha.

great story, SG. liveblog's good too. i admit i spaced out and forgot Schneider snooping around. weird that i did, because that's even more bizarre than Curry's T-1000 moment.

I think I remember basically nothing about the second one beyond Pigeon Lady, as absolutely none of this is ringing a bell.

Nowadays Kevin would be on a watchlist for trying to board the wrong plane

Tho weirdly my brother did the exact sane thing like a decade ago and only realized his mistake when they announced where they were going. So he had to deplane and missed his real flight.

He still has no idea how he got on considering the boarding pass scan should have failed

"You are what the French call Lee Incompetents" is my favourite line from Home Alone. It's a perfect bit of throwaway dialogue

Mine is “I wouldn’t let you sleep in my room if you were growing on my ass”

I really love how when Kevin is remembering mean things his family have said to him they use a different and much more venomous line reading of “look what you did, you little jerk”

i have unfortunately seen the second one way more than the first because that’s the one i had on vhs. gonna revisit both this weekend though

i think it's a testament to how much home alone 2 repeats the first one beat for beat that i'm watching 1 now and finding i only remember most the slapstick gags as echoes through the distorted prism of 2

pretty good movie though! almost overdoes the gosh aren't i a stinker cute kid mugging for the camera thing but pulls back on it for the last 45 minutes or so. every scene with john candy is amazing

Every McCallister is kind of terrible. 2 opens with the family laughing at Kevin's high singing voice for fucksake. The pizza injustice in 1 is even more forgivable than the bullshit that happens in the beginning of 2. Fuck these people. Is Kevin even happy to be reunited with them in the end?

― kniphofia face (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, December 18, 2020 12:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

lmao yeah the mccallisters suck ass. kevin's right his family is a bunch of jerks

kevin is also very rude but consider his environment

Imagining Catherine O'Hara as Moira Rose in this movie and she might never have come home

Find it very hard to watch HA1 now, the mcallister household is clearly wealthy and we cannot but presume that our enterprising criminals are of a much lower socioeconomic class therefore the entire premise is a sparsely-disguised metaphor for the privilege of even a child given the advantages of white moneyed america over those not thus gifted, the impunity and swiftness with which he employs violence against their persons once rhey do initiate redistributive action and to top it off the shallow happiness apparent in the reunion (without consequence for the neglect and lack of appropriate care, of course) of kevin with a family with whom he has a demonstrably dysfunctional relationship

i can see why it might have been a popular movie with boomers but tbh there is no excuse whatsoever in not dismissing it as crass propaganda today

Lol @ this page

https://www.moviemistakes.com/film622/corrections

ultimately home alone 1 is about defending property, an evil concept

otm

Look just gonna say it: barron in the white house

In Home Alone 2, Kevin boobytraps his Aunt and Uncle's Manhattan income property.

Rent controlled neighbourhood?

On the other hand, the McCallisters can't even afford batteries for their alarm clock.

Kevin also very unfamiliar with back of his dad's head

Thats not lack of resources thats the learned helplessness of the upper middle

The post credits scene is them sacking their maid

a giant wood or coal burning furnace

In Home Alone 2, Kevin boobytraps his Aunt and Uncle's Manhattan income property.

― kniphofia face (Sufjan Grafton), Saturday, December 19, 2020 6:20 PM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's where they live, they're just in Europe for work plus it's being refurbished

can see why it might have been a popular movie with boomers

all those 9y/o boomers who fell in love with it

during both movies i feel like the wet bandits need to know when to give up

also spend both of these movies feeling a lot of vicarious back pain

2 is def worse bc it's the same formula but the stakes aren't the same, so stuff like the toy store/pigeon lady is just sort of boring filler meant to satisfy the stronger emotional connections in the first film. but crossfading the grinch's smile onto tim curry's face??? and then a lightbulb literally lights up over his head??? cinema

Lol, I would love to see a list of films that feature an actual lightbulb going off over someone’s head

all those 9y/o boomers who fell in love with it

― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Sunday, 20 December 2020 03:19 (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Its a state of mind

also maybe i'm inured to it because i watched it 10000000 times when i was a kid but i actually like that they went real ott with the looney tunes shit in the housetrap finale of 2

during both movies i feel like the wet bandits need to know when to give up

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Sunday, 20 December 2020 03:21 (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Your lack of stomach for the just struggle is being noted

i bet they're non-voters too

Kevin also sexually assaults that woman standing on the crosswalk and falsely accuses the bandits

Not that I had any particular desire to revisit, but I doubt I could ever watch the second one again for perhaps the most obvious of post-2016 reasons.

― You will notice a small sink where your sofa once was. (Old Lunch), Friday, December 18, 2020 7:38 AM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol, it took me precisely a week to do the thing I said I'd probably never do again (I was happy to simul-watch and razz on any old garbage with the sibs on our day-long Christmas video call).

So 2 is not actually all that bad. I mean, it's a bad movie, sure, but very watchable. I've been watching mostly '30s comedies for the last little while so its featherweight hijinks felt familiar.

The set design at points (the toy store, in particular) seemed like Columbus gearing up for his Harry Potter gigs. It's one of his stronger suits imo.

Watched the OG Home Alone with adult eyes for the first time and John Candy is just absolutely amazing in this

Also I can see why the under-45 set who grew up watching this movie might think it's cool/smart to defend property with deadly force

also, harry and marv steal worthless knickknack crap.

― wasdnuos (abanana), Friday, December 18, 2020 8:35 PM (eleven months ago)

never thought about this before but it’s true! real burglars would steal valuable stuff to resell, but they’re going through the drawers grabbing random shit. it’s like a little kid’s idea of what a burglar would want to take.

the reboot with Ellie Kemper on Disney+ isn't terrible! most watchable entry since HA2, including some good jokes. plot emphasizes the "Home" part of the title, which makes sense given the times. the traditional "home alone" story isn't so important, though, and is more something that happens to the adult protagonists.

"When I grow up and get married I'm living alone!"

this movie is one big advertisement for Castle Doctrine

also Kevin 100% got lost on purpose in 2 so he could chill in NYC by hisself

the "this is my house and i have to protect it" line comes out of nowhere. after enduring this film many, many times, i think it indicates that kevin has a child's idea of family where the house = the family. in contrast to his mother's quest which is actually about the family. but it wasn't the writer's intent -- john hughes was just a right wing asshole.

Straw Dogs as a family film

Watched for what I think may have been my first time all the way through since seeing it in theatres opening weekend, 35 years ago (!), and it kinda holds up? Probably a lucky combo of a good cast, a decent (but no better) Hughes script, and actually good filmmaking--the film legitimately looks great, with some (80s-era) Coen-esque touches and some lovely tracking shots in the place of what today would non-stop swoopy camera movement and multiple-cuts-per-second editing. These days I'm more aligned with Siskel & Ebert (or Neanderthal, above) on the comic sadism than I was when I was 12--my husband and I both looked away during the nail-through-the-foot. Gross politics aside, it is easy to resent the original after Hollywood (including Hughes and Columbus) spent the rest of the 90s milking the shit out of this film, but I had a slightly better time revisiting this than I thought I would.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug44G2FdWyU

Warning: Very Gruesome

my kids have just asked to watch this again (after last year)

A few years ago at a family Christmas gathering, Dad and I watched the whole first movie, just because it happened to be on, and had a blast. (I think we had more fun than when we saw it in a theater upon release.)