Fifteen Minute Movies: Home Alone

We're continuing the Holiday Theme for Fifteen Minute Movies, because that makes sense. Today we'll look at the first fifteen minutes of a movie I watched over and over again from age eleven until age thirteen, when its sequel brought everything to a grinding halt: Home Alone. This film marks the transition from "Teen Director" John Hughes to "Kids Movie Writer" John Hughes, which would continue through Baby Geniuses (yeah, I know). It was directed by Chris Columbus, who you might remember launched this series with Adventures in Babysitting. As per the norm, I am watching Home Alone on VHS, and for the first time all the way through in years. Let's relive some memories, shall we?

 From here on out, whenever possible I will include trailers or commercials included at the beginning of tapes, like the following. The Ferngully trailer isn't really the focus here, but the shameless American Airlines plug is and so is the Pepsi commercial.


 Speaking of shameless, I wonder how much Micro Machines paid John Heard to namedrop their product less than five minutes into the film?

 Two things I did not remember about the opening to Home Alone:

 1. Everybody is an unlikable asshole - No, I mean it. Everybody in the McAllister extended family is a petulant brat, a snobby preteen, or a horrible parent. In the first fifteen minutes, it's actually hard to believe that Joe Pesci's bad guy isn't a good guy based on the miserable examples of humanity he's surrounded by. And this is a thief disguised as a cop trying to scope out houses to rob. He's the most sensible, polite, and well mannered character in the house. I'm amazed that as a child any of us came to root for Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), because he's arguably the worst of all of them. The cast of kids, by the way, included future older Pete Michael C. Maronna (but not younger Pete Danny Tamberelli), Angela Goethals (Behind the Mask, Jerry Maguire), Devin Ratray (Little Monsters, Surrogates), and Kieran Culkin (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).

 2. For reasons that don't quite make sense, John Hughes decided to include some "magical" chicanery after Kevin wishes his family would "go away." I know this because instead of a normal gust of wind knocking a tree loose and hitting the power lines, a whimsical John Williams score plays and there's a shot of a wreath complete with wooden Santa knocker shaking unnaturally. I mention this because the reason they forget Kevin is entirely practical otherwise - while charged with counting the kids, the oldest sister accidentally includes the boy next door (who is playing around with the luggage and faced away from her) and they move on. No reason for supernatural hijinks, and considering that most of the movie is based on practical (okay, by cartoon logic) solutions to problems, I was surprised at its inclusion.

 So that's the opening of Home Alone. Chances are you'll get another segment before I move on (I'm thinking Fifteen Minute Movies might be a good way to determine which parts of It's A Wonderful Life I already know very well and which ones I don't). Stay tuned!