Home Alone

Dir: Chris Columbus

1990

**

Considered my many as being one of the greatest Christmas films of all time. I disagree. Did you know that Home Alone was the highest-grossing live action comedy of all time until The Hangover Part II overtook it in 2011? Ridiculous but true. I enjoyed the Three Stooges style slapstick and thought Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern proved themselves worthy contenders within the world of physical comedy but i'm afraid that is as far as my enjoyment went. John Hughes wrote some truly wonderful movies, the 80's would have been completely different without him but for some reason the new decade changed him somehow. Every single film he wrote in the 80's is a genuine masterpiece, everything he wrote in the 90's stinks to high heaven. That said, the story is sound and the direction suitable for what it was. It's a good idea. I just can't stand ten year old Macaulay Culkin, not then and not now. I have sympathy for the ten year old Culkin, so much success at such a young age would be detrimental to anyone and he has clearly struggled throughout the year because of it. I would find it hard to watch again without thinking about that, especially as I don't regard it as a work of art or even a half-decent film. It doesn't fill me with nostalgia or warm feelings and I was probably in the target audience age group at the time. Home Alone was released at the same time as Edward Scissorhands, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Dick Tracy, all of which I much preferred. Hell, I preferred Problem Child!