Movie Night: Home Alone

The Home Alone movies were made to entertain.  But in the first two, with the witticisms of , we get some very powerful Christmas messages.  The first of the series was the beat.  *****Home Alone was produced in 1990 with Macaulay Culkin in the leading role of Kevin McCallister.  Kevin is left home from a family trip to France, after he wished his family gone the night before.  He then spends the first day doing everything he is not suppose to, waiting for someone to discipline him.  This includes sleigh riding down the stairs, watching a violent movie, and jumping on his parent's bed.  He then takes over as the man of the house, and when a couple burglars threaten the home, he defends his home from intruders.  His efforts, and plans for home defense, and the bungling burglars are what make this show so fun to watch.  Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern are very good in their roles and take the brunt of Kevin's defenses.  This includes a bee-bee gun, slippery stairs, nail and ornaments left out for bare feet, flame thrower for the head, paint cans flying through the air.  However the movie becomes classic when it adds the neighbor, who saves Kevin in the end.  He is supposedly a murderer as rumored around town and related by Kevin's older brother.  The neighbor is also estranged from his son.  Kevin, after overcoming his fears, befriends the old man.  Kevin points out that he should at least reach out to his son, that way he won't have to be afraid of what his son might say, he will know one way or the other.  This results in a healing of family relationships and we see the man with his son and granddaughter at the end of the movie. 
****^Home Alone II (1992) is almost as good as the first.  Somehow the "Wet Bandits" have escaped and are in new York City.  In the meantime Kevin gets on the wrong plane, and is also alone in New York.  His antics at the hotel are fun, as he gets a room using a play back device and his father's cash and credit card.  His cannonball dives in the poo amongst the old people is just funny.  In this movie there is again a theme, of reaching out in friendship to those who might be hard to befriend, such as the homeless person who lives with the pigeons.  She again saves his life in the end, but not before Kevin thwarts the "Sticky Bandits" this time but still Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.  They end up in his uncle's home which is being remodeled.  There is plenty here to band up our bandits--tool chests, tools, bags of cement, flammables etc.  It is great fun.  Tony and I enjoyed both these movies.
**Home Alone III  (1997) Somehow the magic is gone with new actors, and the spy genre instead of the burglar.  This movie also has different actors, and doesn't live up to its predecessors