Santy don't visit the funeral home, little buddy. We all have our favorite movies that we can watch all throughout the year. For me the essentials are Fletch or Annie Hall or Grosse Point Blank or Arthur or Lebowski or Young Frankenstein or North by Northwest. Oh and Goodfellas. But most of the time Christmas movies just seem out of context with the rest of the world, until after Thanksgiving that is. So #2 for the week: Home Alone. There are so many things I could say about this movie, but I'll try and narrow it down to three:

A) The highjinks. From the icing of the stairs through using the gangster video to mess with the Pizza delivery guy to tar on the stairs, paint cans swinging from the ceiling and a blow torch wired to doors. A blow torch wired to the door...who the hell thinks of that? Amazing.
2)The subtle late 80's, early 90's nostaligia reminding me how I knew the world as a child: vintage Pepsi labels, Kevin sitting up in his parents bed watching Johnny Carson, Micro Machines, Starting Lineup action figures, etc etc.
and D) John Candy. And to a lesser extent Daniel Stern (who's still alive but peaked around this movie). But it's John Candy, who never sucked, that brights the screen in his glorified cameo as Gus Bolinski, the Polka King of the Midwest. I always loved that scene in the back of the U-Haul, driving along the snowy highways of America. Along with this and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles Candy had the fortune to play a role in (and leave for generations to come) two of the best holliday movies of all time.

So we continue along. The trifecta comes this weekend with Christmas Vacation. Well, there's always a bonus with White Christmas, my mothers favorite and one of mine as well. Actually my mom loves Prancer, but not me. I just don't like Prancer...except now I realized it has Sam Elliot, who was also The Stranger in Lewbowski as we all know. But no...I just don't like Prancer.
There was no point to this posting. None whatsoever. And I spent way too much time on it. Brilliant.  ¶ 12/01/2005 09:42:00 PM