Holiday knee-jerk review: "Home Alone"

1. We'd long assumed we'd seen Home Alone before.  But watching it in its entirety last week, we realized that we have not seen Home Alone before.  Not all the way through anyway.  More than one scene we had zero recollection of ever seeing before.
2. People, Joe Pesci's burglar character is also a Chicago police officer.  The whole movie is an inside job, crooked cop story.  Spoiler alert.
3. The McCallister family really treats little Kevin horribly.  He's banished to the third floor attic like a hostage for a chain reaction series of accidents sparked by his obnoxious bully brother who's in dire need of an ass kicking.  Note that this bully brother is not sent to the attic.
4. The whole thing is sort of charming in a goofy 1980s sort of way, we suppose, ladling on plenty of feel-good sentiment and emotion to hide the utter implausibility of it all.
5. Why doesn't Kevin call the police?  We didn't notice this plot hole until another critic recently made the joking suggestion that the McCallister dad must be a mob lawyer who's told his family to never engage with law enforcement.
6. We all know why the movie was a hit: those last 15 minutes when the movie turns into a Looney Tunes cartoon and delivers hilariously satisfying booby-trap cartoon violence on these two despicable criminals.  All these years later - this is the part we've definitely seen again and again - it's still a fantastic showstopper ending.
7. Remember that the Daniel Stern burglar purposely leaves the sink faucet turned on in the houses he burglarizes, which is incredibly mean.  He deserves that iron (and paint can) to the face.
8. The most interesting thing about the movie to us is the fact that the old 1940s noir that plays a pivotal role in the plot - something called Angels with Filthy Souls - is completely made up.  The single scene you see in the movie ("Keep the change, ya filthy animal.") was created by the Home Alone filmmakers.  Genius.
9. Is it sacrilege to admit we never really got the appeal of John Candy? Probably.
10. Catherine O'Hara's character wonders in the movie if she's a bad mom for leaving one of her kids behind when the family flies to Europe.  The answer, of course, is 100% "yes, you are."
11. One of the lingering images of the movie is Macaulay Culkin slapping aftershave on his face, then screaming in pain.  Hardee har har.  But it's the scraping of a razor that makes one's face vulnerable to the sting of aftershave.  Kevin didn't shave, so why is the Brut burning his face?  It's kind of symbolic of the whole movie - go for the joke or the gag whether it makes sense or not.
12. Remember the 20th century when people could only connect over long distances via voice over the telephone?  No e-mail, no texting, no Facetime.  If someone didn't answer your call or if you didn't have a phone handy, you were out of luck.  The plot of this movie couldn't work in 2023.
13. When it comes to holiday movies, we prefer Elf, A Christmas Story, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and White Christmas.  (FYI we recently rewatched Love Actually - it hasn't aged great.)

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