Home Alone (1990)

When I was little I absolutely loved watching Home Alone. Seeing an eight year old living by himself, defending his house against burglars and sledding down stairs was the type of person I could look up to. For me, and I'm sure for other children, he was a hero. I even made a 'Home Alone remake' music video back in college. And yes I was Kevin.

However as I've gotten older each viewing has slightly changed my thinking. No longer do I see a small child defending his home in slapstick style against two bungling burglars. Now all I see is the early signs of anti social behavior and sadism. Do you ever watch the 'nail-in-the-foot' scene and just look away because it looks too real? Or wince in pain when Marv falls down the stairs on his back and knocks all the wind out of himself? I do, every time. I've stood on sharp, pointy objects. I've fallen down metal steps in a block of flats on my back and had the wind knocked out of me. THEY FUCKING HURT. And when you REALLY look at it, Kevin is a spoilt rich white kid living it up in the suburbs, taking his aggression out on two lower class men who are stuck in a life of crime due to the fact that one of them is illiterate and one "never made it past the sixth grade". So watching this boy, this sadistic, smiling, happy boy taking pleasure in their pain has massively changed my perspective on the film. And it's why I like it so damn much.


An example of a sadist child.

Kevin starts off the film as the forgotten child. He struggles to be heard and respected by his huge family, and his attempts to be heard end up in him being a little jerk.



Obviously, as any one has done when they were an angry child (or still do) Kevin wishes for his family to disappear. He gets his wish after the family "accidentally" leave him behind while they get into mini vans, drive all the way to the airport, get onto the plane, sit down for ages, get some drinks, then realise after take off that they didn't bring Kevin with them. Nice job mum and dad. He does what any child would do when left at home alone; he messes with his brothers' stuff, he eats all the ice cream he wants, he sleds down the stairs and he terrorises a poor pizza delivery guy. But then things turn bad, and this is when we start to see the vicious, twisted side of Kevin. Two burglars, Harry and Marv, target his house for a burglary. Rather than calling the police like a normal child, Kevin sets up a series of elaborate, fatal traps which include shards of glass, a hot iron, a blow torch and THE HIDDEN NAIL.




Home Alone could easily act as a prequel to a horror film. After years of childhood neglect and abandonment issues and with no more feelings of empathy, Kevin McCallister turns into a monster serial killer. Much like the story of Michael Myers in the Halloween remake (2007), could a Home Alone horror sequel be on the cards? Probably not. But imagine it. Not hard to do now is it?

Despite all of this, Home Alone is one of those treasured memories I have from growing up. We would watch this every Christmas and I still watch it every year. It's filled with Christmas merriment, music, snow and sentimentalism. For me, the film represents a childhood nostalgia that anyone born after the late 90's will never appreciate. It represents a bygone age where this film wouldn't make sense or be accepted by film audiences now. Can you imagine if Home Alone was released now? A film where a child is left home alone in this age where mass communication controls our lives? Kevin wouldn't have been left alone in this day and age. There's probably an app to make sure you don't leave children behind, and Kevin would just live Tweet his predicament and now the film wouldn't make sense. And imagine a film now where two grown men chase after a little boy and hang him on a coat hook, or have an adult character call a child a 'jerk'. People would be outraged. People would say it promotes kidnapping or something stupid. You know how overboard people are nowadays.

When you get down to the soul of Home Alone, despite the burglars and the wanting family to disappear bit, it's incredibly innocent. We experience the majority of the film from a child's perspective and it takes on an almost cartoonesque feel. All of Kevin's family are mean, there's not a nice one in the bunch and they show it after the pizza and Pepsi ordeal as the camera pans across the room and they are all looking at him with a look that says, "We hate you". But we empathise with Kevin because we've all been there. We've all been the younger sibling or cousin who's made out to be a little bastard. Unless you were a little bastard anyway, then you probably deserved it. You bastard. The worst of them is Buzz, Kevin's older brother. He constantly picks on Kevin, gets him in trouble and gets away with it every time. He's a massive jock with a pet tarantula which is a power symbol in itself, and he is the dictionary definition of 'massive twat'. It's in there, go and look. Then there's cousin Fuller who purposefully pisses the bed when he's sharing with Kevin, which is fucking grim. That is horrible. But the absolute worst of the lot is Uncle Frank. How on Earth does he get invited to family get togethers? He is a massive, MASSIVE twat and because he's an adult Kevin can't win. So all of these mean spirited family members contrasted with Kevin actually cast him in a good light; he is the one who is in danger and the one who gains our sympathy. And he seems like a cool little kid. The imbecile antagonists take tremendous physical torture and are pantomime baddies who provide brilliant physical and verbal comedy.



Home Alone is just an aesetically perfect Christmas film. Even though he starts off as selfish, Kevin learns about the value of family and becomes generous. Although in Home Alone 2 he is more charitable and helps the pigeon lady and prevents the theft of charity funds, in the first film he still helps Old Man Marley with his sad family situation. And we can't forget John Candy's character who represents season goodwill by driving Mrs. McCallister home so she can be reunited with her son for Christmas. And family is probably the most vital part of any Christmas film. The ultimate message at the centre of Home Alone is one of family, and in spite of everything that has happened, the need is to be with loved ones on Christmas. Come Christmas morning not only the McCallister family have been reunited, but Old Man Marley is reunited with his estranged son. Families can cause trouble and heartache but Christmas just isn't the same without them. And that feeling is reaffirmed every time I sit down to watch the film. Even if I don't watch it with my family, the memories I have always come flooding back and I am overcome with childhood nostalgia.

Christmas List

Not that kind of Christmas list...

December is upon us! That means incredibly busy shops, cold weather, no money for anyone,  awkward family conversations and buying people shit gifts and then feeling bad because you bought such a shit gift. You dick.

Thanks December.



You and December

And what better way to spend December and the build up to Christmas by watching shit loads of Christmas films?! Every day from 1st - 24th December I will be reviewing some of my favourite and most treasured childhood Christmas films and TV episodes.

So starting tomorrow make sure you check out each one! How many of them will you have seen, and are there some you've never heard of? Feel free to comment with your thoughts on each entry and even compile your own list! Or don't. I don't care.

Murder on the Orient Express

 

"The murderer is with us, and every one of you is a suspect"

 

In this retelling of the classic murder mystery, a passenger on The Orient Express is murdered, and it is up to Belgian detective Hercule Poirot to solve the mystery and catch the killer before they strike again.

The problem Kenneth Branagh faced with directing this movie was how to retell a classic murder story from 1934 (which has been retold many times for the screen) with means to appeal to a modern audience, as well as making one of the most familiar endings to a story not so much a whodunit, but a howdunit to keep the audience guessing.

This version does have a somewhat modern outlook; some of the era’s attitudes are challenged and the ethnicities of some characters are changed; Penelope Cruz’s Pilar Estravados is a Spanish missionary rather than a Swedish one, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo’s Mexican car dealer Marquez replaces Italian Foscarelli, and Leslie Odom Jr’s Arbuthnot is now a black English doctor who replaces the colonel.

To add modern cinematic glamour, the original snowdrift that blocks the train’s journey is replaced by a stunning looking avalanche, triggered by a lightning bolt, which derails the train, leaving it immovable on top of an intensely towering viaduct.

Branagh and his cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos shot in 65mm, giving the movie a truly epic feel with its swooping bird’s eye view over the vast, gorgeous landscape as the train travels through desert, rain and snow. Apparently, they used the last four Panavision 60mm cameras left in the world to shoot with.  As with Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and Cinderella, the duo decline to shoot on digital. Scenes are filmed in cramped dorms and narrow corridors to create a confined setting that no one can escape from, and it certainly escalates the tension.

Our introduction to Poirot is a comedic one that gives us an insight into his meticulous methods with his obsession over the perfect boiled eggs, making his Jerusalem hosts run back and forth to find more of them. We’re also presented his ludicrous moustache, which out-dos any of the taches worn by former actors portraying the Belgian. We are then interrupted by the police chief, who seeks Poirot’s master detective skills to solve a case of a stolen relic.

Once we are aboard the Orient Express we meet our massive, talented cast and are treated to a great tracking shot from outside the train following Poirot down the corridors as he passes and greets each of the passengers, until we are briskly brought inside the carriage for a conversation with his bunk mate, Hector MacQueen, played by an impressive Josh Gat. As well as MacQueen we have Miss Mary Debenham, (Daisy Ridley) Dr. Arbuthnot, (Leslie Odom Jr) Pilar Estravados, (Penelope Cruz ) Biniamino Marquez, (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) Edward Ratchett, (Johnny Depp) Edward Henry Masterman, (Derek Jacobi) Count Rudolph Andrenyi, (Sergei Polunin) Countess Elena Andrenyi, (Lucy Boynton) Caroline Hubbard, (Michelle Pfeiffer) Princess Dragomiroff, (Judi Dench) Hildegarde Schmidt, (Olivia Colman) and Gerhard Hardman. (Willem Dafoe)  There is also Poirot’s friend who owns the train company; Bouc. (Tom Bateman) With so many renowned and veteran actors it’s a shame they don’t all have more to do. We learn of their backgrounds and politics, however they are only given a handful of lines and we never truly get to know any of them excluding Hubbard, Ratchett and Poirot himself. We get a few emotional scenes of dialogue, especially from Judi Dench and Josh Gat, but it is mostly Branagh himself who steals the show. For some reason Poirot is given a love interest in the form of a photograph, that doesn’t really offer any more insight into his character and doesn’t help develop the story at all.

Then comes the murder; a frantic stabbing in the night. Poirot agrees to investigate and informs the remaining passengers that someone has been murdered, and he will be questioning them all. The camera style in this scene visually pleasing; a POV shot from Poirot’s perspective, walking through the seated passengers as they all catch his suspicious gaze one by one. It’s familiar to a first person video game, allowing us to watch the faces of the suspects as we tread past them.  The murder scene itself is shot well, with a bird’s eye view above the cabin as the body is found and remaining in the corridor, robbing us of the chance to see the crime scene for ourselves.

The rest of the film sees the tension and the suspicions start to mount up; each character appearing guarded with something to hide. Regrettably the investigation itself isn’t very cinematic and lacks any kind of action apart from a pointless chase scene which is evidently used to add some danger and violence, but this is a device to distract the audience as it ultimately has nothing to do with the story.

The movie looks fantastic. Whereas previous versions have been highly acclaimed they weren’t afforded the kind of budget that a modern blockbuster can obtain, so huge landscape shots covered in white and bustling European cities really make this version by far the most cinematic. However, there are scenes of the train meandering its way through snow covered landscapes that look a little too digital, almost tricking you into thinking you’re watching The Polar Express.

The script too is great and Branagh captures the society of the period brilliantly. Race influences a few of the white, bigoted passengers’ suspicions of the murderer to point to the black doctor, and MacQueen suggests his theory to Poirot as it being Marquez, the Mexican.

The movie falls apart mainly due to its’ characters. None of them have any depth and it is Poirot who is privileged with the chief character background and progression, which still isn’t used to its potential. When it comes to presenting his theory of what happened, he has everyone seated in a ‘Last Supper’ style but fails to explain how he unravelled the mystery, and then the focus just shifts from the reveal to how he will morally handle it, then he is once again needed for another investigation for a death on the Nile; a clear nod to another Agatha Christie mystery which raises the question of a series of films.

Although the movie never moves at full speed it gains gradual momentum, mainly driven by the tense, cramped interrogations and emotion portrayed by brilliant actors. And the fresh take on the story does work, however it could have been improved greatly by giving supporting characters more screen time, making the story more about the mystery itself as opposed to focusing so largely on Poirot and his moral dilemmas at the expense of the others, which is ultimately what it became.