Home Alone

Saturday, December 8, 2007

I'm not sure how it came up, but Shenan and I decided that we wanted to watch Home Alone on Saturday night. Maybe because it's getting to be Christmas time, I don't know.

I liked Home Alone as a kid, but it was never a favorite of mine. Yet I somehow managed to see the fucking thing so many times that I pretty much have the script memorized. I couldn't even help myself last night, talking in unison with the characters.

"Fuller, go easy on the Pepsi"

"I'm gonna give you 'til the count of 10 to get yer ugly, yella, no-good keyster off my property before I pump yer guts fulla lead. One. Two. Ten!"

And so on.

What struck me as interesting last night is how Home Alone bends over backwards to believably explain how the family could leave Kevin behind. It seems to me that the central premise of a kid being left alone to rule over his house without parents is perfectly designed to appeal to the children in the audience. Yet the movie spends so much time trying to make the premise believable to parents, showing every step along that way the leads to Kevin being left alone.

I guess they were worried about the parents in the audience calling the movie's credibility into question?